Where to find sub-category CTR averages?

I'm looking to do some benchmarking with my ppc campaign in terms of click thru rates. I've seen some articles related to INDUSTRY click thru rate averages, but nothing at the sub category level(ie: not just travel related averages, for instance, but destination related ctr).

Does anyone know where to find this? I know that Google Analytics provides anonymous benchmarking data for industry wide sites, but nothing as granular as specific sub-cats within an industry..I dont want to have to pay for the data from Forrester, or Hitwise(which are great tools, by the way, but can be on the expensive side), especially if I can find it free

thanks in advance,

Fletch

 

Why do you want to know about CTR? Do you mean number of searches instead? I don't see what you can glean from looking at CTR stats. Maybe I'm just stupid.

Whatever the case, I, personally, wouldn't rely on any CTR statistics. Most AdWords advertisers haven't got a clue when it comes to constructing an efficient campaign. If you know how to use AdWords properly, you should be able to breeze a better CTR than most of your competitors.

 

It's not the only metric I care about, but it's definetly a nice measure of ad copy effectivenes, keyword relevancy, etc..Just another health of campaign indicator, and relative to QS, cost effectiveness(or lack thereof if you have a bad QS) of your keywords..

 

I'm with Masterful on this. Just concentrate on creating the best campaigns you can. He's right about the majority of PPC advertisers not having much of a clue. At least, it keeps guys like me in business.

 

I would agree that ctr isnt' that important when your trying to convert a user into taking an action. The clients I deal with are simply looking for engaging(ie: low abandonment rates, high page views, etc..) traffic though, and aren't necessarily looking to convert the traffic(although it would be nice). They use traffic data as a way to sell their services to partners, so with that being said, ctr is a very important metric to look at because you want to get the most bang for your buck, given your budget. I dont necessarily think this is actionable data, but just a nice 'wow, I'm doing well relative to the competiont', or 'I need to seriously look at optimizing my ad copy/keywords.'

I agree, though, the majoruty of advertisers dont have a clue what their doing. They drive up costs in the short term, but over the long haul the savvier advertiser will prevail.

 

> It's not the only metric I care about, but it's definetly a nice measure of ad copy effectivenes, keyword relevancy

You're describing Quality Score. By the way, most people don't realize QS is a relative measure and will give you an indication of exactly what you want. Assuming the relevancy score of your QS is great, and there's no reason it should not be, QS is effectively your CTR. If your QS is 8 or more, you are in the top tier of advertisers using that keyword.

 

I would not use QS and ctr interchangeably like that. CTR is but one of the factors incorporated into the QS, but does not consider post click analysis(abandonment rates, landing page relevancy, etc..). CTR is measurement of the ad and the keywords that trigger the ad, while QS is that AND other factors that Google looks at after the click takes place.

 

CTR is 60%+ of the QS. Landing page is about 10-15%, relevancy the rest, which includes keyword to ad to landing page relevancy.

The only component of the landing page portion I know for sure is loading time. I don't know, but I don't believe abandonment rate would be included. Google has no way to know anyway, unless you use Analytics, and even then.

Unless your keywords to ads to landing page are totally irrelevant, killing that portion of the QS, a decent landing page portion, what's left is your CTR.

 

I dont know where you got those percentages..I would tend to agree that ctr represents the bulk of QS, but I think that's pure conjecture based on personal experience.

Regardless, the point of my post was to give my client some qualatative analysis on how their ads are performing based on click thru rates. QS isn't an absolute indication, so that's not going to work for my purposes.

 

Where did you get those percentages?

 

As Lucid said, CTR is 60%+ of the QS scoring system - so he isn't saying 60% or any of the other percentages he mentioned are totally accurate.

I agree with him though - CTR is DEFINITELY the most important factor when calculating QS, and if you asked me I'd place it at about 60% too.

I'd put landing the landing page at about 20%

I'd then put relevancy and QS history as sharing the remaining 20%, but don't know about the split with those two...

 

> Where did you get those percentages?

Google will never tell you exact percentages. The weights of each factor can change too. However, they have left clues and have even said that CTR has the highest weight by far. The exact percentages are not important but knowing that CTR is the most important, is.

I've just finished putting together a report. Much of it talks about quality score but many other things as well. Download it at www.lucidwebmarketing.com/adwords-faq.html