Some of my CTRs for adwords are less than a percent. My best is about 2%. Seems like the 2% one does the best to bring the right people in, but it is still really low. Can anyone share some tips on how to get that up besides paying out your a$$.
Is there a reason you're trying to raise just your CTR? What is your average position? If you're just going straight for CTR then I suggest thoroughly utilizing negative keywords to reduce your unintended audience.
Some of the figures being quoted in this thread are just daft, (i.e on the low side) but it depends on a lot of things. On content network a ctr of under 1% is not unusual - but not something to be complacent about. On search - it depends on your positioning - being high up and getting a high ctr may not result in the best conversion rate.
Your CTR will vary depending on a lot of factors. Bid position, user intent etc. You should really be more worried about conversion rates.
My adwords CTR varies a lot for different niches. I saw it as low as 0.05% and as high as 5%. All you should care about is how your CTR compares to your competition and whether higher CTR will give you users you want to get.
My placement depends on the keywords and bid price, of course. But generally I aim for 2nd or 3rd place because I want to be on the first page of results, yet I'd rather not pay 1st place bid prices. For high volume keywords my CTR has fallen to about .5-1%. For the lower volume ones it is still about 2%. I've found one thing strange. My CTR for search on one specific keyword which I didn't think would work well is day after day 4-5%, and the placement and CPC is about the same as my other keywords. So basically what I have learned is that sometimes keywords which which you don't think will do well actually do surprisingly well.
There is no 'standard' for CTR. I've got campaigns running with 0.1% CTR and others with 10-15% CTR. The key is how tightly your ad text matches your keywords. It's pointless writing ad copy that's purely to improve CTR, only to find that visitors arrive on site, are disappointed, and bounce. Define your niche, a/b test your ad copy constantly, focus your ad on your niche, optimise your landing page to engage your acquired visitors, and you'll find improved visitor engagement, conversion rates, and quality scores, lowering your cpc slightly, and putting money in your pocket!
1% for content network is high ! I don't see 2% CTR for search don't have any space to improve, may be they are just not too targeted.
On the content network 0.5 is quite good, but as far as search goes, aim high and you won't regret it.
If you guys are happy with less than 1% you must be Google shareholders. You should be aiming for 5% to 20% which can be achieved by having a select tight group of adwords specifically for a particular keyword in a targeted well written ad. You should also be split testing the ads and modifying one every day just to increase the CTR.