In Google Ads, CTR plays a very crucial role in ad positioning. Without having a good CTR you cannot get a good rank for your ads.
Before understanding the ways of increasing Google Ads CTR, let us get familiar with some of the key terms associated with it.
1. Google Ads: It’s an online advertising platform developed by Google, now simply known as Google ads. Here advertisers pay for the products and services they offer. On this advertising platform, advertisers need to bid on certain keywords for their clickable ads to be displayed on Google’s search results and advertisers have to pay for these clicks which is also known as PPC (Pay Per click).
2. Click through rate (CTR): It is the ratio of number of clicks done on a particular ad and total number of times that ad was shown. Suppose your ad had ten clicks and it appeared hundred times, then CTR will be 10%. A good CTR value indicates that your ad and keywords are relevant and supportive.
Click-through rate plays a significant role on various aspects like achieving high quality score by low cost per click (CPC) and minimum bid.
3. Average click through rate: Click-through rate varies across networks, it depends upon the type of network ad is shown. To calculate average CTR across various network, let us examine types of network.
Generally, there are two types of network, one is search based and other is display based.
On search based network, text based ads are presented while on the other side image based ads are displayed. CTR of display based network is less than search based network because it is generally used for creating awareness across wide masses.
Various ways to increase Google Ads CTR are as follows:
1. Keywords: It is important to decide the keywords you are bidding for before creating an ad copy because keywords play a vital role in increasing the CTR value.
Well it’s not always necessary to choose most competitive keywords available in the market for bidding whereas you can use the keywords that are being used by your direct competitors.
You need to add target keywords in headlines as well as in display URL for getting proper attention of users who are searching for the same phrases or keywords which result in inclination and clicks towards these ads . You can also add a competitor in your ad copy as an effective market strategy.
If you add anyone of the three in your account, it simply restricts keywords from showing for that match type.
2. Dynamic Keyword Insertion: It is a special feature in your Google Ads account, which helps you insert keyword dynamically into your ads.
Or, we can simply say that DKI helps you to personalize your adverts based on various search terms that someone might be searching for.
It’s so much reliable and convenient to use that it can be used in various type of businesses and mainly in those which have larger inventories like Ecommerce. Since, for large inventories, it requires several ad groups to be created, so it’s better to save time, money and energy by using DKI.
3. Ad Extensions: While searching on a particular search engine you may have noticed that top ads contain some additional information which increases the size as well as make it more relevant for users to click on it. Adding ad extensions don’t cost you extra. You can use different types of extensions likewise Site link, call, review, callout, location and many more.
i. Site link: It simply take users to different parts of the site which allow users to navigate faster as per their needs.
ii. Call Extension: It helps users to get in touch easily either by their mobile devices or through various software which have calling facility from their desktop.
iii. Review Extension: It helps to display ads with review analysis and provide some positive reviews. It helps you to gain more CTR.
iv. Snippet Extension: It simply does the work of highlighting various products or services they offer like sale, seasonal discounts, etc.
4. Adding Symbols or Numbers in Headlines: Sometimes adding symbols or numbers in headlines makes work simpler for you in competing with your market’s competitors. It is catchy and more attentive for users, thus helping in increasing Google Ads CTR.
Apart from symbols and numbers, if everything else is the same, then chances are that ads having symbols or numbers have higher chances of CTR results since, it points out useful or attractive offer or information.
5. Discarding Prices: Mentioning prices in your ads emphasize to users that they have to spend money. Generally, cutting out the prices from ad might be helpful in your ad’s CTR and also work in cases where it’s known that your ads are not the cheapest one.
Everyone wants a good deal rather than spending extra money. Instead of putting prices you can go for offering discounts. Apart from this, you can also opt for giving something for free, this will be helpful as everyone wants something for free. So, you can put your ads which has free service. Likewise buy one get one offer, free demo, gifts or anything which is good for your ad.
6. Bid Adjustments: Having bids too low will lead to suffering of your CTR values. Proper adjustment of your bids at a particular time interval helps you maintain your ad rank or to go on the top position in some cases. So, it’s necessary to review your bid. Generally, it is useful to increase the bid price during high time of sale for maximum profit.
