Update 1-28-09: Compare Twitter’s average 4% CTR to the .03%-.11% CTR on FaceBook. It’s becoming increasingly clear that ads don’t get it done on social networks.

I’ve been running an experiment with four twitter profiles to find out what a good click through rate (CTR) is on Twitter. What I found out was kind of shocking and amazing: Twitter seems to have a 4% clickthrough rate. No wonder the affiliate marketers, spammers and get rich quick crowd are flocking to it.  4% CTR is outstanding in any internet advertising program:

Indymike –- 4.17 % average clickthrough rate, >800 followers

Profile “N” — 4.05 % clickthrough rate, >300 followers

Profile “M” – 4.2 % clickthrough rate, >200 followers

Profile “L” — 3.8 % clickthrough rate, > 50 followers

Methodology
I set up unique short URL trackers on seperate domains and then conversed and posted links and retweets though the shorty tracker for four different profiles. After on month, I tabulated the results to find the aggregate click through rate.

What’s it Mean?

1. People click on twitter links more than pay per click ads and banner ads.

2. CTR on Twitter seems to scale with larger groups of followers.

3. The larger your follower base is the more people will click on links your post.

What’s Next
I’ll do the same experiment on Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace and Xing.  It will be interesting to see if traditional social networks can outperform a microblog like Twitter.

Mike Seidle

Mike Seidle is currently the CTO of Virtual Payment Systems, Inc, and is a one of the founders of Professional Blog Service. Mike currently serves on Professional Blog Service’s board of directors.

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