CTR By Position. Where is the Optimum?

Whatīs yours like?

[exmoorbeast]

I was looking over some campaigns in an effort to find some useful data planning into the Holiday Season.

Iīm not going to paste CPCs here, but I thought it would be useful to discuss where the best place to get good CTR an volumes is. For us the most expensive position seems to be number 6 for some reason. Average prices at number 1 were actually lower than 3, 4 etc.

This is for a high volume site with 8 months data to digest.

1 9.3%
2 8.2%
3 7.1%
4 4.6%
5 3.8%
6 3.0%
7 2.8%
8 2.3%
9 2.3%
10 2.2%
11 2.0%
12 1.8%
13 1.8%
14 1.7%
15 1.5%
16 1.5%
17 1.6%
18 1.5%
19 1.6%
20 1.6%

Would be good if people could paste theirs too!

[poster_boy]

Average prices at number 1 were actually lower than 3, 4 etc.

For this analysis, did you remove outliers such as 'long tail' or 'brand' keywords? In these situations, if you are the only bidder, one of only a few bidders, or - such as for 'Brand' terms - if you're exceptionally relevant, your high positions would be achieved at a low CPCs.

But, this trend is not representative of what you should expect for competitive keywords... for these - I doubt you'd find, on average, that higher positions are cheaper than lower.

[exmoorbeast]

Good point, though this is just a basket, so it will have competitive and non competitive terms included. I canīt off the top of my head tell you the weighting.

Regarding higher prices at higher positions, we ran a test with a client that was number one paying about 5 usd, where number 16 was paying 14 usd per click for the exact same kw, so I donīt think itīs that easy to draw any conclusions.

Itīs an interesting excercise nonetheless, and thanks for the feedback.

[AndrewInternet]

I have some further interesting figures.

I bid on a word which costs me on Average Cost per Click 18p - this is in Position 1 with a CTR of 18.73%.

I Know of another company that bids on the exact same word and is positioned 14 with an average Cost Per Click of 18p.

They're CTR is 2.10%. I would class both companies as similar.

[poster_boy]

Regarding higher prices at higher positions, we ran a test with a client that was number one paying about 5 usd, where number 16 was paying 14 usd per click for the exact same kw, so I donīt think itīs that easy to draw any conclusions.

Agreed. This is an example of how powerful QS is... in each of these examples, the #1 company has achieved a significant discount (lower price, higher position) vs. other companies in the space.

My comment regarding higher positions costing higher prices was for the same company. If client A was paying X in position 4, I doubt they'd be paying < X in positions 1 - 3. But, certainly - client C could absolutely be.