What Is CTR & Why Is It Important?
Are Your Impressions Resulting In Clicks?
Is this an accurate account of the face you make while trying to understand CTR?
You're not alone.
Between CTR, SEO, Keywords, Ad-Rank, Quality Score, Analytics, Re-Marketing, Google, Map Location, Bing - pretty much all you hear after a while is "wuah wuah wuah", we get it.
Let us explain what CTR is, what a GOOD CTR is and how it impacts your ad rank & quality score; and further when having a low CTR works in your favor.
Simply put, CTR is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click, also known as "click through rate".
If your PPC (pay per click) ad had 1,000 impressions & 1 click, that's a .1% CTR. As a metric, CTR tells you how relevant searchers find your ad to be. If you have a high CTR, users find your ad highly relevant to their search. On the contrary, if your CTR is low it would suggest that users find your ad less relevant to their search.
The ultimate goal of any PPC campaign is to get qualified users to go to your website & perform a desired action. Such as, make a purchase, fill out a contact form, complete a download, etc. CTR is the first step in the process to improving your ads relevancy & generating those desired actions.
What is a good CTR?
We get this question all the time and the answer is always "it depends".
How so, you ask?
Follow along...
CTR is relative to several things such as industry, keywords your bidding on, individual campaigns within a ppc account just to name a few. It isn't unusual to see double digit CTR on branded keywords when someone is searching for your brand name or your branded or trademarked product, service or business. Also not surprising for CTRs to be very low (possibly less than 1%)on very broad non-branded keywords.
How CTR Impacts Ad-Rank
Not only are CTRs an indication of how relevant your ads are to searchers, it is also a contributing factor to your ad-rank in Search Engines. Ad rank determines the position of your ad on the search results page. That's right, PPC is not pure auction. The top position isn't awarded solely to the highest bidder. It goes to the advertiser with the highest ad rank. CTR is a huge factor in the ad rank formula.
However, it isn't quite that easy...
Ad rank is even more complicated that. Google measures your CTR against an EXPECTED CTR. What does that mean? If you've run a lot of ads with low CTR, Google will assume that any new leads you ad to your Google ads account are also going to have a low CTR & rank them lower on the page. A poor CTR can lead to low ad positions no matter how much you bid. You're beginning to see why it's so important to understand the CTR on your ads & improve as much as aren't you?
How Your Quality Score is Impacted by CTR
Having ads & landing pages more relevant to the user will likely return you a higher Quality Score. Remember the expected CTR? Your Quality Score is calculated by the engines' measurements of that expected CTR, ad relevance & landing page experience. A good CTR will earn a higher Quality Score.
Is a low CTR ever OK?
You're probably wondering since CTR is so important should you optimized ALL of your ads for CTR & forget about everything else, like conversion rates? Absolutely NOT! Success in PPC is not about ad rank & CTR. This is probably where the "wuah wuah wuah" begins to set in if it hasn't already.
Hear us out...
We could write an ad that says "FREE BEACH VACATION" that would earn a great CTR. Although, unless giving away free beach vacations is applicable to the success of our business this won't help our business be profitable. Thus, your first focus should be business metrics first, CTR second.
If your goal is to sell as many items as possible as cheaply as possible you should optimize your PPC campaign for cost per sale. If your goal is to generate leads below a certain cost per lead, them optimize cost per lead. Having a low CTR could work in your favor unless your goal is to drive a lot of traffic. Such a time would be when dealing with ambiguous keywords.
Ambiguity is a necessary evil in any PPC program. Just as some people will be very specific in their searches, some will use very broad keywords that will mean something different to them than it will to you or I.
For example, the word "interest". That could mean things from concern or enthusiasm, something you desire and are "interested in", ones well-being "in your best interest" to loan or credit card interest. Let's say you're a loan officer. "Loan interest" is more relevant to your business than "interest" alone but has a lower CTR. However, paying for numerous irrelevant clicks from using the term that would earn higher CTR won't help your business be profitable.
IN CONCLUSION...
CTR is an important metric to understand & monitor. Optimizing CTR while also optimizing for business metrics will lead to successful PPC campaigns.
Wise Guyz Marketing can help you put these pieces of the puzzle together to bring you the best results relevant to your business.