Strategies for Increasing Click-Through Rate in PPC

In order to get a positive return on investment with your pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign, you need to pay attention to the numbers—especially if you’re managing PPC advertising on major search engines like Google Ads.

That’s really all PPC Online advertising is – a numbers game. And if you get the numbers right, you win—by driving qualified web traffic, improving conversion rate, and ultimately increasing customer lifetime value.

But which numbers matter most? And how can you boost those numbers as much as possible to increase your success and revenue (without wasting ad spend)?

Well, it all starts with a good click-through rate (CTR).

In this article, we’re going to dive into the nitty-gritty of what click through rate is, why it’s important, what percentages you should be aiming for (including average CTR), and clever (somewhat random) ways you can get better results across your PPC campaigns—from search ads to banner ads and other ad formats.

Calculating PPC Click-Through Rates

Let’s go all the way back to the basics and dig into what the Average click through rate(CTR) metric represents, how to calculate it, and all of the basic 101-level information that usually gets glossed over—especially in Google Ads accounts with lots of ad groups and multiple PPC ads running at once.

If you already know this stuff, great – consider it a quick refresher (or move on to the section below on benchmark PPC CTR rates). If you’re totally new to the PPC game, then this will give you a baseline understanding so that everything else we’re about to discuss will make sense.

So, without further ado, let’s get into the definition.

An Average  click through rate (CTR), is basically the percentage of impressions that result in total number of clicks. In order to calculate this number, you simply take the number of clicks and divide it by the total number of impressions (people who saw the ad). Then you multiply that number by 100.

For example, let’s say your online ad got 5,000 impressions and 75 people clicked. The equation would look like this:

(75 / 5,000) x 100

The result is (.015) x (100). This comes out to 1.5 percent. This is your click-through rate. It means 1.5 percent of people who saw your online ad clicked—an important indicator of ad effectiveness and relevance to your target audience.

Okay, great – but so what?

Why does CTR matter for PPC campaigns?

The simplest answer is that the click-throughs on paid ad platforms like Google Ads and Facebook use Average click through rate CTR to quickly evaluate the health and value of an ad and how attractive your offer is to potential customers. If lots of people are clicking, then it tells the algorithm that it has strong ad effectiveness and that it's making them lots of money. And if the ad is making them lots of money, they want to make sure you keep serving the ad. This leads them to lower the cost per click (CPC) as a way of incentivizing you to continue online advertising on their network. The lower your cost per click (CPC), the easier it is to scale without exploding ad spend.

In the case of Google Ads management,(CTR) also impacts something known as a “Quality Score.” This score is awarded on a 1-10 scale and is determined by a mixture of factors like Average click through rate(CTR), expected CTR, landing page UX, and ad relevance. A strong landing page (fast load time, clear message match, easy UX on mobile devices) supports better results.

An ad’s Quality Score impacts its “Ad Rank,” which Google uses to determine where ads show up on search results and whether you earn better ad positions. A high PPC CTR and strong ad copy lead to a higher Quality Score, which in turn leads to a higher Ad Rank. This ends up putting your ad in front of more of your potential customers at a lower price.

If that’s all a bit confusing, here’s a simple visual to make it easier:

CTR → Quality Score → Ad Rank → PPC Ad Placement → Higher CTR

It’s basically a self-feeding cycle. As your PPC CTR increases, so do all of the other metrics. This usually leads to a higher CTR, improved Ad Rank, better ad positions, more visibility, and more potential customers.

Benchmark PPC Click-Through Rates

Once you understand what (CTR) is and why it’s important for PPC ads, the next logical question is, what’s a good click-through rate?

The answer is…it depends!

I know – that’s not the answer you’re looking for – but we’re going to take a deeper dive in just a moment. The point is that there’s no concrete figure. There are dozens of circumstantial variables that come into play based on your product, industry, creative, audience targeting, and the PPC platform (Google vs. Facebook vs. Others). Your average CTR will also vary by channel and ad formats (e.g., search ads vs. banner ads).

When evaluating baseline PPC CTR, there are a few quick factors you can take into account right from the start. This includes (a) how the ad is being displayed, and (b) the industry you’re in.

Let’s start with how the ad is being displayed. With Google ads, there are two different networks. You have the Google or other search engines network and the Google display network. Display serves image-based placements on other sites (including banner ads).

