Why the actual click through rate is different from what your tracking software shows

One common question we receive is why the CTR the publisher shows differs from the CTR of your website tracking software. The publisher’s number of clicks is usually higher than your number. Primarily this happens when someone clicks on your banner ad and then hits the back button or closes the browser window before reaching your page. One way to counter this is to place your tracking code at the very top of your page, and place separate tracking code at the bottom of your web page. This way you can easily see how many people began the process of loading your web page versus how many people actually viewed your entire web page load. If the second number is much lower, you may want to research ways of getting your website to load faster.