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There was this successful Overture campaign - it was getting a 14% click-through ratio and converting 6% of those clicks. So we decided to create a Google version. But of course it's not exactly a straight conversion, since the number of words is so limited on Google, among other things.
Still, we picked what seemed to be the punchiest parts of the descriptions, kept the title, and hit a brick wall. After only 4 hours Google was kicking out keywords because of low CTR (below 0.5% !)
How can it be that different? What are the factors that operate here?
Overture will only display your advert for a (near) exact match, so if you were advertising on the phrase "sony television", your ad will display if someone searches on "sony television" and "sony televisions".
On Google, you will also get your advert displayed if they search for "extended warranty on sony television", "problem fix for sony television", "manual for old television needed. Sony" etc...
Google uses exact matching if you specify. I think it is you surround the keyphrases with [...].
Also, we somehow got 1900 ad impressions in three hours on a word that gets 200 a day on Overture.
Well, it's an adventure, anyway!
For example:
you can bid on "sony television" and "sony televisions" if you are selling them
however I would recommend that you also set up negative words also (preceed them with '-'):
-remote control (would stop need replacement ... for ...)
-manual (to stop need ... for ...)
-faulty
-problem
-error
-dead
-broken
-warranty
-guarantee
-plasma (assuming you don't sell plasma televisions)
-alternative
-alternatives
and so on... the best place to find all the negative keywords is in your own log files!
We have been unable to find the answer to your question.
It seems that it can vary from industry to industry and between products / services.
In some cases we have paused all adwords campaigns in a given industry because the pricing is out of line.
On the other hand in an extreme example Overture is priced $0.58 over adwords for a KW in the #2 position.
Overture returns a 2.6% CRT
Adwords returns a 25.7% CTR [32.9 on the misspell :)]
August month to date traffic for the core KW:
7 vs 166
0.5% is frankly terrible, and for almost ANY Google ad, it is possible to achieve 3%+ if you know what to do.
How many competitors do you have for your keywords?
Have you started using AdGroups?
One surefire way to increasing CTR is to use the top keyword as the advertisement title. If you are selling Sony Monitors, and if monitor is your top keyword, your ad should read -
Sony Monitors for sale (Title)
Sony desktop monitors, TFT
screens blah blah blah (ad content)
Make sure your secondary keywords (like TFT screens, for example) are in the body of the ad. That's because when these keywords are in the body/title, they are highlighted (in bold)and this generally improves CTR.
Hope this helps!
Ashwin
gsx, I think you're right that the trick may be in the negative words. I read about them but blew it off. Now I roll up my sleeves.
That is one HUGE difference. Thanks for the help so far.
When all searches containing a main keyword are relevant, we keep it strait and get all the wild cards combinations minus a few negative KW and keep a sharp eye on the CTR to polish the ad.
If we bid on a related secondary KW, then we use a bunch of [exact words] to select only the relevant search word combinations that will pass the 1% CTR threshold to keep the ad alive. The more (free!) impressions, the better for branding. As long as it does not bring too many useless cliks.
Now that the lay of the land is clearer to me, we've had a day of 10% CTR on some of the AdGroups. I'm going to sleep a whole lot better. I still think I ran into some kind of software hiccup -- can the open match really be hundreds of times greater than the exact match?
But whatever the case, it's working now and sometimes that's all you can hope for.
CTR is important for targeted searches to measure the success of your ad for tweaking. It's not important if you bid on borderline relevant search KW combinations and you still get 1% or 2% CTR. If a person is looking for something else and ends up visiting my site, it's ok with me if the price and the ROI is right.
- Start specific. Others have mentioned exact matching, but don't neglect using really specific phrases. Targeted phrases get better qualified users, and higher CTR and ROI for you.
- Target, target, target. Google lets you pick and choose which countries to show ads to. If you're a US-only business, leave the 50% of international users out. If you're in Canada, target your ads there, eh.
- Be patient. Sounds like you're picking up AdWords *really* fast, but it does take time to fully master it. Without fail, we see a strong trend that advertisers get better CTR over time as they learn what converts users. Play with it a little bit and that time will pay off for your ROI.
- Tweak. If you put in a bunch of phrases, then watch which one convert and which ones don't, you can quickly get better conversion. Let "selection of the fittest" ads work for you.
- Use the keyword in the ad. Google considers ads to be a beneficial source of info (just like our search results), so we bold keywords from the user's query. If the user sees their keyword or phrase in the ad, then they know it's specific to their needs.
Okay, what do you think? Am I ready to join the marketing department? ;)
Ashwin
