Metrics for Display Advertising

Here are the common metrics you will hear marketers talk about in reference to display ads:

1. Number of Impressions: The number of times an ad is shown

2. **Number of unique impressions: ** The number of unique users to whom the ad was shown - so when you show the same ad many times to one user, it would only count as one unique impression

3. Click through Rate (CTR): the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown

4. Click to conversion rate (CTC):
   CTC is the number of clicks that convert to your desired objective (e.g. a sale) divided by all the clicks you received.

5. Engagement or Interaction Rate:
   the percentage of ad impressions that had at least one interaction or engagement (interactions could be: playing a video, clicking a link in the ad etc.)

6. View Through Rate (VTR):
   the number of completed views of a skippable ad over the number of initial impressions - so it really refers to the percentage of people that saw your entire ad.

7. View-through Conversion (VTC): a measure of the number of online conversions that happened within 30 days after a user saw, but did not click, a display ad. So, in this case, we are talking about users who saw your ad, and then later show up on your website.

Click Through Rate and Click to Conversion Rate are metrics especially important to direct response advertisers. Brand advertisers will have less interest in click through rates, but since they are often using rich media ads like for instance video, they will look at Engagement Rate and View Through Rates more.