Most advertisers think all they need to boost their average click-through rate is to add some keywords, throw in some hard-hitting calls to action, and the sales and inquiries will start to flow in.
Well, it takes a little more effort than that. It can be quite an uphill battle when it comes down to increasing your conversion and click-through rates by scaling your pay per click marketing.
Google keeps updating its algorithms, and businesses keep increasing their marketing budget to see what sticks and what no longer works. But that’s not the right way either.
If you don’t manage or improve Google Ads click through rate for your account using the right techniques, your click-through rates, along with your conversion rates, are bound to take a hit. You will end up spending huge amounts of money on your digital marketing campaigns without the traffic or sales to justify them.
So, how do you improve your Google click-through rates when everyone is bidding for the same keywords and utilizing highly specialized digital marketing tools?
Let us look at some of the techniques digital marketers can use to ensure/improve Google ads CTR attract the most traffic and generate the most leads:
Google Ads uses Quality Score to score keywords from a range of 0 to 10. It denotes the relevancy of advertisements from their keywords, which is based on the probability that someone will click on these Google ads.
If you haven’t heard of Quality Score, it’s best to start from this metric. Ads with higher quality score get high rankings and accumulate fewer costs per click. They’re also more likely to have a high click-through rate.
Many factors impact Quality Score, right from your ad copy ad and URL to how relevant your PPC landing page and whether you positioned your keyword in the headline for your ad. The average click through rate CTR for Google is 3.17%, and boosting your quality score can inch you towards a higher percentage.
Google Ads has revamped its bidding game, incorporating smart bidding strategies and automation for its auctions.
Utilise smart bidding strategies: this allows Google to utilize automation for ad bidding, boosting your likelihood of getting ad clicks and your conversion rates. For this, Google relies on past data and boosts your bids for Google ads that are likely to do well with the audiences.
This automatically censors out the bids for Google ads that do not perform well and allows you to focus your energies on auctions with higher CTR (click-through rates).
With Google’s optimized bidding strategies, you can enhance your ad performance greatly. Since each auction is different, it isn’t feasible to analyze the performance of each auction manually.
Automation allows you to adjust your bids according to the performance of the keywords and saves you time from trawling through each keyword bid manually.
While this technique might not apply to all advertisements, it surely does work for e-commerce ads. Listing the price of your product in your ad copy can boost your click-through rates, particularly if your prices are lower than your competitors.
While some ad extensions do this for you automatically, highlighting pricing in your ad copy can distinguish you from your competitors’ ads when audiences see these ads side by side.
It is a useful technique to boost the average click-through rate because it gives your audiences additional information about your products or services and entices them into following through on your ad.
The more informative and descriptive you make your Google ads, the more they’re likely to consider clicking on them.
A compelling, well-written, and customized ad copy can help distinguish you from he tons of Google ads that cater to your niche and allow you to stand out from your competition. If you don’t differentiate your ad copy from your competitors, you will see a fall in your very High click-through rate (CTR) .
Make sure to emphasize your unique selling points, brand value, and why audiences should click on your ad instead of your competitors. Do you offer something that they don’t? Highlight these USPs and make sure they are reflected in your ad copy.
Including an enticing and powerful call to action in your ad copy can go a long way in boosting your click-through rate.
Many marketers focus on selecting the right keywords and writing an informative description but miss out on their CTA, which ends up leaving their piece sounding like an article rather than an ad copy.
Google analytics tend to review and rate strong calls to action quite positively, leading to improved click-through rates. Many copywriters tend to adopt the wrong approach when it comes to CTAs.
Simply announcing the roll-out of new products or making the languages too flowery and verbose can both impact the efficacy of the CTA. Make your CTAs blunt and concise to push the audience to act on the command.
Instead of relying on paid ads, try to make your ads enticing and attract organic traffic to your site. 94% of the clicks generated on online ads are through organic search engine result.
Study keywords and their search volume to know how many people are searching for those specific phrases. It might be tempting to go for keywords that have the highest rankings.
