5 ways to increse your CTR

I went through some ways you can use “strong” words in combination with strong call to action words to improve your PPC click through rate (CTR). Since that post, there have been some updates to the AdWords quality score algorithm and as such, CTR plays an ever important role. In fact, it is my opinion that incremental CTR increase is the most important part of any PPC marketing campaign as it is one of the few factors you can directly influence to increase your ad position and reduce your cost per click (CPC). Remember to always be A/B split testing your ads and never leave an adgroup with only a single ad.

Below, I outline five examples of ways you can increase your CTR without doing anything technical or magical. The ads are fabricated but the data is not. The ads are as close to the original as possible. Besides, you’re going to test the theory yourself anyway right?

1) Trademark Symbol/Registered Symbol.

While I have been using this method myself for years, Brad and Amber make some great points on this very topic. Not only can special symbols be used to increase your PPC CTR, but they can also be used to increase your organic SERP CTR. I could not agree with Ian Lurie more on his blog post predicting that organic CTR will matter a LOT in 2009.



2) Price In Headline

Adding the price in the headline is a great way to increase CTR. Be careful with this one though, if you’re not the cheapest, you’re CTR will suffer.



3) Seasonal Headlines.

Doesn’t matter if your product is not seasonal. If you sell blue widgets all year around, a headline like “Easter Widget Sale” will work great. There are so many different holidays, festivals and events that this can be used with. If you’re targeting locally, even better.



4) Trademark in Display URL Subdomain

While you can’t use most trademark terms in your ad copy, you can use them in your display URL. Amber has a great post on why AdWords allows trademarks in the display URL here. Using the trademark in the display URL some argue confuses potential clickers into thinking that it is the “official” site of the trademark holder. Be careful with this one too… Google knows when a visitor clicks the back button on their browser!



5) The exact Keyword in the Headline.

An oldie, but a goodie. We all know that search engines BOLD your keywords when they match the search query. Having tightly knit adgroups will allow you to take advantage of this without having to use dynamic keyword insertion.

Remember, CTR for quality score reasons is only calculated on the exact match of the keyword and is only counted on the Google search network. This means that any increase in CTR from Dynamic Keyword Insertion does not improve your google quality score. CTR on Google search partners does not contribute to your quality score calculations.

 

to go with 5 - use DKI {Keyword:}

 

Some comments:

> Remember, CTR for quality score reasons is only calculated on the exact match of the keyword and is only counted on the Google search network.

Yes, QS is calculated only for Google's search network and not its search partners. However, I don't know where you came up with the idea that only exact matches keywords are used. Do you have a reference to that?

I would add about 5) to use DKI carefully. I've seen uses where the resulting ad didn't make sense and sometimes with hilarious results.

Note that the keyword used will be the keyword that triggers the ad, not the actual search term typed in.

As for price in headline, or in body for that matter, yes it can have different effects. It can show that you are selling something so your CTR goes down if the reader is not ready to buy, but that can be a good thing and increase your conversions.

I never use prices in ads myself. It rarely is a selling feature except in some cases. Web hosting services comes to mind where people see all hosting to be the same and therefore shop on lowest price.

 

Sorry this is a noob question. But I was wondering. What is average or say good CTR per say. Around what percentage?

 

Sorry missed that - QS is on both search and content networks and is with all types of phrase matches

 

What a nice tips from the expert. Thanks guys for sharing your experiences.

 

many thanks for sharing !
i would like to try them out!

 

If you can get your CTR into double didgets you are doing well, if it's hovering around 1% you need to take a rain check and see why, examine your ad and see if you can make it stand out more or be more relevant to the searcher.

 

> If you can get your CTR into double didgets you are doing well, if it's hovering around 1% you need to take a rain check

Not necessarily.

If your CTR is double digits, yes, you are doing well. Your QS might be 10 but not necessarily so. But generally speaking, you likely are doing very well.

If low, such as 1%, and every other advertiser also has a similar CTR, you may actually be doing well. Check your QS. You can have a great QS of 8-10 but very low CTR. The QS is a relative number calculated and weighted for all advertisers for a keyword. So even with a 1% CTR, if your QS is 7, you are doing about average and a clue that others are doing just as poorly, CTR-wise.

A previous poster asked about average CTR. There is no such thing and irrelevant. I would say however that a QS of 7 may be average. Get your CTR higher, whether you start from 1% or 5%.

 

Nice info, I'm going to implement these techiques and see what happens. Thank you

 

About DKI, I only use it within display url

 

For search easy double digits for content its not that relevant as search but is sometimes less than 1%.

 

good information... but still i found these are basics.

I am following all these deadly rules but my keywords quality score is very poor.... i am trying all the possibilities but still facing the same problem...

Do CTR affects the quality score ?
Can any one give me serious solutions which will bring results.
Do i need to increase the overall bid to increase the CTR.

 

Many thanks for the information but I still wandering for the exact concept of quality score!!

 

Kancan, I'm curious as to why you use DKI in display URL and only there.

> Do CTR affects the quality score ?

For all practical purposes, CTR IS quality score. Increase CTR and you will increase QS.

> Can any one give me serious solutions which will bring results

Some good ones here. I would say to give the reader what they want and they'll click on your ad.

> Do i need to increase the overall bid to increase the CTR.

No. Bid price and CTR are not related.

 

i love all the info on this page

 

great tips

 

Good tips but CTR is worthless without conversions.
I try to be very specific with my campaigns and seldom use broad search terms except for branding purposes.
Also using negative keywords can help a lot.
If I am selling widgets I do not want people clicking through that are looking for free widgets.
Using the price in the ad is great if you have the lowest price or no one else is using a price in their ads.

 

> Using the price in the ad is great if you have the lowest price

The problem with using the price in the ad is that you assume every body will shop on price alone. Price is not a benefit, it's a feature. Use your ad to show the value of your product because more people will buy based on which one has more value. You have very little real estate in your ad, use it wisely.

As for CTR being worthless without conversions, that goes without saying. We are assuming here that decent conversions will come from having visitors to our sites. Your ad can affect conversions as well.

Good points about using broad and negative matches.

 

I think an offer, like a free white paper or something free, maybe with the value of the free item, will also help