Not a big thing but how can an add be clicked more than it had an impression? If the same person clicks it twice it should not count as two clicks.
2. User clicks back button on your site after clicking your PPC ad, back to SERPs and then clicks you PPC ad AGAIN.
If this was the case every competitor would do it a hundred times... I thought those kind of clicks were not counted.
You are not viewing the report as all time, maybe just yesterdays statistics. If someone gets an impression at one second to midnight and clicks at one second past midnight, then you can actually filter the impression - so you get no imressions but one click for the second day. Someone else gets an impression and then clicks - taking you to a one impression but two clicks (200% CTR) situation, although you really got a 100% clickthrough rate.
Also, delays in reporting do not make sense, but they do happen.
1. There is a delay in reporting clicks to impressions.
Possible though it would not make sense to display impressions and clicks not at the same time.
This is actually quite common, zgb999, as the servers that are deal with stats for clicks and impressions will not necessarily update on the same schedule.
Of the 'causes' mentioned here, this is the most common (and likely), IMO.
AWA
When asking adwords support about it they told me it was because of somebody using the back button and clicking the same add again. Was this information wrong?
I checked the stats again. Until now all data should have been updated I guess. For that particular day (11th) the keyword had only 6 impressions. I had 5 clicks for it which gave me a CTR of 83,3 % which is quite unlikely isn't it?
Thank you for the feedback AWA!
My pleasure, zgb999. ;)
When asking adwords support about it they told me it was because of somebody using the back button and clicking the same add again. Was this information wrong?
No, it's certainly another possibility.
I checked the stats again. Until now all data should have been updated I guess. For that particular day (11th) the keyword had only 6 impressions. I had 5 clicks for it which gave me a CTR of 83,3 % which is quite unlikely isn't it?
It is a bit unusual, but not unheard of. Now, if you had the same CTR after 10,000 impressions, that would be another story.
On a related note, I've talked to some brand new advertisers who are thrilled with, say, one click in three impressions (33.3% CTR). I felt sort of bad popping the bubble, and suggesting that when impressions are very low, the CTR is not really that meaningful as a measure of success.
I'd say that it's when the keywords near 1000 impressions that the CTR becomes more meaningful. Just my opinion, though, and I'm sure others on the forum have different thoughts.
AWA
You are certainly right that high CTR for words with few impressions don't say too much. I was more interested in the whole thing as I thought it would mess a lot of things if the same person is counted as 2 clicks if they use the back button. But as I understand your feedback this is not the case.
I have tried this in the past, and you do get a double click for a single impression... Not much you can do though, but I'm sure this mounts up over a large number of clicks/impressions (especially with slower dialup users). Clearly important to make sure your sites are ultra-fast loading to minimise this extra cost.
The other possibility is that the destination site didn't load quick enough for the user, leading them to click the adwords link a second time to try again.
Hmm didn't think of that. Would be a very good reason for a landingpage if you promote affiliate programs. CJ redirects etc. are often not the fastest loading.
But it remains stupid in my opinion that these clicks are billed!