The search network includes text-based ads that pop up within Google search results (at the top and bottom of the page). The display network serves ads on other websites. These are typically image-based ads and banners. Often, search placements earn a higher average CTR because the user intent is clearer when the ad appears next to active searches.

Google search network ads tend to have a slightly better click through rate (CTR), simply because they appear within the search results. Averages across all industries are usually somewhere in the 1.75 – 2.00 percent range.

Ads in the Google display network are usually much lower – somewhere south of 0.50 percent. (This is due to the fact that many users use ad blockers and other plugins that make it less likely they’ll even see the ad.)

When it comes to the industry, the average click through rate(CTR) can change dramatically from one sector to another. Here are some examples pulled from recent reports:

• Dating & Personals = 6.05 percent

• Travel & Hospitality = 4.68 percent

• Education = 3.78 percent

• Health & Medical = 3.27 percent

• E-Commerce = 2.69 percent

• Technology = 2.09 percent

As you can see, the standard from industry to industry is different. Achieving a 4 percent CTR in dating and personals might be extremely low, whereas it would be an incredible rate in technology. This just goes to show there are a lot of unique factors in play.

Even within a single industry, results can shift based on offer strength, the landing page experience, and whether your relevant keywords match user intent.

The fact that click-through rates vary so much can actually be viewed as a good thing. It means you always have the ability to increase your numbers. And, sometimes, all it takes is a little creativity.

7 Ways to Improve Your PPC Click-Through Rates

Now that we have some basic context established, let’s dig into the juicy stuff. How can you improve your PPC click-through rates so that you stand a better chance of producing conversion rate and increasing revenue?

Here are several suggestions:

1. Use Emotion in your Ad Copy

Humans have a wide range of emotions. And while we like to assume that we’re fairly rational creatures who make logical decisions after having all of the facts laid out for us, the truth is that we typically act on emotion (then justify with logic after the fact).

As an advertiser, you can use this little bit of knowledge to your advantage. Avoid the logical plea and get emotional. Ethically leveraging love, fear, hope, belonging, shock, and surprise can help you get better click-through rates.

For example, let’s say you’re running an ad for roses during Valentine’s. Leading with something like “2 Dozen Roses for Just $29” is actually a fairly weak hook. You might make a few sales, but there’s nothing other than price at play. What about all of the buyers who are less price sensitive?

Instead of only using a price hook, try emotional positioning. A better ad might read: “She Thinks You Forgot. Roses Delivered Same Day.” Do you see how much better this ad copy is? Better ad copy can increase clicks from the same impressions and improve your overall PPC strategy. It makes an emotional appeal – not just a logical dollars and cents pitch.

2. Ask Questions

Questions can be powerful when used appropriately in your PPC ads management. People are naturally curious and posing the right query can get people thinking about things through whatever filter or context you’d like.

When asking questions, try wording them in a way that the answer is obvious. (Not only that, but the answer should be obvious and certain to push them closer to clicking.)

Going back to our roses example, you could do something like this: “Miss Her Birthday Again? 2 Dozen Roses Will Do The Trick.”

Or if you’re a financial advisor: “Unprepared for Retirement? Learn How to Create a Guaranteed Stream of Income in Your Golden Years.”

A good question can save valuable space in your ad by letting your prospect tell themselves why they should click. This can be more powerful than using a direct command. This is also where tighter audience targeting helps: the more specific your target audience, the more your ad copy can speak directly to them.

3. Instill Urgency

Humans have a huge, oversized fear of missing out on something. You might even say this is a distinctly human trait. Dogs don’t see other dogs walking with their owners as the sun goes down and think to themselves, “No! I hope I don’t miss out on a walk with my owner before the sun sets!” Now, if you tell a dog that you’re going on a walk, they might get really excited. (And they might even get sad if you’re then unable to take them out.) But they don’t have a fear of missing out.

With humans, we’re constantly fearful of being left out or missing the boat. In many cases, we’ll do anything to avoid this feeling – even if it means spending time or money on something we might not truly need.

In advertising, you can tap into FOMO by creating urgency and/or playing the scarcity card. You can do this by setting a deadline for a sale, releasing a limited order quantity, or using some sort of tiered discount based on when people place an order. If urgency is in the ad, urgency should also be on the landing page. That message match is a big part of improving conversion rate.

