Know your metrics


One of the great advantages of display advertising is the enormous amount of data that’s available shortly after the campaign launches. Understanding this data - and making the changes it suggests - is critical to online success.


The primary metrics that apply to display campaigns are impressions and clicks, CTR, CPC, CVR and CPA. Different metrics become more important depending on your campaign goals

  • Impressions – The number of times your ad was displayed.
  • Clicks – The number of times a consumer clicked on your ad.
  • Clickthrough Rate\CTR – The percentage of your ad impressions that were clicked on. Calculated by taking the number of clicks an ad received, dividing by the number of impressions served, and multiplying by 100 to obtain a percentage.
  • CVR (Conversion Rate) – The percentage of clicks that resulted in a conversion. Calculated by taking the number of conversions an ad received, dividing by the number of clicks, and multiplying by 100 to obtain a percentage.
  • CPA (Cost Per Action) – The cost of advertising based on a visitor taking some specifically defined action in response to an ad, such as a click, purchase or customer acquisition.
  • CPC (Cost Per Click) – Cost of advertising based on the number of clicks received.

Display metrics vs. search


Some metrics apply to both search and display campaigns, such as impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, CVR and CPA. However, search advertisers also look at average ad position and quality score. These metrics don’t apply to display, as position in a search box is never an issue, and keywords are not used.


How to measure your campaign success


The definition of a successful campaign varies from advertiser to advertiser, as well as from campaign to campaign.

  • Branding advertisers will judge their campaign a success if it delivers the budgets in full and hits the most unique users.
  • Performance advertisers will usually judge success on backend performance – like driving a specific amount of traffic to the site, hitting a particular CPA, or selling a certain number of products.
  • Be sure to use the appropriate metrics for your campaign goals, and keep track of the dollars you spend versus the dollars you earn. For example, if your goal is to sell more product, the number of impressions may not matter as much if CTRs are high. After all, you’re not trying to generate awareness, you’re trying get customers in the door.  

Next Lesson: Optimization technology