If you are running both Search & Content in your Search Campaigns it’s very likely your overall CTR is low. That’s because ads within the content networks (eg: adsense, YPN, etc) receive a huge amount of impressions, and low clicks. The Content Networks are pulling your overall CTR down.

You can easily see the difference between the Search Only, and Content Only CTR by separating them thru generating a report. On Adword, just check the box for “Ad Distribution”. That way you’ll be able to Separate out the CTR metrics from Content Network and Search Only.

This is one of the basics of optimizing PPC Campaigns immediately after they’ve launched. You’ll need a large enough data sample to make intelligent decisions. Depending on your daily budget, you might not need to wait more than 1 day to begin optimizing PPC ads for CTR because you’ve received a lot of campaign data. Campaigns with smaller daily budgets and less search volume might need to wait for several days before accumlating a large enough data sample.

8 Methods to increase CTR on your PPC ads:

1) Ad Copy. Writing compelling PPC ad copy. There are 4 Combinations of Ad Creative & Keyword Targeting:

a) With broad targeting and general creative, the creative is de-signed for maximum reach and mass appeal, such as with a free offer or another promotion. If the campaign is successful, searchers will respond to the promotion, click rates will rise, and marketers can maintain their search ad ranking with lower bids. The downside is that total campaign cost will increase and conversion rates will be relatively low, compared with a more highly targeted campaign.

b) With broad targeting and specific creative, the creative is too targeted for the high volume of searches conducted. Most searchers won’t be interested, though the small percentage that are will be highly likely to convert. Still, low click-through rates mean that bid prices need to rise to maintain visibility. There is a tradeoff here, as the high conversion rate could offset the higher bid price.

c) With exact targeting and general creative, the creative isn’t as relevant for searchers with de-fined needs. Searchers pass on the ad, click rates drop, and bid prices need to rise to maintain the ad ranking. Using general creative with targeted ads is far too common a practice, despite the damage it can cause to a campaign.

d) But with exact targeting and specific creative, the creative matches the need of the searcher. Searchers relish the relevance, click-through rates soar, and bid prices can drop significantly. Conversion rates should also be strong.

2) Use a strong call-to-action in your ad text.
3) Use Negative Keywords.
4) Raising Bids.
5) Targeted Keywords.
6) Keyword Bucketing.
7) Use Keyword Matching options
Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

BEWARE of Impression Fraud. This is an unethical PPC tactic to artificially inflate the amount of impressions on a competitor, by searching for their keyword and not clicking on their ad….a whole lot of times. It will lower their CTR and Quality Score, and they’ll need to pay more Avg CPC to maintain their same position. The offending advertiser just pauses his own campaign so none of his ads get served while he is conducting Impression Fraud.

The Search Engines reward high CTR’s with a higher Quality Score. Thus, your reward will be a lower CPC, and higher position. More clicks, and hopefully a better ROI.

Search can drive traffic to a website all day long, but if the site sucks, then don’t expect high conversion rates. Hence, the need for Website Usability.

No related posts.