Are you looking to improve your Adwords CTR or click through rate? Do you often wonder why no one is clicking on your ad? Well, it could very well be that your ad is not seeling hard enough and this is the reason why your CTR rates are down. The online Adwords space is so competitive and if you want people to click on your ad, then the following strategies should really help push up your click through rates.
So what is a CTR?
It is essentially the number of people who have visited Google and clicked on your advert. If for example you ad was displayed 100 times for a certain keyword, and you hade 10 clicks, then your CTR would be 10%. Over all, the higher the CTR the better it is. The lower the CTR, well…….something needs to be done drastically with your ad; the way it reads as well as the display URL Your CTR is an important measuring tool. It clearly tells you how your campaign is running and if you need to readjust it or not. If its going gang busters leave it alone, if you are getting poor CTR’s then time to take action.
Generally speaking those that have high CTR’s are hitting the right target audience with the right ad. It’s a perfect mix. Dismal click through rates are symptomatic of underlying issues. Follow these great tips and you will see a marked improvement.
Look at your heading titles
Pay close attention to what users are going to see. Make sure it’s:
- not like every other heading on the page – make you’re a little bit unique and distinctive. This will draw the readers eye and boost your clicks
- is local if that’s the market you want to attract
- has a unique selling point. If you have a discount or special, make sure it’s there front and centre, very loud and clear.
A/B Split Testing is a Powerful Tool
Ideally you want the best ad to sell your product or service and the best way to do this is to let those online decide. Yes, let the consumers decide and the only way to do this is to run 2 separate ads under the same ad group. This is called A/B testing and the results you get will really give you a lot of great information about what your customer is looking for.
Google will rotate these ads evenly so you will get a very clear picture of the adverts performance. I have seen in many cases ratios like 92% v’s 8% for ads within the same ad group. Give it a few days, see the results and delete the ad that is not performing the best. Again, you may want to try another ad and see how this performs. It’s all about constantly testing and fine tuning your ads for maximum CT rates.
When it comes to Adwords, you can never ever have enough of an A/B test strategy. This does take time but it is well worth it, considering the amount of money you are probably spending on your PPC campaign.
Pay close attention to seasonality
Christmas, New Years, Melbourne Cup, Bank Holidays, End of Financial Year, all these are key milestones in the year and you should pay close attention to these. Your customers are well aware of these dates and love to be marketed to. It makes sense that if you have say a Bali Villa rental agency and you want to promote your villas for the Christmas period, then your advert should have the words;’ Xmas and Hurry or Book Now for Xmas’ in the title. Alternatively, if you are an accounting firm you could have words to the effect of ‘need end of financial year help’.
It’s all about getting there attention in the right period of time and this is the power of Adwords. You will find that targeting your ads for a certain time period will lead to a much higher CTR. Again, make sure you pay close attention to these ads and tweak them if you notice a drop in CTR rates. Also, always remove the seasonal promotion once it’s finished.
Do you know about Negative Keywords?
To increase your CTR’s you need to be showing your ad to people that are actively searching for your business offering. Negative keywords are a great Google invention to stop you ad appearing for certain keywords. Let me explain myself here. If you have a high end day spa offering luxurious treatments, you do not want your ad to appear when someone types in cheap day spas. Therefore the negative keyword would be ‘cheap’. If you do not have a negative keyword strategy in place, then your ad will not appeal to those looking for cheap day spas and you click through rates will be much lower. Knowing where you do not want your ad to appear and focusing on what your customer base is searching for will radically improve your CTR’s.
You may professional need help
Don’t be afraid to ask for professional advice when it comes to your Adwords management and click through rates. If you are spending a decent amount of money every month and you are not seeing the kind of returns you were expecting then I would be getting some help. Adwords, if done properly can be a great marketing tool (obviously, we do also recommend it being done in conjunction with a SEO campaign). But, if you go in there blindly and start the campaign without knowing all there is to know (including landing page optimisation) then you are going to waste a lot of money. Adwords can be a bottomless pit and can chew up your daily budget in a matter of hours.
Improving click through rates will take quite a bit of time to master. Knowing how to do this is really a matter of trial and error. Be patient but be persistent. Again, if in doubt find an SEO agency that can handle this for you…but word of warning: choose wisely when it comes to this as there are far too many instances of things going pear shaped by dodgy SEO / Adwords companies.