Are these CTRs believable?

[Hissingsid]

Hi,

Just for comparison for a two word term here are our Google Adwords and Yahoo Ads results month to date.

Google Adwords
Avg Post 2.1
CTR 19.8%

Overture Yahoo
Position consistently #1
CTR 10.02%

Why would the Adwords CTR be almost twice as high as Yahoo Ads when the ranking is consistently #1 of Yahoo and averages 2.1 on Google?

Would competitor click fraud be greater on Google than the Yahoo network? We only do sponsored search on Yahoo not "Content Match".

For other terms the differnce is not so great but the CTR for Google is typically 20% greater than on Yahoo. I can understand why the absolute numbers would be greater on Google but why would a greater percentage of impressions turn to clicks on Google?

Thanks for any input.

Sid

[arran]

Replicate the searches yourself:

Are the google organic listings more relevant than the yahoo ones? Also, look at the quality of the titles and snippets.

Are the other google PPC ads less relevant than the yahoo ones?

Do the froggle ads display product prices more expensive than the ones you display?

And most importantly, check your server logs for duplicate ip's, suspicious navigation etc.

arran.

[venrooy]

There are a number of factors which could cause this. If there are different competitor ads in each one, then this could cause a difference. Also some ads perform better in the #2 or #3 spot rather than the #1 spot. Also - the most obvious is that those that use Yahoo are a different group than those that use Google. They usually have completely different search habits.

[Hissingsid]

Hi,

Thanks for those ideas.

I've just done the search on Google and on Yahoo and put the two next to each other. In organic results on Google we are at #2 with an inset listing at #3. On Yahoo we are #1 and #3 with a different competitor to the one that has #1 spot on Google in between. We also have page from another site of ours at #6 on Yahoo. We have #1 organic slot on Ask, Alltheweb, Lycos etc also. Plus we have at least two other slots in the top 10 on these search engines.

One thing I notice with Yahoo is that they number the organic results. That "1." might well have more folks clicking the organic result. It looks like Yahoo is saying its the #1.

I feel satisfied that there is a plausible explanation other than "my compatitors care more about Google and so click my ads more often".

Thanks again

Sid