Clicks are user interactions where someone presses or taps on a digital element, such as a link, button, advertisement, or call-to-action. In digital marketing, clicks represent one of the most fundamental engagement metrics, indicating active user interest and serving as a bridge between marketing exposure and desired actions.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click on a specific link compared to the total number who view it. CTR is calculated as: CTR = (Total Clicks ÷ Total Impressions) × 100
Cost Per Click (CPC): The average amount spent for each click in paid advertising campaigns: CPC = Total Ad Spend ÷ Total Clicks
Conversion Rate: The percentage of clicks that result in desired actions (purchases, sign-ups, downloads): Conversion Rate = (Conversions ÷ Clicks) × 100
Quality Score Impact: Search engines and ad platforms use click data to determine ad relevance and quality, affecting ad positioning and costs.
Users often click through multiple touchpoints before converting, making it challenging to assign proper credit to each interaction using clicks. ROI (Return-On-Investment) estimated by click-based attribution models, such as Last-Click attribution, has been repeatedly been reported to misguide marketers, showing high ROI for bottom-of-funnel channels, such as branded search, and low ROI for top of funnel channels. See for example: The 3 Danger Zones of Last-Click.
This why advanced incrementality-based methods like Marketing Mix Modeling are required for measuring the true incremental sales driven by each channel and campaign.
Fraudulent or accidental clicks can skew performance data and waste advertising budget. Modern measurement solutions implement filters to identify and exclude invalid traffic.
Measuring clicks across different devices and platforms requires sophisticated tracking and identity resolution.
Visual representations showing where users click most frequently on web pages, helping optimize layout and content placement.
Examining the sequence of clicks users make during their website journey to identify optimization opportunities.
Clicks are part of the Media Metric funnel. Media Metric funnel is an abstraction of consumers' buying journey:
Cost-efficiency metrics in the funnel include: Cost Per Mille (CPM), Cost Per Click (CPC), Cost Per Conversion, Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).
Performance ratios in the funnel include: Click-Through Rate (CTR), Conversion Rate, and Average Order Value.
As privacy regulations evolve and third-party cookies phase out, click measurement is adapting through:
Clicks remain a cornerstone metric in digital marketing, providing immediate feedback on campaign performance and user engagement. However, successful marketing measurement requires analyzing clicks within the broader context of the customer journey, considering factors like conversion quality, lifetime value, and multi-channel attribution.
Understanding and optimizing for clicks—while maintaining focus on downstream conversion goals—enables marketers to build more effective campaigns and drive sustainable business growth.
Lauri Potka is the Chief Operating Officer at Sellforte, with over 15 years of experience in Marketing Mix Modeling, marketing measurement, and media spend optimization. Before joining Sellforte, he worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, advising some of the world’s largest advertisers on data-driven marketing optimization. Follow Lauri in LinkedIn, where he is one of the leading voices in MMM and marketing measurement.