--- title: Forget Clicks: Why CTR Is a Terrible Metric for Ad... description: A review of research showing that click-through rate (CTR) is a fundamentally flawed metric for ad effectiveness. Across 58 display advertising campaigns,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/forget-clicks-why-ctr-is-a-terrible-metric-for-ad-effectiveness-lqvxbh5pk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Forget Clicks: Why CTR Is a Terrible Metric for Ad Effectiveness | daily.dev og:description: A review of research showing that click-through rate (CTR) is a fundamentally flawed metric for ad effectiveness. Across 58 display advertising campaigns,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/forget-clicks-why-ctr-is-a-terrible-metric-for-ad-effectiveness-lqvxbh5pk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/LqVxBH5pK.png og:image:alt: Forget Clicks: Why CTR Is a Terrible Metric for Ad Effectiveness og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Forget Clicks: Why CTR Is a Terrible Metric for Ad Effectiveness **[R-bloggers](https://daily.dev/sources/rbloggers)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A review of research showing that click-through rate (CTR) is a fundamentally flawed metric for ad effectiveness. Across 58 display advertising campaigns, targeting models built on clicks perform no better than random guessing at predicting purchases. The key findings: buyers don't resemble clickers, a large share of conversions come from users who never clicked, and site visits are a far superior proxy for purchase intent. Practical recommendations include tracking site visits for cold-start targeting, designing A/B tests around conversion rate per impression rather than CTR, and implementing view-through conversion windows. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Retention Over Clicks: A Surprising Lesson from Browser Game Analytics](https://daily.dev/posts/retention-over-clicks-a-surprising-lesson-from-browser-game-analytics-dldovvdou) · DEV · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Marketing attribution is a LIE.](https://daily.dev/posts/marketing-attribution-is-a-lie--pbpuf9fkz) · Elena's Growth Scoop · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#predictive-analytics](https://daily.dev/tags/predictive-analytics) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/forget-clicks-why-ctr-is-a-terrible-metric-for-ad-effectiveness-lqvxbh5pk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Forget Clicks: Why CTR Is a Terrible Metric for Ad Effectiveness","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/forget-clicks-why-ctr-is-a-terrible-metric-for-ad-effectiveness-lqvxbh5pk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/forget-clicks-why-ctr-is-a-terrible-metric-for-ad-effectiveness-lqvxbh5pk"},"datePublished":"2026-03-02T17:42:19.207Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T17:42:56.102Z","description":"A review of research showing that click-through rate (CTR) is a fundamentally flawed metric for ad effectiveness. 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