An ad group with 4 keywords has individual CTR's of 4.1%, 2.9%, 1.6%, 1.1% and an overall CTR of 3.1%. Would removal of the lower 2 keywords resulting in a higher overall CTR for the remaining 2 boost the position of the remaining 2 if everything else remained stable.
Similarly, is the inclusion of the lower 2 keywords allowing them a higher position due to the higher overall CTR?
The AdGroup CTR is just to give you an idea about the effectiveness of your ad copy.
"Your ad is ranked on the search results page based on a combination of its maximum cost-per-click (CPC) and clickthrough rate (CTR). The higher your CPC or CTR, the higher your ad's position."
Seems to me this says that it is the ad's CPC and CTR
and not the keyword phrase's. What is 'its maximum' referring to? an ad? a keyword phrase?
Certainly not clear to me. Anybody really know?
It could have implications as to how you would
organize adgroups and ads.
Kelvin
Let us ASSUME that the ad's position depends on the ad's CTR (rather than the keyword's CTR).
This particular ad is used by two keywords - red widgets and blue widgets. For the keyword "red widgets", there are no competitors at all and the keyword CTR is 10%. For the keyword "blue widgets", there are a number of competitors and the keyword CTR is 1%.
Assuming both the keywords get equal number of clicks, the average CTR of the ad will be 5%.
If Google AdWords considers the ad's CTR (5 percent) rather than the keyword CTR (1 percent), don't you think it would be unfair to the other advertisers of the keyword "blue widgets"?
So, from what I understand, Google takes the keyword CTR and calculates the position. If it does NOT, then the system is unfair!
I think everyone assumes its the keyword CTR and they may well be correct but the wording from Google itself does not indicate that.
SOmetimes I think Google just likes to get people like ourselves guessing!
Kelvin
Kelvin
My CTR is quite a lot higher during the week than at weekends and so would pausing my campaigns at the weekend benefit my position or do pauses cause negative effects?
The importance of the campaigns and groups is that they are a collective entity for the sake of aggregation. So if you have say 10 campaigns with 10 ad groups in each campaign with 10 keywords in each ad in the ad group, then 1000 impressions will disappear in no time at all. If you don't get above 0.5% across the board then the 3 strikes rule will start to apply.
The introduction of being able to specify a different CPC for each keyword in a group negated the importance of having the best CPC for the group in place. Prior to this you would have keywords that could be costing less costing a lot more because they were being hampered by poorer performing keywords. We used to sift out those keywords (and still do in a lot of cases), but now we prefer to use the same ads but specify a different, more competitive CPC on those really important keywords.
As for pausing, you have to work on the assumption that the same rules apply for everyone. If less people search for your solution at weekends then it shouldn't affect your CTR. It may be you have a different sort of audience at weekends and might need to "lift the bonnet" and see if there might be some negative keywords that can be added to deter the tire kickers, or possibly change the ad copy, but we have found that pausing ads means you often lose your place in the pecking order.
