Effects of ad position on click-thru rates

any studies or reports on this?

[fom2001uk]

Are there any reports or studies which have found significant diffrences in CTRs between say 1st, 2nd and 3rd position ads on Adwords?

I have a potential client who's been doing Adwords on his own for a while and paying over the odds IMO. His strategy is simple. Out-bid the top spot to maintain top position for all his chosen phrases. I want to tell him that's not cost-effective and No2 or even No3 spots get clicked almost as often.

But I've no evidence. It's just a hunch. I don't believe position is as vital in Adwords as it is in the organic SERPs. But I'm happy to be proved wrong, if there is any proof.

[Robsp]

There is a clear relationship between position and CTR (higher pos means higher CTR) but the more important question is how are conversions at the different positions. There you are likely to see a significant difference. Does you client measure in any way?

BTW I would create better ads for your client. This lowers the price and increases CTR.

[fom2001uk]

The first thing I'll be recommending is for him to use the conversion tracking. Until I've seen data from that, I can't really comment on ROI.

BTW are your comments on position and CTR based on your own experiences, and are these typical for most?
I'd still like to see some percentages for 1st v 2nd v 3rd positions. Are there any published figures?

[Robsp]

We run over 60 adwords campaigns and this is the overall picture. There are no figures because this is very industry and ad text dependant. IMO it is also not very relevant. A good CTR combined with a great conversion is what interests me the most. We tend to shy away from the top positions as they have the rendency to draw people that do not read, but just click on the first thing they see. Then again we also have campaigns where nr 1 is doing very well for us. As always, it depends...

[redzone]

We capture the ave position daily, and record it against impressions/clicks/actions/CPA for that specific day.

I could create a process to calculate CTR/conversion data by position, but I think Cost per Conversion is a much more important metric.

[poster_boy]

Obviously depends on many factors, but - in my experience - CTR and conversion tend to have an inverse relationship. This is true with positions... if the ad is written well, and succeeds in driving qualified traffic, the difference can be minimized. But, in general, lower positions bring about more qualified visitors... those who may have clicked on a handful of ads ranked higher to finally purchase when coming to yours... But, if you have a compelling offer and/or splash page - the searcher will have to reason to continue their search elsewhere.

Is it more complicated than that? Yes. But, in general, that's what I've found...

[fom2001uk]

Okay, this all pounds positive as far as my initial thinking goes. I feel happier now to tell the client that while 1st position will generate more click-thrus, it does npot generate the most conversions and that it will not generate the best ROI.

In general though, do you guys try to keep your ads in the top 3 positions (or just settle for the top 8 assuming it's 8 per page)?

[Robsp]

Generally speaking we go as high as positive ROI allows us to go. Higher means more expensive means potentially lower ROI. There is a point where you reach an optimal volume and ROI combination and the only way to find out where that is, is to measure and try.

[eWhisper]

A brief case study from last year about positions, profits, and ROI:

Forget ROI, just give me profits [webmasterworld.com]

[running scared]

Some useful info in the Atlas institute insights released last year

[atlasdmt.com...]