Click through rate (CTR) is a ratio to success of a particular keyword measured by the relevance of advertisements and target pages on a scale from 1 to 10. Keeping it high gives You advantage over competitors at AdWords auction. As a result you get more profits from contextual advertising. Here is some advice from BRAB on how to make it work:
1. CTR is the major measurement of success of Your Google advertising campaign.
Every keyword in Google AdWords is given a rate from 1 to 10, where 1 stands for ‘Very Poor’ and 10 for ‘Excellent’.
Here is are examples of keywords’ CTR indexes from AdWords interface (see image).
Low CTR means fewer displays and larger cost per click of Your advertisement. High CTR means that according to Google AdWords Your advertisement and landing page correspond to users’ specific requests and are of a great interest to them. As a result You get better cost per click and more frequent search result displays.
Example: identical keyword at the same website can have different CTR - 6/10 & 10/10.
High quality of a landing page and testing of various versions allowed to cut the price per click almost in half.
2. How to view CTR in AdWords?
The CTR is hidden in Google AdWords by default. In order to showit go to the ‘Keywords’ tab, click the top right symbol, press ‘Change columns’, select ‘Attributes’ in a dropdown list and checkmark the ‘CTR’ attribute.
The CTR index is given based on AdWords statistics for displays and clicks for a certain keyword. Therefore, if you add new keywords they will have no rating for some time, since it takes a few days for the system to collect and process necessary data.
3. How to increase CTR?
To sum up, the higher CTR You have - the better position you get in search results list and the lower cost per click you pay. Taken the other conditions are equal, You get less expenses for advertising.
Mind the following 3 figures to make it work:
1. Expected CTR (ratio of clicks to displays) for new keywords.
At the launch of a new advertising campaign this index is given based on the average CTR among all AdWords accounts using this particular keyword. It can differ from the one in Your advertising account.
2. Relevance.
In order to increase relevance the keywords and phrases Your account includes must coincide with users’ requests. For instance the user is searching for ‘pizza delivery Kyiv’. The most relevant keyword in this case is ‘pizza delivery kyiv’. Both header and body of Your advertisement must include this verbal expression. Try not to overload the text with keywords to keep it readable. It is important to choose the right landing page at the website with relevant information on it. In our example it is the ‘pizza delivery kyiv’ keyphrase and it is better to insert it between the tags in the header and in the body of the page as well.
3. Quality of a landing page.
The ‘quality of a landing page’ notion is defined by:
- Website loading speed
- Adaptive web version
- Convenient navigation
You can test website loading speed and quality of display for different devices with testmysite.withgoogle.com. service from Google.
Navigation can be defined as convenient when users can find necessary information at the website quick and easily. For example, the pop up windows incorrectly incorporated into the page can have negative influence on navigation since they can prevent smooth interaction of the user with the website.
A good trick to check user friendliness and readability is to show the page to a friend or colleague. If after first few seconds they remain perplexed, the page requires immediate revision.
4. Higher CTR means higher profits.
Important: the higher CTR - the lower cost per click! You can get better positions in search results lists with high CTR keywords paying $1 per click, than spending $2 per click for a low CTR advertisements.
For example: identical budget with similar conversion rates and average order value (AOV) can make more profit at lower cost per click owing to proper advertisement CTR.
From our experience choosing high CTR ads can reduce the price per click twice or more.
See the difference?