However, keywords with low-to-medium clicks can often have high conversions. This allows you to avoid competition while also guaranteeing high conversion rates from your visitors.
Conversely, high-ranking keywords with low CTR or conversions can end up costing you more without much business generated your way.
Also, avoid inserting too many keywords into your ad copy as it can impact your ad text and keywords. Too many keywords can affect your quality scores and, eventually, your Good CTR (click-through rates). The key is to use tightly themed keywords in your ad text and ad group them into smaller ad group.
The key to a high conversion rate is to make your ads more relevant to your target audience rather than projecting them to a huge audience. For this, you can use negative keywords to weed out the audience you know will not follow through on your ads.
Get the most of your budget by using SEO techniques and data to pinpoint the most relevant keywords and utilize them in your ad copies. By acquiring more SERP space, you’re bound to improve your click-through rate and conversion rate.
Your Average CTR is around 30% if you’re ranked number 1 on Google. With just third place, your average click through rate (CTR) drops to 10%. Therefore, your rankings can have a huge impact on your click-through rates.
One of the most effective techniques to increase click-through rate, which many marketers tend to overlook, is to analyze their competition sufficiently. This includes identifying competitors, analyzing their keywords, and understanding their ad copy.
You can use analytic tools to identify better what makes their ad click for audiences, especially the keywords they’re using and the language they incorporate in their ads.
Likely, they have already performed A/B testing on different variations of the same ad, and what you’re seeing is the best-performing variant.
Skip out on the testing process and take their best performing ad to understand why it performs the best. Try and incorporate similar techniques for your ad, but do not copy their ad word for word, and make sure to present your unique selling points.
When it comes to determining the relevancy of your ads, testing is the best option since it can be hard to tell what the audiences will respond best to. The key to this is to test multiple search ads for the same product or service and allow Google or search engines to decide which one performs the best.
Testing is a continuous process and even involves testing out different ad types on other locations online. Many times, it’s not what is in the ad copy but rather where your ad is placed. If your ad is placed where you aren’t likely to find customers, your click-through rates will be lower naturally.
It is crucial to test different ad types and keep the testing in-process continuously. For example, if you’re running tests on three variations of an ad copy, keep the two top-performing Google ads and remove the losing ad.
Meanwhile, create another ad variation and add it into the mix in place of the lowest-performing ad to keep the process ongoing.
The most popular testing technique is the A/B testing method, which includes two variants, and allows you to use one variant as the control.
The key is always to test out different ad types and keep things in flux since audience demands keep changing. Test numerous parameters, such as headers, CTAs, images, and graphics to determine what works best for your audiences.
Marketers can use remarketing campaigns to deliver re-customized ads to specific users and visitors. This involves targeting particular ads to visitors who have already viewed your content and making it clearer for them.
You can tweak your ads to cater to specific visitors, narrow down on particular products, or create new ads to upsell your existing customers. If they know you, then they are more likely to click on your ad. This means excluding users you know aren’t likely to be interested in your products.
Utilizing ad extensions can be an excellent way to improve your click-through rate. Location extensions can aid small business owners and help them to match with nearby customers. In addition, site links and callouts can enhance the relevancy of your ads, boosting your conversions and click-through rates.
There are many kinds of ad extensions, but not all of them apply to every advertisement campaign. If you aren’t utilizing the complete mix of ad extensions, then you’re missing out from reaching your full potential on Google.
You can make your ads appear more relevant to Google, increase their reach, and improve your click-through rate by utilizing the full range of extensions.
The tips detailed above are simple enough to implement easily in your current Google ads campaign. But make sure to test what you’ve done several times over to ensure that your intended audiences respond to your ads the way you want them to.
It is also vital to get qualified traffic that’s right for you. This means don’t just attempt to increase your visitors for the sake of it but aim for more conversions. Curious about pricing? Take a look at our guide to the cost of PPC management services. Contact us for more info!
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Most marketers love Google Ads.
We're no exception.
But we totally understand that businesses in certain industries sometimes have a deep resentment of Google Ads and their restrictive policies.
