One click per thousand impressions seems absurd.
Are other people having similar experiences? Does anyone have ideas on how to increase CTR for content ads?
Cheers,
Andy.
May I add..
1. Our average cost per click is substantially higher for content ads. It seems that the only most expensive terms are showing on partner content sites, though thats only a guess.
2. I think it would be impossible for Adwords to be as relevant on external content sites than google SERPS pages ever, given Google knows exactly what the SERP page will look like before it delivers the ads, and has far more information on which to base their relevance algo. Therefore adwords in Google sERPS are much better targeted.
2b) That said i would expect this to improve in time. At present Adwords are showing on a very small number if external content sites due to the large number of impressions needed before google can cost effectively deliver ads to a certain site or network. It therefore gives Google much less "content" and less specific content to choose from.
Chiyo, I'm seeing a *lower* average CPC for content ads. But most of my content ad impressions are concentrated in a couple of keyword groups, so I suspect they're only showing on one or two specific sites (don't know which) - therefore maybe they're not representative.
Of course, CAs can't be as targeted as SERPS. But it would be good - both for me and for Google - if I could raise the CTR to something statistically significant. ;)
Users respond quite differently when they have actively searched for something, as to opposed to when they just happen to see it while they were doing something else (which is what the Adwords content ads would be).
I had the same problem when I started Adwords. I finally gave up on my pet ads and keywords and spent about two weeks experimenting. I looked at what people were actually using to find my site (not what I thought at all!), and crafted ads with those keywords *in* the ad. I also picked up on less popular and broad keywords, for instance, I went with "left hand widgets" and "paisley widgets" instead of just "widgets".
Read the Adwords helpfiles, everything you need is in there, honest. You have to stop trying to drive the market, and learn how to ride the market.
Not to brag, just a fact - my current average CTR is 4.3%, with a few ads topping at 20+, and my average CPC is just 12 cents. I just followed what the help files said, and tweaked tweaked tweaked.
I love Adwords, they make the cash register ring for me every day ;)
cheers,
Chris
Seems like they are trying to hide the fact that Adwords just don't work. Could that be true?
