AdSense - low CTR

[Machiavelli]

I have been using AdSense for about 2 months now, and have been averaging just over 1% CTR. (about 1.14%)

This seems low to me.

I have been tweaking the design along the way, but no significant differences.

Any tips on how to improve this? Is this lower than average?

[limebrook1]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

I have been using adsense for 18 months now, and my click through rate in Dec averaged 2.70% - the previous Dec it was 1.9%. My experience is that click through rates aren't that high - but you need to concentrate on building up visitors to your site so that you will get more hits, and therefore more clicks! My earnings 12 months on are up to 10x what they were this time last year - would love to increase ten fold to next year!

Hope this helps!

[motoxxx]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

Google Ads can be maddening. I have spent tons of money on figuring AdWords out and I finally realized that having 2,000 key words is great....for Google!
I decided to target longer tail searches with much fewer keywords totally based off of wat people were searching fro in my industry. I designed my ads to only target those longer tail key word phrases..My number of impression went down considerably but my CTR went up over 13%....My costs also went way down by placing 3 different ad groups of the same add set to display for different prices on each of the three search options that Google gives you. I was able to cut my costs for competitive keywords down as much as 65% and my incoming traffic was wayyyy more targeted. Another thing you may want to cinsiderdoing is placing your pricing so that you ads show in the 3-7 results sopts. Most people ignore the ads at the very top of the page that are in spots 1 and 2....No point in paying a bunch of money to be pretty much ignored!

Your current average is low but that is pretty common.

[Bethers]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

My opinion - I don't care what my click through rate is - but my conversion rate on every PPC ad I put out there has to be at 2% or higher or I kill it.

Now, somethings to realize - if you're using really general terms, you'll not have a good click through or conversion rate and can't expect them. However, if you're using very targetted phrases and people aren't converting - then you have to expect it to be something on your site - or you aren't advertising what you're offering. If it's your site - you need to make sure the site is professional and your prices are reasonable (no you don't have to be the cheapest, but you also don't, in most situations, want to be the most expensive). Do you have solid contact information. Is it easy for your visitors to find what they came for. Do you have them coming in to the right landing pages.

Lots of variables here - but one thing that's a must. If you're using PPC you MUST have a ROI in the black - if not, you need to stop it and rethink your plan. There are very few exceptions to this - one would be if you were taking a specific dollar amount to test some phrases, etc. When the $ amount was gone you'd look at the statistics. Sometimes this is done at a loss - but, I promise, when people do that at a loss, they don't put more money into those terms unless they make changes that they believe will turn it around.

[motoxxx]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

The only reason tha CTR is important at all is that the better your click thru rate is, the less it costs to maintain a higher placing ad..Google lowers the price per click for higher performing ads. They do this because their job is to offer the most relevant search results and if an ad is performing well with a hgher CTR are deemed as more relevant,

I leanred this from Perry Marshall. I highly recomend reading up on him.

[Bethers]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

No argument here, Motoxxx.

And I shouldn't have said it's not at all important - but usually, for those starting out, it's not what I suggest they begin with - as I don't suggest they begin with those more generic terms.

You're are right, and I stand corrected there.

[motoxxx]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

The only reason that CTR is important at all is that the better your click thru rate is, the less it costs to maintain a higher placing ad..Google lowers the price per click for higher performing ads. They do this because their job is to offer the most relevant search results and if an ad is performing well with a hgher CTR are deemed as more relevant.

Including incredibly broad search terms or phrases can get you a ton of ad views, but those aren't the types of views that convert.

I also created pages on one of my sites that are just landing pages for very specific targeted keyword phrases that are optimized for exactly the way people search. This keeps my ads performing well as they are 100% relevant to the search query and the cost is much lower. It means you have to create more pages, but since they are just landing pages, designed to give the visitor EXACTLY what they are searching for, it is very easy and fast to do once you have a template that works well. My landing pages convert at approx 40% of all visitors take one of two desired actions. I think that is pretty good.

I learned this from Perry Marshall. I highly recomend reading up on him.

[motoxxx]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

Not sure why the first part of my post posted twice.......

Not very often I get to correct you Beth.....I'll take this one! :)

[Bethers]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

:)

And what you do is exactly what I do with products when I use PPC. But it's also how I optimize so that I can get the traffic withOUT PPC which I like much, much better.

[motoxxx]

Re: AdSense - low CTR

yep yep yep.......Amen!

The free traffic from properly optimized site pages for targeted key word phrases (long tail keywords) convert about 500% better. Organic search results are definately the best way to go. The biggest problem for most people is learning exactly how to get those results. It is a bit of an art form and a science combined as I have learned the hard way. If you can do the basic keyword optimization effectively for your site and you really understand exactly how that works and how "search" works, it really makes doing PPC a whole bunch more effective and cheaper.