Google's policies for advertising are generally intuitive and straightforward, but for certain regulated and sensitive categories, the standards are much higher and less clear. Pharmaceutical companies, gambling websites, political campaigns, and other industries often struggle to get their ads approved consistently.
In fact, if you don't know what you're getting into, trying to advertise as a business in one of these categories can be a recipe for disaster.
How are you supposed to use Google Ads effectively if you belong to one of these regulated or sensitive categories?
Sensitive and regulated categories in PPC advertising face a number of challenges, including:
· Stricter guidelines. Most PPC advertisers are familiar and comfortable with basic Google Ads guidelines. But if you belong to a regulated or sensitive category, you'll have far more guidelines and more nuanced guidelines to deal with.
· Higher scrutiny. Google pays much closer attention to ads in regulated and sensitive categories, meaning you face closer scrutiny when your ads start circulating. Reports will be investigated quicker and much more strictly, and even minor violations can work against you.
· More ad disapprovals. Similarly, ads are much more likely to get disapproved in these categories. You'll face an uphill battle as you try to get your ads circulating.
· The risk of suspensions. Businesses in these categories also face the risk of frequent, ongoing suspensions. This trend is also worsening; in fact, in 2023, Google Ads suspended more than 12.7 million advertiser accounts – doubling their actions over the previous year.
This makes it much more difficult to advertise effectively and secure a positive return on investment (ROI). Additionally, failing to adhere to Google’s advertising policies can hurt your company's reputation and compromise your long-term potential for success.
The most important thing you can do to improve your results in a regulated or sensitive category is to plan for a sustainable, long-term strategy. Every year, thousands of business owners in these categories attempt to fool Google, find clever ways around its policies, and devise techniques that allow them to cheat the system.
These approaches can usually work temporarily. You can cheat your way into the listings and generate some traffic to your landing page.
But inevitably, these techniques fail, and they can ultimately get you blacklisted.
You're much better off taking the slow, steady approach, following the rules even if it means compromising your advertising effectiveness in the short term. Think about the long-term consequences and possibilities of each decision you make.
There is some good news here.
Google isn’t shy about publishing its advertising policies.
If you're willing to do the reading and research, you can thoroughly understand what Google expects from regulated and sensitive categories like yours – and you can easily adhere to the guidelines.
Well, maybe not “easily,” but reliably.
Generally, Google splits content into two types:
· Restricted content. Restricted content is sensitive content that is subject to more regulations. You must precisely comply with requirements for copy, images, website content, and more if you want to remain in circulation.
· Prohibited content. Prohibited content is totally disallowed. You cannot include it without facing significant consequences.
Unfortunately, we can't give you a big list of all the rules you need to follow, as the rules are different for various industries. Some of the most popular industries and categories that face steeper restrictions include:
· Pharmaceuticals and healthcare products
· Weapons and explosives
· Financial services (including cryptocurrencies)
· Gambling/games of chance
· Alcohol, tobacco, and similar products
· Political ads
· Adult content and services
While there are certainly commonalities between regulations across these categories, each category has its own unique blend of restrictions and rules to learn. For example, pharmaceutical businesses require formal certification from Google and are only allowed in some countries. In the financial services industry, you'll likely need a specific license, and you'll need to provide adequate disclosures for your products and services.
The more intimately you know these rules and regulations and how they apply to your industry, the more likely you'll be able to advertise successfully. Don't advertise until you're sure you understand all applicable Google Ads policies.
One other important note here: you need to stay updated.
Google isn't stagnant, and its advertising policies are constantly in flux. Accordingly, you need to stay abreast of recent changes and update your ad approaches in line with them.
The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to Google Ads policy updates, but you should also regularly engage in Google Ads forums. If you're lucky enough to have a representative, maintain open and transparent communication with them and stay in touch regularly; they can be a massive benefit for businesses in regulated and sensitive categories.
The more research you do, the better. You need to thoroughly understand your advertising landscape before you try to thread this needle.
· Google Ads policies. Obviously, read and understand Google Ads policies as they relate to your industry. We mostly covered this in the previous section, but it's part of the research you need to do.
