What is the Click Through Rate By Ad Position?

Services like Google AdWords allow you to bid more to move your ad up in position. However, what is the improvement in ad performance by moving up to a higher position? To be able to reliably make this determination accurate statistics are needed. The below data was provided by Atlas DMT (SeoBook.com. 2008).

Google AdWords Ad Performance by Ad Position

Ad Position	Relative Click Through Rate (CTR)	Relative Impressions	Click Potential
1 (First)	100%	100%	100%
2 (Second)	77.4%	77.2%	59.8%
3 (Third)	66.6%	71.3%	47.5%
4 (Fourth)	57.4%	67.9%	39.0%
5 (Fifth)	52.9%	65.8%	34.8%
6 (Sixth)	50.2%	62.3%	31.3%
7 (Seventh)	39.7%	60.6%	24.0%
8 (Eigth)	34.3%	58.3%	20.0%
9 (Ninth)	26.0%	58.6%	15.3%
10 (Tenth)	26.3%	52.6%	13.9%

Overture Ad Performance by Ad Position

Ad Position	Relative Click Through Rate (CTR)	Relative Impressions	Click Potential
1 (First)	100%	100%	100%
2 (Second)	80.0%	97.2%	77.7%
3 (Third)	52.2%	94.5%	58.8%
4 (Fourth)	45.9%	91.2%	41.8%
5 (Fifth)	35.0%	86.2%	30.2%
6 (Sixth)	32.3%	74.3%	24.0%
7 (Seventh)	26.6%	67.7%	18.0%
8 (Eigth)	23.6%	59.5%	14.1%
9 (Ninth)	21.0%	42.9%	9.0%
10 (Tenth)	21.1%	36.8%	7.8%

References

SeoBook. 2008. "How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth Your Business?"