It’s better to increase bids during lunch hour to influence people who are searching during this hour. Also, you should not forget to decrease bid prices for night hours and weekends when offices are generally closed.
7. Location Bidding: Location bidding is also one of the key factor in determining how bid adjustments are implemented properly. Different users from various physical locations search in distinct text.
Suppose two users are searching for the same query i.e. “winter dress” but one lives in Cape town while other lives in Canada. Meaning changes for this query depending on the geographical location from where it was entered. Let us assume that users from California have higher return on investment compared with other locations. It means it’s a good place to initiate but firstly, you need to start measuring. You can’t get it unless you track it.
8. Quality Score: It’s a rating issued by Google and through this, quality of ads and keywords are measured. It depends upon various factors such as appearance, quality of landing page, relevancy of your keywords and CTR of your ads. It typically leads to better ad positions with minimum bids i.e. you don’t need to pay more for top rank or to maintain a good rank for your ads, still you will be on the higher rank if your quality score is more than average.
So question is that how to improve your quality score in an effective manner?
By applying some technique on it you can improve your quality score which enhances the growth of your ad’s CTR. Like:
• Providing more relevant ads.
• Organizing your keywords properly.
• Attractive Headlines.
9. Precise Ads: Your ads should be precise and appropriate. It shouldn’t look like that you have written a theory. Ads must be catchy and informative with minimal text input as much as possible. It should be less comprehensive and not have so many pauses. Instead of that, it should be smoother and flow seamlessly.
10. Targeting strategy: Splitting device bid tactics will help you to gain higher CTR value across different platforms. Assume that your ad’s CTR is less on mobile devices then you can try increasing bids, if it’s still not performing well then you can leave it as well.
In this way, you can track CTR across various devices and make bid adjustments as required on desktop or mobile devices.
11. Landing Page layout: Your website layout should be conscious and responsive, Suppose your users are using desktop more than mobile devices then you can’t ignore about responsiveness of your website as it may affect your CTR.
So, you have to design your layout in such a way that it is highly conscious and easily responds on a click.
12. Search Engines Traffic: It is necessary to know that your website traffic should be more from search engines otherwise it’s not good for your website. It should be at least 70-75% of overall traffic medium. Since, most of your visitors are from search engines then they might click on your ads as they are on a search to find relevant information.
13. Bounce Rate: As the name suggests, it simply means to get back from something. This term is generally used for traffic analysis. It gives an idea of number of visitors that enter on your site and bounce back without further viewing other pages of the same site.
Note: High Bounce Rate is bad for you while having a low Bounce Rate is good for you.
There is not any calculative parameter to measure exact Bounce Rate rather than it is measured by session timeout. Thus, we can say that higher the bounce rate lower will be CTR and vice versa.
14. Analyze Spam Red Flag: If your website has a spam red flag then it also could be one of the reasons of having a lower CTR. If it seems that on a search engine your website is not offering the desire value to its users, then it won’t characterize you in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) or give you good rankings. There can be various reasons for this red flag, such as:
• Numeral values in your URL.
• So many external links and very few internal links.
• Lack of contact details in your website.
All of the above reasons and some others that aren’t listed above may consider your website as spam. So, with the help of an online tool you can vanish it.
15. Uniqueness in your ads: So after discussing all technical aspects of increasing Google Ads CTR everything comes to being unique and showing some creativity in your ad copy. Look out at your market competitor’s ads and see what you can do with your uniqueness which differ from others. Think outside the box, think beyond keywords, focus on target search than the search terms. Doing this, will help you to think more, write better and generate higher Google Ads CTR.
Conclusion:
In order to achieve better CTR, there are several methods which we have discussed in the above points. We studied about various terms like keywords, ad extensions, bid adjustments, quality score, targeting strategy, bounce rate and many more. You got to know that choosing a right keyword can be effective for your account and importance of ad extensions in providing relevant information. You also get proper techniques of bid adjustments and at what time it will play a vital role.
Then you further came to know that even a good rank can be acquired with minimum bid, by working on a quality score which is closely related to appearances and quality of your page. By performing the above mentioned CTR accumulation techniques, you can increase your desired Google Ads CTR which further leads to better quality score and suddenly it brings your Ads prices down.