What is CTR?
First things first, what in the world does CTR stand for? CTR stands for “click-through rate”. Simple enough. Sure, but what does that really mean? For the answer to that question we ask
The formula used to get this CTR is really simple, it’s just total clicks / total impressions. A CTR of 100% would mean that everyone who sees your ad clicks on it. That is not likely to happen. A CTR above 2% is considered above average.
What is PPC?
Now, when we’re talking about paying companies to get potential customers to click on our ads, we’re talking about an important internet marketing model often referred to by an acronym: PPC. Pay Per Click marketing is the practice of driving traffic places by paying companies like Google and Bing to get people to view, and hopefully click, our ads.
Where your ad ends up on the list is determined by an auction-like process. The highest bidder usually ends up higher on the list, but there are some complicating factors that can influence the ad’s placement).
The basic idea is that we select a target, Google (or some other PPC platform) delivers our ad to that target audience and we hope that these potential customers click. We always want to be creating high CTR ads! We want people who see our ad to click on it! But, what comes after that click? Conversion! The person finally becomes a customer! But, we’ll save this story for another day. Here, we’re still focused on that first click.
Google’s PPC platform, AdWords, is the most popular in the world, but there are indeed other players. These other PPC platforms include Facebook Ads, Bidvertiser, Twitter Ads, Revcontent, Adroll, and the list goes on. Due to the success of the PPC model, many businesses have arisen.
Helpful Resources
If you think about it, you’ll understand that the PPC advertising provider has an incentive to help us in creating high CTR ads. They get paid when our ads are clicked (“pay per click”), not when they are viewed (they are not paid based on (impressions’). They want us to win and so they are willing to educate us! Most of the time, when we’re talking about PPC platforms, we’re talking about Google AdWords. As you might expect, Google’s resources are a great place to start for people who are absolutely new to the game. This is a great place for you to begin your journey toward successfully creating high CTR ads.
While the basic concepts are straightforward enough, things get complex quickly– there is a lot to consider. Thankfully, there is a constantly growing body of resources being produced by many highly skilled PPC marketers. These PPC marketers have an incentive to share good advice because as they educate, they are likely to encounter potential customers! If their advice is good, they will eventually attract a larger audience. Everyone wins. So, it’s a good idea to spend some time reading what the experts are sharing. Visit WordStream for a great overview of PPC that will provide the understanding necessary for your quest toward a higher. Portent has also published a really great introductory article. Spend some time googling and you will encounter many great resources (and probably a few bad ones).
Some first steps toward a higher CTR
Now that you have a grasp of the basics, let’s get down to business. Here are some concrete steps you can take toward creating high CTR ads.
1. Consider the Quality Score
WordStream reminds us when using AdWords (which is what most of us are using), to consider the “Quality Score”.
A number of factors contribute to this score:
- The relevance of your ad to the keyword.
- The relevance of your ad to your landing page.
- The historical performance of your account.
- The click-through rate of your ad.
Takeaways:
● Know your audience and the keywords, this will help to ensure your ads are relevant to keywords.
● Be sure your ad accurately represents the content on your landing page.
● If you’ve performed poorly in the past, this will, unfortunately, contribute to poor placement in the list of ads.
● Also, in a similar way, if the ad already has a poor CTR, this will influence it’s positioning, causing the ad to appear further down the list which will likely end up causing the CTR to drop further. It is a vicious cycle that really gets in the way of creating
high CTR ads.
2. Include a Call to Action!
Always include a call to action. It is a simple way to get dramatic results! What is a call to action? It’s simple. Tell people what to do! “Click Here”, “Buy Now”, and similar phrases may seem too simple to be effective, but it works. There is plenty of evidence.
2. Include the Keyword in the Display URL
This is the last simple piece of advice we’re going to give you today. Include your keyword in the URL! So, for example, say you are selling books, have the landing page display URL be something like, “www.yourbusiness.com/books”.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you’ve learned a thing or two! We’ve covered the basic terms and ideas you will need to understand in order to proceed further along this journey toward a high CTR for your ads. Then, after providing some foundation, we provided three easy steps you can take now to attain higher click-through rates for your ads. May the force be with you and may all your customers click and convert!
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