I have put up a set of ads advertising travel in Nepal. I added a number of keywords that have to do with various things you can do in Nepal as well as famous things to see there. I also added all of the negative keywords that I thought may interfere with the search, but there aren't many (eg. if I put Annapurna Trek as a keyword, there aren't many negative keywords that would be needed). Still, my CTR is below 1%. Does anybody have any ideas? Thanks a lot!
Without seeing your ad it's hard to give you an answer - there could be many reasons from your ad being too generic to it being completely irrelevant as far as the users are concerned. Does each of the "things" have it's own ad group and a tightly specific set of ads?
Also check if its "Sponsor Search" or "Display Network" matches. Its normal for CTR below 1% for Display Network.
1. Split your "things" into groups 2. Look for specific differences between Search Network vs Display Network 3. Look for broad keywords (like "Nepal" which will throw an amazing amount of impressions, but hardly qualified traffic) Drill into each themed "thing" group and see which one has the lowest CTR and start working on it individual (worst to best), then start from best to worst, then back again until the gaps come closer. You will then have a tightly optimized AdWords campaign!
Build your Adgroups around themed keywords, and re-use these KW in the Adcopy Try to build your Adgroups with 20-25 similar KWs and write 5-7 Adcopy for each Adgroup
Like what these guys said. An important point to remember though. If you are using Content Network (aka new Display Network) then it's normal and you shouldn't be worry about it. However, if you are using Search Network it should be above 1% else your CPC will increase by alot due to low click through ads. You should test out several ads with your set of related keywords to see.