Every marketer is looking to improve their metrics for digital marketing campaigns. For Google AdWords especially, tracking and measuring conversions, click through rates, and costs-per-click is critical for Google Ads campaign success. Increasing your metrics is the quickest way to improve the campaign’s performance and the business’s bottom line. So, how can you get a good CTR or good click-through-rate? It depends on a range of factors.
Knowing industry benchmarks can give you a rough estimate of what a good click through rate is for your brand. If you’re in real estate and your average click-through-rate is 10%, that might sound pretty good at first. But if the average click through rate for the real estate industry is 18%, you have some room to improve. Improving your CTR starts with knowing industry averages and going from there.
Without knowing the average CTR for your industry, you won’t have a good idea of how well or poorly your campaigns are performing. Letting a poorly-performing ad run on autopilot is not suitable for your budget. Here’s what you need to know about conversion rates and click through rates.
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Factors Influencing Click Through Rates
Many different factors will influence click through rates for your Google ads. The ad copy, headline, and other social proof and trust indicators can all lower or improve click through and conversion rates for Google ads. If you get just one factor wrong, it can harm your click through rates and cut into your profit margins. Get each factor right, and you’ll see more sales, conversions, a higher quality score, and lower ad spend.
Are you using standard search network ads? If that’s the case, then there are two primary factors influencing your click through rates in regards to text-based Google ads. But if you’re using display network ads, then things are more complicated. The ad position and where your website ad displays, along with a variety of other factors, will either give you a good click through rate or one that is below the industry standard. Below are the main click through rate factors for Google ads.
Headline
The headline is one of the first things a person sees when your ad displays. If it’s not relevant to your target audience or keywords, the ad either won’t display, or people will not be compelled to click on it. In other cases, people will click the ad, but not convert. A high volume of clicks but a low volume of sales is not good for business.
Headlines are a total of 60 characters long and divided into two sections, separated by a dash. Headlines that are keyword optimised and catchy will give you a good click through rate. Sometimes, all it takes is a change to the headline to see better metrics.
Ad Copy
Directly below the ad headline is the ad copy. Again, it must be keyword relevant for your ad groups, but also compelling for readers. Ad copy is also called the “description.” Here, you have just 80 characters to grab readers’ attention and get them to click on your ads. Within the ad copy, you’ll want to outline the benefits and features of the product and include a call-to-action within those 80 character limits. But you can use ad extensions to give you more room for ad copy.
Get creative and go into a little bit of detail about the product or service you’re offering. Why should the reader click the ad and buy from you? Make sure that your ad copy is also relevant to your landing pages where viewers will go once they click on the ad. If not, you could alienate viewers and hurt your conversion rates.
Ad Position
Less-experienced marketers will often overlook the ad position, but it’s an essential factor for getting a good click through rate for your campaigns. The ad position refers to where the ads show up on the search results page. Google’s auctioning system is what determines which ads get what spots on the search results page. The ads that get the higher spots will get better click through rates. People pay a lot of money to get the number one spot on Google.
Ad Pictures or Creative
Are you using the Google display network to advertise your business? Then your ads are showing up on third-party websites. So, the ads that use this medium of promotion will look different than regular Google text ads. Ad creative refers to the pictures these types of ads use to entice viewers to click. Relevant, bold, and eye-catching ad creative will give you higher click through rates since it will grab the viewer’s attention more than bland, generic ad creative. Think of your ad creative as a digital billboard. Choose your colour scheme, font, and ad copy wisely.
Good Click Through Rates: Industry Benchmarks
The average click through rate for Google search ads is 1.91%. For display network ads, it’s just .35%. Why do these two types of ads have such different click through rates? Well, for each industry, search ad click through rates are typically higher because of the types of people who view the ads. These viewers have typed in a keyword or phrase into the search bar. As a result, the ad is triggered and displays to them.
One thing marketers should be aware of though, is that they don’t want certain people viewing search ads. In this case, it’s important to identify negative keywords for your ads. With negative keywords, searchers who enter these particular terms won’t trigger your ad to display. Many marketers enter the word “free” as a negative keyword for their ads. On the display network, ads may display for viewers, but not the right viewers. In this instance, the ads will get lots of impressions but no clicks, and thus, a low click through rate.
If you’re unsure of how to analyse your click through rates for any type of ad format, there are a lot of free tools you can use that will give you the insight you need. Google Analytics and historical data within the Google Ads account can help. Reach out to us today at Australian Internet Advertising. We’ll do a full audit of your Google ads and give you some pointers on how to maximise your click through and conversion rates.
