Achieving a high click-through rate is essential to your PPC success, because it directly affects both your Quality Score and how much you pay every time someone clicks you search ad.
Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures the number of licks advertisers receive on their ads per there number of impressions.
so whats click-through rate, anyway?
PPC click-through rate is the rate at which your PPC ads are clicked. The number is the percentage of people who view your ad and then actually go on to click the ad.
Generally you can view your click-thru rate within the dashboard of your PPC account.
Why do click-through rates matter?
CTR us important to your account because it directly affects your Quality Score. Google AdWords and other search marketing platforms offer pricing discounts for ads that offer high relevance. One means for doing this is to offer higher quality scores to ads with high AdWords click-through rates:
- High click-through rates lead to high Quality Scores.
- High Quality Scores allow you to improve or maintain ad position for lower costs.
Additionally, if you are advertising on relevant queries, achieving a high click-through rate means that you are driving the highest possible number of people to your offering.
When higher click-through rates are actually bad for business
If a keyword isn’t pertinent to your business or isn’t going to generate sales, leads, branding gains, etc. then a high click-through rate for that term is actually bad for business. The reasoning for this is fairly clear:
- You’re paying for every click.
- A lot of clicks generate a lot of ad spend.
- Some times you’re generating clicks on keywords that are priced too high and won’t turn a profit even if they convert.
- Irrelevant terms and clicks are just spending money without bringing in additional business.
You don’t always want higher click-through rates: what you want are high CTRs on keywords that are:
- Relevant – have to do with your ad text, your landing page, and your offering.
- Affordable – keywords that aren’t going to be profit-prohibitive.
A good CTR means first targeting the right words, then getting as many people as you can to click those ads.
achieving strong click-through rates for your ads
Achieving strong click-through rates in PPC them depends on:
- Targeted keywords to bid on.
- Cost-efficient clicks.
- Tools and methodology for closely integrating keywords with ad text and landing pages.
- The ability to quickly and efficiently segment keyword groups generate closer targeting.
remember, the higher you click-through rate, the better your QS will likely be, and high QS are one of the single best predictors of success in PPC.