· Licensing and certification requirements. Even if it's not specifically required by Google, it's a good idea to get any appropriate licenses or certifications. It's a mark of authority and trustworthiness that might save you if any of your ads are reviewed for potential policy violations.
· Laws and regulations. Similarly, violating any laws and regulations in the country where you're advertising could be grounds for ad removal or account suspension, even if those violations aren't specifically listed in Google Ads policies. Always ensure legal compliance before advertising with Google.
· Competitor advertising. It's also a good idea to research your competitors. It's very likely that businesses similar to yours, in the same category, are already advertising successfully. Look at what they're doing. How are they phrasing things? Which disclosures are they including? Do you notice anything missing? You can learn a lot simply by studying previously successful ads.
· Market research. The success of your Google Ads largely depends on your ability to successfully target and appeal to your demographics. If you're properly informative and persuasive, with relevant messaging to the people you're reaching, you're much less likely to face reports, removals, and suspensions. Accordingly, you need to do a deep dive into market research so you better understand your target demographics and can appeal to them with relevant content. If you don't have buyer personas, develop them. If you don't know what your target audience is struggling with or what they want to, pause your ads until you figure it out. There are no shortcuts here, so do a deep dive into your market research if you want a reasonable chance to succeed.
When creating and preparing new ads, make sure everything is compliant, including your copy, your images, and any of your website content.
Remember that the rules and restrictions vary by industry, but these are some general rules that can help you get started:
· Stick to the facts. Don't exaggerate. Don't embellish. Certainly don't lie. It's important to stick to the facts as closely as possible, even if it makes your ad a bit stoic or “boring.” Purely factual advertising rarely gets removed.
· Avoid prohibited or sensitive terms. Review prohibited and sensitive terms that apply to your industry, and avoid those terms like the plague. Consider creating a list of alternatives that you can rely on instead.
· Be transparent. Be absolutely transparent with your target audience, even if you're forced to reveal things that weaken the appeal of your products and services. Offer disclosures when required, and potentially when not required if they can boost your credibility.
· Adopt a serious, professional tone. Don't play with fire. Your best course of action is to adopt a serious, professional tone across your ads. It's much less likely to be reported, and it will seem more authoritative and trustworthy.
· Eliminate sensationalism. In line with this, eliminate all forms of sensationalism. Graphic or revealing content, exaggerated claims, and other techniques designed to evoke strong emotions are probably going to work against you.
· Focus on using images for context. If you're going to include images, make sure they provide meaningful context. Advertisers sometimes select images based on how easily they grab attention or how exciting they are, but this is a surefire way to fail if you belong to a sensitive or restricted category.
· Include warnings if necessary. If there are any warnings that are relevant to your products and services, include them. More information is typically better in matters like these.
· Leverage the power of AB testing. The more relevant and effective your ads are, the more likely they are to succeed. Leverage the power of AB testing to learn more about what your audience wants to see and how to give it to them.
Don't forget about your landing pages.
These are important to Google as well.
If your landing pages deviate from Google Ads guidelines, or if they contradict what's in your ads, it could work against you.
These are some tips to get you started:
· Keep it relevant. Always make sure your landing page is completely relevant and in line with whatever is included in your ad. If users click your ad and find something unexpected, unpleasant, or otherwise jarring, Google might take action.
· Issue disclaimers and warnings. This is an opportunity to double down on disclaimers, warnings, and important disclosures. Err on the side of caution and make these prominent to show that you're in full compliance with both Google Ads policies and laws in your area.
· Make your business information accessible. Make your business information transparent and accessible. Offer your brand name and business location information, and give visitors some way to contact you, preferably via phone and email. It's a sign of trustworthiness and it can proactively resolve potential disputes.
· Be straightforward and transparent. Everything on your landing page needs to be straightforward and transparent. Follow the same rules you did for your ads, and avoid exaggerations and sensationalism.
· Double check Google Ads requirements. Always double-check Google Ads requirements when constructing your landing page. You should fulfill or comply with each item on your landing page to be safe.
