Terrible CTR

How can I raise it?

[zeus661]

I have an ad group in which I have one keyword and many negative words. The CTR is only .4%. I feel I need to keep that keyword because it is a main word. Any ideas how to raise my CTR? My average position is 5.8 with this ad. I had the keyword listed as a broad word and just put brackets around it. Should I ad quotes? Any ideas? Thanks

[PeteM]

1) Improve your ad copy.

Look hard ad your ad. Is there anything that is discouraging people from clicking on the ad? Is your main keyword in the title AND in the 2nd or 3rd line? Is there a call to action (Buy Now!). There's loads of tips on the Adwords site.

2) Increase your max CPC.

Good luck, Pete

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Zeus661, to PeteM's suggestions, I'd add:

* Make sure your Ad Groups are well targeted - meaning that the excellent ad PeteM suggested is brought up by someone searching on a keyword about exactly the same thing.

* Another way to say the same thing: you probably don't want to use keywords in the Ad Group that are not specifically about the same thing as the ad - unless they are very carefully chosen, and 'protected' with negative keywords.

* To create really targeted Ad Groups, you may want to consider making each Ad Group about only one thing - or one type of thing.

* Use multiple Ad Groups to your advantage - they cost nothing to create except your time, and you can create 100 of them in each campaign. Use as many Ad Groups as it takes to advertise each thing you offer in a separate and highly targeted way.

AWA