Let’s take a look into what click-through rate is, what a good CTR is and its effect on your ad rank and Quality Score.

In Internet marketing, click-through rate or CTR is a metric measured by marketers to understand clicks received on ads per number of impressions. Put simply, achieving a high click-through rate shows the (first level of) effectiveness of your PPC campaign. This, in turn, affects your Quality Score and the cost in which you incur every time someone clicks your search ad.

What is click-through rate, anyway?

Put simply, PPC click-through rate is the rate at which your ads are clicked. This number is the percentage of people who view your ad (impressions) and then go onto click your ad (aka, your clicks).

But why are click-through rates important?

If your ad is not receiving clicks, it could be that you’re targeting the wrong audience, using ineffective copy or the wrong imagery. Or it could be that your copy doesn’t quite match the webpage you’re sending users to. 

Click-through rate is important for measuring the success of your ads because it directly affects your Quality Score.

Hold up, what’s Quality Score?

Quality Score is Google’s rating of your quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads. Alongside this, it is used to determine your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process.

Your Quality Score depends on a range of things, including:

• The relevance of each keyword to its ad group

• Your click-through rate (CTR)

• Landing page quality and relevance (what we mentioned earlier regarding the right content)

• The relevance of your ad text

• Your historical Google Ads account performance

The more relevant your ads - with higher click-through rates - the higher your ad rankings and lower costs incurred.

What does click-through rate help to measure?

As well as measuring the number of people that have physically clicked your ad (obviously), this also helps to measure a variety of other factors. As well as measuring your CTR, you can gauge the following:

• Average cost per click

• Cost per click

• Cost per acquisition (CPA)

• Conversion rate

• Impression share

• Average position 

• Bounce rate

What is a ‘good’ click-through rate?

A hot topic amongst advertisers: What is a good click-through rate?

The answer is… It kinda depends. This often varies from campaign to campaign, even from keyword to keyword. It can depend on your ad copy, where it is displayed, everything. Many say that when you’re just starting off in PPC, you’re going to have a lot of trial and error. While everyone strives for a ‘high’ click-through rate, there really is no magic number.

Why higher click-through rates can be bad for business

If your ad isn’t generating sales but is gaining a lot of clicks, something isn’t quite right. A high click-through rate will then result in:

• You paying for every click 

• A lot of ad spend

• Clicks on keywords that are priced too high, which won’t turn a profit even if they did convert

How can you achieve a high click-through rate?

Achieving a high click-through rate (without meaningless clicks etc), it can depend on multiple factors:

• Cost-efficient clicks

• Targeted keywords to bid on

• Effective copywriting

• Knowing your audience well

• Testing

But how can you improve your PPC ads as a whole?

Determine what your customer’s emotions are.

What do they love or hate?

What’s the biggest problem they face?

How are you offering the solution to that problem?

Test your call to action (CTA)

There are so many ways to try and encourage someone to click, but here are just a few call to action variations you can test:

• Book

• Order

• Purchase

• Get Started

• Call

• Request

• Reserve

• Make Reservation

• Join

• Try

• Take

Are you looking for help with your copywriting or advertising needs? 

PPC doesn’t need to feel like an uphill battle. Let us help.