CTR is one of the performance indicators of Google Ads campaigns. An indicator to know and to work on. This is especially true if you care about a well-earned advertising campaign. My article explains what CTR is, why it pays to work on it and how to do it.
CTR – what is it?
CTR, or Click Through Rate, is the click-through rate. It will give you an idea of the ratio of clicks on your ad to the number of impressions, i.e. how often customers actually clicked on your ad after it was displayed. This value is given on a percentage scale. If the ad is viewed by 1,000 customers and 150 people click on it, then the click-through rate will be 15%. You can find CTR data in Google Search Console and in Google Analytics. Here’s the formula you use to calculate CTR:
CTR = (clicks / displays) x 100%.
Your goal should be the highest possible CTR, because it confirms that your ad has caught the interest of many users.
What affects the CTR?
There are three basic elements that affect the CTR, these are:
- The position of the ad in the search results;
- The content of the ad, i.e. what is supposed to convince Internet users to click just on your ad;
- The relevance of the ad, which determines whether the customer will find content from you that matches their query.
What kind of CTR is good?
Interpretation of the click-through rate result depends on many factors. It can be assumed quite generally that the higher the CTR, the better. However, both 1% and 20% CTR can be a good result. It all depends on the characteristics of the industry, the scale of sales, the type of marketing activities carried out, whether the ad displays only on Google or the ad network, etc. Most importantly, CTR is just one indicator for measuring the effectiveness of a Google campaign. In order to get a complete picture of the effectiveness of an ad, it is worth comparing Click Through Rate with other indicators, such as rejection rate, conversion rate and, most importantly, ROI.
How to increase Click Through Rate?
There are quite a few possibilities, below are some suggestions for actions that, when properly implemented, quickly bring the desired results:
- focus on the organization of the account – create ad groups for specific issues in the offer,
- Invest time in keyword selection,
- pay attention to
Google Ads match types
– Tight generates more clicks because the ads are more relevant,
- use
exclude keywords
,
- Test different variations of advertising,
- Refine advertising texts,
- polish the headline and preferably expand it,
- remember the CTA,
- use ad extensions.
The click-through rate, as one of the indicators of the effectiveness of Google Ads campaigns, combines the interests of Google, search users and you – the advertiser. If you refine your campaign and take care of all its elements, you will respond to the needs of Internet users and effectively attract them to your website. And from there, it’s only a step to realizing the stated goal.
