Articles in The 'click-thru-rate' Tag

Trademark Strengthens Click-Thru Rate

by Nydia Davis

A trademark is a word, phrase, logo, or symbol that identifies and distinguishes a product or service from others in the marketplace, especially those who can bid on your keywords. If you use your trademark symbol in your ad text, it should increase your click-thru rate.
With Google AdWords, advertisers may select trademarked terms as keywords or use them in the content of the ad. As a provider of space for advertisements, Google is not in a position to arbitrate trademark disputes between advertisers and trademark owners. Accordingly, Google encourages trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertiser. As a courtesy to trademark owners, Google is willing to perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints.
If you are the trademark owner of your product, you should consider using registered ® or trademarks â„¢ in your ad text. This will distinguish your ad from other resellers. This also shows searchers credibility and reliability. After implementing these changes to your ad text, your click-thru rates should be favorably impacted.

Brand awareness can be underestimated, but if you are the registered or trademark owner of a brand or company, include this symbols in your branding ad copy. As a shortcut for these symbols use the following keyboard short cuts:

Registered- Alt ctrl+r= ®
Trademark- Alt ctrl+t=™

Natural Progression of Campaign Optimization

by Gerard Tollefsen

An important aspect of running a successful Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign is to identify strengths and weaknesses of the campaign and optimize based on relative data.  There is a natural progression to this optimization process and it’s important to avoid knee jerk reactions if you do not see stellar results right out of the gate.  Here are some ideas to consider when first launching a PPC campaign and what to look for when optimizing the campaign moving forward.

1. Unless you already have a targeted audience or demographic in mind, it is always good to cast a “wide net” when first launching the campaign.  Be sure to conduct keyword research on popular search terms that are related to your business and identify the low, medium and high cost-per-click (CPC) terms.  To gain the greatest potential audience for your ads, set the match type in your campaign to broad match.
2. Once your campaign has been active for a few weeks (timing may vary depending on how many clicks you generate at the start of your campaign and your budget) take a look at which keywords are converting and which are accruing multiple clicks without conversions.  Isolating the campaign or adgroup with the lowest performance can be a first step in the optimization process.  If you see your click-thru rate (CTR) is low, this could be an indication that your ad copy is not effective in attracting qualified visitors.  Test different ad variations with different calls to action.  If your click-thru rate is acceptable and your conversions are low, this could be an indication that your landing page needs work.  Test different landing page designs, adjust content and message; even moving images can make a difference.
3. Be sure to analyze your keywords that are eating up a large portion of your budget without a return on your investment.  This could be a signal your campaign needs negative keywords.  Negative keywords can help limit your ad delivery on broad match terms that are relative to your business, but may also be associated with something completely different than your product or service.  For example, I have a client that sells Corona paint brushes, but I want to make sure the ads are not being displayed if someone is searching for Corona beer!
4. If you find the “wide net” strategy cannot be implemented because of your budget, look to adjust the match types of your keywords.  Test both phrase match and exact match types for your keywords to limit your ad delivery.  This helps keep your daily spends in check while still having your ads delivered to highly targeted search queries.
5. Converting keywords should also be optimized to ensure that you are gaining the highest return on your investment (ROI).  Review the average position of your keywords within the sponsored listings.  You may find that you can maintain a high conversion rate at a slightly lower position.  This can help bring down your cost per conversion, thus freeing up more budget to allocate to important keywords where the competition requires a slightly higher bid.

There are many ways to optimize a campaign but keep in mind there is no “standard operating procedure”.  Let the campaign data be your guide in the optimization process.  There is no better way to achieve success in your PPC campaign than to analyze your strengths and weaknesses and make smart decisions based on what the data tells you.  Stay the course and optimize with your main goal in mind.

Use Negative Keywords to Control Costs in Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign

by Gerard Tollefsen

Sometimes it pays to be negative…especially when optimizing a Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign.  The main goal of Google and the other search engines is to deliver the most relevant paid (and natural) results to a search query when a visitor uses their search engine.  Seems pretty simple and works exceptionally well when you have a well structured PPC campaign.  If someone searches on a keyword that you feel is relevant to your business, be sure that keyword is included in your campaign.  But what happens when the search query triggers your ad and the visitor isn’t the most targeted prospect?  Well, you still have to pay for that click and if that continues over time, you could be wasting a sizeable portion of your budget on unqualified traffic.  Implement negative keywords into your campaign to help cut costs, optimize your campaign and zero-in on your target customer.

For example, if you provide a high-end product or service, utilize negative keywords like “cheap”, “low cost”, and “inexpensive”.  This will help filter out visitors who are looking for your “type” of product or service, but aren’t the target customer who can afford your product or service.  It seems like a simple idea but the savings are real and the higher your target budget, the greater the cost savings.  In addition, negative keywords will help overall campaign optimization because your ads will not be delivered to the wrong search query.  You could expect to see higher click-thru rates (CTR) and better conversions as the visitors generated by your sponsored ads become more targeted. 

Google has a keyword tool which helps campaign managers develop keyword lists.  This same tool can be used to develop negative keywords as well.  Leverage the broad match search settings within the tool and it could return thousands of possible keywords, many of which can and should be added to the campaign as negative keywords.  In addition, if you have Google Analytics tracking on your site, utilize that tool to determine your best and worst performing keywords.  By reviewing both the organic and paid traffic (and the keywords that generate that traffic) you can further expand your negative keyword list with the non-performing, budget wasting keywords.

Quite simply, by implementing negative keywords you can help optimize your campaign, drive more targeted traffic to your site and save money on your PPC costs.  That is the formula for success in search engine marketing and ensuring a favorable return on your advertising spend.