4. Try Humor

While not perfect for every brand, humor can be a very useful mechanism for increasing click through rate(CTR) and getting a better response. Having said that, it’s a somewhat risky play – simply because everyone has a unique sense of humor. You could easily miss the mark and drive your click through rate(CTR) close to zero.

If you’re going to attempt humor in your ads, we recommend running multiple variations and measure results using performance data. Have a humorous version and a non-humorous version and split test the same ad creative. This will give you a pretty good feel for the response. After gathering enough data, you can make a decision on whether to move forward with the funny ad or nix it. If one version causes a low CTR, don’t force it—use the numbers, not opinions, to decide which ad copy wins.

5. Niche Down Your Audience More

We can talk all we want about ad creatives, copy, and other elements, but it all comes down to ad-audience fit. If you aren’t focusing on the right audience, you won’t get strong PPC CTR no matter how clever your ad copy is.

For Facebook in particular, where you have a massive amount of control over your audience, niching down to a very specific part of the market is going to give you the ability to create much more targeted ad copy and images that resonate.

For example, don’t just target business owners. Target restaurant owners. And then split your ad campaign up so that you can target South Carolina restaurant owners and California restaurant owners separately. Segment by persona, region, and intent. Then build tighter ad groups with tighter themes and relevant keywords so your ads feel tailored. This gives you so much more relevancy and control.

6. Keep it Short and Sweet

One school of thought says you should max out your ad by using every single character you’re allowed to use within the character limit. But is this really the best way to go?

There’s ample research to suggest shorter ads (particularly on Facebook) get more number of clicks and better engagement. In fact, as character count increases, response rates steadily fall off.

The fact that shorter ads do better is likely due to the fact that people have very small attention spans—especially on mobile devices. An ad that can be consumed in three seconds is much more enticing than an ad that takes 90 seconds to read. Even if your copy is great and you can effortlessly compel people to read sentence after sentence with mouth-watering copy, there’s simply too much friction to attract a large percentage of your audience. One practical tactic is to optimize ad copy by removing fluff and strengthening the first line. Another is testing dynamic keyword insertion (carefully) so the headline aligns with the right keywords—but only if it still reads naturally. Keep it short!

7. Try Different Images

When dealing with Google display network ads and/or Facebook ads, the image is the most important part. People will process the image long before they read the copy or call-to-action. In Google Ads Search, you also have a major lever: ad extensions.

So when you run an ad, always split test at least three different images. This will give you a feel for what your customers respond to best. Use ad extensions like sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, image assets (where available), and calls to expand your footprint on the SERP. More ad extensions can make your ad look larger, more credible, and more clickable—often improving PPC CTR and helping your ad appears more prominently.

Don’t set and forget: test different ad extensions, rotate and evaluate ad extensions, and keep ad extensions aligned with the offer and the landing page.

Don’t forget: keywords and landing pages drive CTR and conversion rate

If CTR is low, don’t only blame the ad copy. Your keyword strategy matters.

• Do comprehensive keyword research to find intent-rich terms.

• Separate themes into tighter ad groups with the right keywords.

• Add negative keywords to filter out junk clicks and protect ad spend.

• Review search term reports regularly and keep expanding your negative keywords list. More negative keywords = fewer irrelevant impressions = higher-quality clicks.

Then make sure the click lands on a strong landing page. Your landing page should load quickly, match the ad promise, work well on mobile devices, and make the next step obvious. A better landing page improves the average conversion rate and helps you get more value from the same traffic.

Let PPC.co Help

PPC is both an art and a science. It requires equal parts creativity, technical competence, and experience across Google Ads, PPC campaigns, and multi-channel advertising campaigns. If you’re lacking in any of these three areas, it will be hard to consistently hit strong average CTR and a healthy conversion rate.

But there’s good news: We can help.

At PPC.co, we partner with entrepreneurs, digital marketers & email marketers/ email marketing professionals, agencies, startups, small businesses, and established enterprises to make PPC advertising a smooth, seamless experience—improving marketing efforts, increasing qualified leads, and turning more potential customers into revenue.

Want to learn more about whether we’re a good fit for each other? Let’s chat!