Terrible CTR for no reason

Hey guys,

I recently started a new PPC campaign in a new field. I have ran them before but i'm hardly the most knowledgeable person in the world.
Anyway.
After a few weeks my CTR is terrible (less than 1%) but every Ad I have ever made in the past hasn't had this problem. Can anyone throw me a line on why this may be. I have switched into the field of male enchantment if that is the thing having a profound effect on CTR but i'm just not sure.

 

Have you turned off the Content Network?

It's in the Campaign Settings, if you've not found it.

Without knowing more about your advert, it's difficult to help, but people don't not click on your advert without a good reason.

Have you tried searching for your terms on www.google.com/adpreview? See if you can see which adverts attract your eye.

Also, are people searching for your terms necessarily looking for what you do? If you sell tables, advertising on 'tables' on phrase match would need a very long list of negative keywords - everything from multiplication to table tennis.

Did you say that your previous adverts haven't had this problem? Why not switch them back on instead of the one that's not working.

Failing that, I've had moderate success requesting help from the goddess Hecate...

 

My previous Ads were for a different product unfortunately. Content network is already off too
I have set up some negatives (mainly related to pornography since I am, working in the adult field) but I think it may more than anything be an industry thing but without past expierence of the industry I just can't be sure.
Can I PM you my ad variations to see if you think it's just bad copy writing?

 

What is the opinions of the content network? I've been promoting an online service regionally and have a very small number of impressions (around 40 per day), i've opened the account onto the content network which is now giving 80,000 per day. The old CTR was 10% now i'm getting 0.02% any advice/opinions?

On the subject of CTR is this a good indication of relevance?
Here is an example if I was a web design organisation specialising on higher end developments (£8k plus) and took out an adwords account

Telling people that i'm a web designer with generic text I my get a high CTR however the clicks may not convert well when theses there is not an option of a £99 website.

If I am more specific, provide more details showing that Cheap and Cheerful isn't us my CTR will be lower however they clicks should convert better. However, my ad would be more relevant and provide a better Google experience.

I can see the choose better keywords argument however, will all my clients know what to search for?

 

I think a big problem with the content network is that you just can't be as sure you're getting the right traffic, its good as an experiment once you have an establish keyword set and conversion pattern but I think in the early stages of a campaign it's just a distraction.

People "knowing" what to search for is the big problem, not everyone is aware exactly how big the Internet is, they think the broad generic term in their mind will apply to exactly what they want so you have to use these terms but end up paying a boat load per click.

 

Feel free to PM me, though I've no experience in that particular sector. Also send me a few of the keywords that you are bidding on that aren't getting a good ctr.

 

you are not alone, I did male enchantment campaign before. CTR is extremely low no matter how I alter the keywords. It just doesn't work on PPC.

 

I do very well in the content network, converting about 1 in 12. The key is to monitor your traffic using the "Placement Performance Report" in google adwords. I did a write up on it here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=351210&page=8

Look around the middle of the page for screen shots.

It showed me that I was getting clicks and impressions from totally unrelated sites. I then used the "exclude sites" feature and eliminated sites like myspace and gaming sites.

 

I've advertised things that required me to remove some adult entertainment related keywords. To come up with a list of negative keywords, I just check my email and look at all the spam. They have a ton of keywords in the subject and message body that I would have never thought of, but definately wanted to add to my negative list.

Heck, for male enhancement, you might even find a few keywords you can use too!

 

Thanks for the advice, I will try some content network targeting too then.

 

Two things- ad titles and mega KW research.....