How Do I increase CTR in Google Ads (AdWords)?

Click Through Rate (CTR) is one of the most analysed metrics. It basically shows how many searchers clicked through to your website. So its calculation is simple:

 

CTR = Clicks/Impressions

 

However, increasing CTR can be a challenge. Searchers have many ads to choose from and yours are in a battle to win their attention. Your ad is also competing against Organic search results which are generally more trusted and have higher click throughs.

 

So, why is it important to increase CTR? There are many reasons in fact, including:

 

1. It’s one of three factors affecting your quality scores – an important metric that shows the health of your keywords
2. Increases click volumes which leads to more conversions
3. It reveals that your ads are targeted to searches

 

Here are 4 tips to help improve your CTRs:

 

Get Top 3 Positions

This is the quickest way to increase your CTR. And you can do that by increasing bids manually or using an automated bid strategy to outrank competitors.

 

Ads in the top 3 positions have significantly higher CTRs and that’s because they are positioned above the Organic search results. So, aim to bid for a top 3 position at all times.

 

Improve Ad Targeting

It’s important to ensure that your ads are appearing for relevant search terms. So the keywords you bid on should only match to related search terms that only lead to high Click Through Rates.

 

Also, ensure that the keyword is included in the Ad, preferably in the headline. Searchers are more likely to click when they see the keyword in the Ad and this helps increase CTR.

 

Remove low CTR search terms

Check your search terms report for low CTR Search terms. You can reach this report under your keywords tab or use the Dimensions > View tab to view them.

 

 

Look out for Search terms with high impressions but few clicks. These are low CTR Search terms and they may look different from related keywords. So, removing the keyword itself may not actually improve CTRs, and you’ll need to dig deeper to see what the real problem is.

 

Add Dynamic Keyword Insertion Ads

Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) is a syntax that makes your ads more relevant to the search terms. You can add DKI to any section of your Ad but Headline 1 is usually the best place.

 

This is an example of what DKI looks like:

 

{KeyWord:Google AdWords Expert}

 

The keyword ‘Google AdWords Expert’ in the curly brackets above is the default text. And this is updated to include the keyword that triggered the ad – only if it is within the 30 character limit.

 

Tests reveal that adding the keyword in the Ad improves CTRs. And the easiest and most effective way to include all your keywords is to use DKI.

 

It would be impossible to include hundreds or even thousands of keywords in your text ads without DKI.