What is the Best PPC CTR?

The Best PPC CTR Depends on What You are Look­ing At

New Google AdWords users often won­der if the click-through-rate on their ads is good and what the best PPC CTR is that one can get.  The best ppc CTR we have ever achieved on a sin­gle ad in Google is between 20 to 50%! 

How­ever, the best PPC CTR depends on many impor­tant fac­tors. The sin­gle most impor­tant fac­tor is whether you are look­ing at ads on Google search or ads on Google’s con­tent net­work.  The best PPC CTR on Google search is way higher than ads on Google’s con­tent network.

Since we are only talk­ing about ads on Google’s ser­ach results pages, the best PPC CTR that we have seen can be north of 20%.  However, the best PPC CTR depends on four key factors.

1) Ad Position

The ad posi­tion has a huge impact on the best CTR.  Obvi­ously, the higher the ad, the higher the click-through-rate of your ad.  So, unless you are in the top, it is impos­si­ble to get the best PPC CTR.

2) Ad Placement

Once in a while, Google sur­faces ads at the very top vs. just on the side.  See the image below. 

When­ever Google sur­faces ads in the very top, it is an indi­ca­tor that these ads are get­ting a very high click-through-rate.  The ads with the best PPC CTR that we have seen are always listed at the very top.

3) Ad Relevance

Ads that are more rel­e­vant will get a higher click-through-rate.  It is as sim­ple as that.  In the pic­ture below, you will see that when the text of the search query shows up in the ad, that text gets high­lighted in bold. 

This case the ad that con­tains the key­word phrase “medi­a­tion tech­niques” is high­lighted in bold.  In turn it makes the ad more notice­able and will improve the click-through-rate and help push your ad closer to get­ting the best PPC CTR possible.

4) The keyword

Some key­words will have a higher click-through-rate on ads then oth­ers.  If you want to get the best ppc ctr pos­si­ble, then you need to find niche key­words.  For exam­ple, below is one of our sin­gle best per­form­ing ads of all time. 

The click-through-rate on the ad below is 18%.  That sure must come close to the best ppc ctr.  Okay, we have seen some north of 30% but we are not going to reveal those since they are top per­form­ing key­words in some really hot mar­kets.  Since we make so much money with them, will have to keep them secret for now. 

We have hun­dreds of ads across hun­dreds of Ad Groups where the CTR of our ad is above 5%.  This always hap­pens for key­word phrases that con­tain at least two keywords.  Single key­words (e.g. med­i­ta­tion) will always have a lower CTR than key­word phrases (e.g. med­i­ta­tion tech­niques).  So, if you want to get the best PPC CTR pos­si­ble, you need to find the best key­word phrases.

A lot of test­ing and tweak­ing is required to end up with the best PPC CTR pos­si­ble.  How­ever, you need a win­ning sys­tem to ensure that you get the most out of your AdWords test­ing and tweak­ing.  If you want to learn more, you can check out our “AdWords Sys­tem Exposed” book.

Keep learn­ing:  Check out all the other Google AdWords Tips we write about.

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About the Author

Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype. Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.

Check out other posts by Mike Reining

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