We have all come across ad groups with poor CTRs and thought….let’s revise the ad copy. Yes, this is usually the remedy for poor performing ad copy however sometimes we tend to overlook our keyword lists as the culprit. I, myself, recently came across such an instance where my CTRs were suffering and after 3 rounds of ad copy testing, nothing was increasing my poor performing ads. After taking a deep breath and sleeping on the problem, it hit me…what if the keywords are causing the problem. What if one of the following issues is occuring in my account:
- I have keywords that weren’t researched properly, thereby my ads are being shown to the wrong audience
- My ads are being triggered by unqualified search queries not being filtered by negative terms
This is a common problem that many of us don’t think of because its drilled into our heads that low CTRs = Bad Ads. So I first tackled the keyword list and reviewed the terms that I was bidding on. I took my terms and ran a search on the engines to see what types of ads were appearing. The term I ran was “convention in tx” which the organic listings showed me nothing but types of conventions in Texas. The type of visitor typing this in term is looking for a convention in Texas, my ad was trying to target a visitor looking to HOST a convention in Texas. Thus the CTR on this term was extremely low, while impressions was high. I went through my entire keyword list and made adjustments based on the same logic. Once I finished this task, I moved onto the next task…Search Query Reports.
Running a Search Query Report is never fun, typically you have a ton of data to review and thousands of keywords to go through. This can be overwhelming to most, that is why I have my own system of running the report and focusing on the data I need which will be in a later post. Once I have this data in the manner that is easy to review, I simply went through my list and found that my Broad and Phrase Match Types were bringing in a ton of unqualified traffic as well. Search Queries for “Nudist Conventions in Texas”, “Conventions in Oklahoma” and others were triggering my ads. I immediately created a negative keyword list and a long-tail keyword list based off the data in my Search Query Report to filter out the unqualified traffic in effort to improve my CTR.
After making these two changes, I am seeing my CTR on this particular Ad Group go from .18% to .84% which is a huge improvement almost overnight. Now that I have the right keywords triggering my ads, it is time to review the message.
Comments
I have to agree. Many PPC professionals tend to over look the basic elements and don’t realize the importance of negative matches and long-tail terms. This a great post reminding us that sometimes it’s not just about the copy.
nice reminder, Kalin, especially when you inherit accounts, as so many agency analysts do… if your CTR is bad, your QS is probably bad too. better ad word grouping can also help.
Great point Michelle, weeding out poor performing keywords will help your CTR which results in better Quality Scores and a lower cost per click. Just because a term is getting a bad CTR in its current group, doesn’t mean its unqualified, it may just need its own ad group with better targeted ads. Thanks for the comment Michelle!!
Definitely, especially when its almost second nature to review ad copy whenever you have a low CTR. You know, the same thought can be applied to Conversion Rates as well. Thanks for reading Penny!!
Really interested to see you mix this insight up with some of the cool Analytics hacks.
Gotta disagree with you on one point…search query reports are ALWAYS fun. How else are you able to probe into the dark underbelly of the internet, like people who search for “hot indian housewife porno” and end up clicking on a furniture ad?
Seriously, though, I think you bring up a good point that PPC managers tend to put the blinders on when trying to diagnose a problem. There are so many steps within the conversion process where something could go “wrong” (keywords, ads, landing pages, etc.), and we tend to forget that.
Great point Shawn. We used to have contests in our offices on the longest,weirdest and most original Search Query to convert. It’s amazing how people find what they are looking for online. Thanks for reading Shawn and great article on PPC Hero by the way!! Keep up the great work….
Kalin