There are many ways of increasing CTRs or click through rate on advertisements placed on a web page. The most important is the placement of the ad. An ad that is placed near the top of the page is likely to be noticed more than an ad placed at the bottom of the page.
Research shows that the best placement is just above the center of the page or below the navigation bar. This does not mean that ads placed near the top left hand side of the page will not evince sufficient visitor interest. They will, especially if they are placed next to content that is most useful to the visitors.
In fact, ads placed between blocks of high quality content attract the maximum number of click throughs. Interestingly, some ads placed at the bottom of a story or article too can generate a high CTR as well. This happens especially when the ads are related to the content that the user is browsing.
Since English is read left to right, an ad that is short and wide receives more clicks than a narrow and tall ad. A good way to get clicks is to change the colors of the ad frequently to provide variety to the visitors, and to make them less monotonous.
Another way to improve the CTR is to use animated banner ads. These attract more attention than static ads. However, the danger with animated ads is that they can irritate eye movement if they are overdone.
Rotation too is a useful strategy. Instead of using 1 ad it makes sense to use a series of ads on a rotation basis. The user gets a fresh message each time he looks at the ad.
Targeting also helps CTRs because the ad is being viewed by only those visitors who are interested in the subject. For instance, a scholarship ad for Washington students is likely to have a higher CTR if it is viewed only by students living in Washington.
Besides placement and targeting, CTRs also depend on the way the ad has been designed. An eye-catcher will get a better response than a dead ad. Similarly, ads that take too long to download may not interest users.
It is also important to track the performance of an ad. An ad may perform very well for the first few days and then lose visitor interest. You should move, change or replace the ad if the CTR falls below 0.five%.
You must remember that a higher CTR means higher revenue for website owners and a higher RoI for advertisers.