US and Europe display ad clickthrough rates statistics summary
I’ve put this brief compilation together to help marketers and students studying interactive marketing create direct response conversion models for digital marketing campaigns.
Since the post was originally posted, there’s also been a discussion on attrition rate from ad click to visit which is another challenge of Internet advertising to be aware of.
Average Internet ad clickthrough and interaction rates
Display ads are renowned for low clickthrough rates as this compilation of display ad clickthrough rates from across the UK and Europe shows. Display ads only gain around 1 click every 1000 impressions. Shocking! It seems that banner blindness is alive and kicking. But if you review interaction rates, there is a greater degree of interaction depending on format as the charts later in this post show.
| Clickthrough Rate (CTR) | Interaction Rate (%) | Average Interaction Time | Expansion Rate | Video Complete Rate | Average Display Time | Average Expanding Time |
| 0.11% | 2.41% | 9.31 secs | 5.63% | 51.08% | 34.70 secs | 6.07 secs |
Source: DoubleClick for Advertisers, a cross section of regions, January "€“ December 2009, Published July 2010
Variation in online ad clickthrough rates by country
Banner ads are somewhat more effective in some countries, particularly Asia-Pacific, but as you would expect, figures are similar.
| Region | Overall Click-through Rate Percent (%) |
| North America | |
| Canada | 0.09% |
| United States | 0.10% |
| EMEA | |
| Austria | 0.11% |
| Belgium | 0.13% |
| Denmark | 0.12% |
| Finland | 0.05% |
| France | 0.12% |
| Germany | 0.11% |
| Greece | 0.17% |
| Ireland | 0.10% |
| Italy | 0.10% |
| Luxembourg | 0.09% |
| Netherlands | 0.14% |
| Norway | 0.11% |
| Spain | 0.12% |
| Sweden | 0.08% |
| Switzerland | 0.12% |
| United Arab Emirates | 0.18% |
| United Kingdom | 0.07% |
| JAPAC | |
| Australia | 0.07% |
| China | 0.12% |
| Hong Kong | 0.17% |
| India | 0.18% |
| Malaysia | 0.30% |
| Singapore |
0.19% |
Source: DoubleClick for Advertisers, a cross section of regions, January "€“ December 2009, Published July 2010
For latest data see Doubleclick Display Ad Benchmark Statistics.
Variation in online ad Clickthrough Rates by ad format
Ad clickthrough rate naturally varies according to placement (position on screen) and ad format (shape and size). The traditional full-banner performs very poorly compared to skyscrapers, the ubiquitous medium rectange and the newer large rectangle format.
Variation in online ad Interaction Rates by ad format
Interaction rats differ for different ad formats in a similar way to ad formats.
Interaction rate definition:
Interactions are defined as the user does one or more of the following:
"€¢ Mouses over the ad for 1 continuous second
"€¢ Clicks an Exit link
"€¢ Makes the ad display in Full Screen mode
"€¢ Expands the ad
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