You've already done significant market research, so make sure you apply it correctly. Target your audience very specifically so that your messages are only shown to people for whom they are relevant. If someone outside the scope of your target demographics sees your ads, they'll be much more likely to issue reports – and your ads will be much more likely to be removed. It's especially important to target people in the right geographic area.
There are some Black Hat techniques designed to circumvent Google Ads rules and regulations, or otherwise give you an unfair advantage in a sensitive or restricted category. These techniques typically violate Google policies and are largely considered unethical by the advertising community.
One of the most prominent examples is cloaking. Using one of several techniques, cloaking can allow you to advertise to audiences with content different from what you showed Google for approval. It's obvious why this is potentially beneficial, but it's also obvious why this is unethical.
As you might imagine, these techniques can work temporarily. They can give you a significant short-term advantage, allowing you a better strategic position and potentially more ad opportunities. However, if you use them, you could get your account suspended, or even permanently blacklisted. Even if you evade that, you could ruin your company's reputation and jeopardize your long-term results.
Do not follow these strategies. If a PPC agency recommends any such strategies to you, fire them.
They simply aren't worth it.
Navigating the world of Google Ads isn't easy.
In fact, it's stressful and incredibly difficult if your business happens to belong to one of these sensitive or restricted categories.
The good news is it's much easier to be successful when you work with a PPC advertising agency that has experience creating and managing ads for a business like yours. We're deeply acquainted with all the rules and restrictions you need to worry about, and we know how to make target demographics like yours convert.
If you’re ready to get started with a free consultation, contact us today!
When you want to use paid search marketing platforms, Google Ads often leads the list. Because of its versatility, simplicity, and popularity, it’s obvious why it’s a popular choice. But when you drop all of your PPC advertising money into one marketing strategy, you could lose some leads.
That’s why some businesses explore paid advertising marketing outside of Google, with many turning to Linkedin Ads.
Google Ads and Linkedin Ads are highly efficient ways to market your products and services to businesses and consumers. But each marketing channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Whatever you choose, make sure you discuss the matter with your web development company.
Below is a closer look at each option.
We think it’s reasonable to conclude that Google reaches a vast audience worldwide – its ad reach is a stunning 4 billion people. Google search handles about 70% of desktop searches, and many companies report that they get about 90% of their organic traffic from the search engines. Also, up to 95% of the mobile search market comes from Google.
People use Google’s search a lot, and having the ability to target search terms with specific search ads is a massive benefit of Adwords. People tend to search for very specific things in Google, so if you can customize your Google advertising for your targeted audience, you’ll receive plenty of leads.
So, we can assume that most people’s targeted audience uses Google to some degree. That’s a massive advantage for companies when they want to target an audience.
However, businesses that want to narrow down their search may have issues getting their Google ads settings right with both Google Ads. And if you blunder when segmenting your audiences, your digital ad campaign could suffer.
LinkedIn features a narrower audience – 500 million users – namely businesses and business professionals. But this more limited audience makes it the perfect place for effective B2B marketing. LinkedIn lets marketers serve online ads to decision-makers and vital audience members in several ways.
Summary: For B2B firms that want to reach decision-makers, Linkedin is a terrific advertising platforms. If your B2C company intends to increase its reach, Google Ads could be the best fit.
When you target your audience with Google Ads, you have a few options: location, affinity, technology, buyer behavior, demographics, and interactions with your app or website.
No matter how much you know about your buyer, you may struggle to avoid clicks from worthless leads that cost too much.
In some cases on Google, people may not even know what they’re looking for. You can try to advertise to your desired targeted audience on Google Ads, but it can be challenging to get to the precise people who will most likely buy what you sell.
When people sign up for LinkedIn, they usually provide many details, such as their occupation, title/job title, experience, industry, education, interests, and more. All of this information can be leveraged for great advantage when you start your marketing campaigns.
Also, LinkedIn users can join many groups, start conversations, and obtain followers. The data is priceless when you want to target a specific audience and market to them. LinkedIn also has a Matched Audience that helps advertisers match their email marketing lists and website visitors with users on LinkedIn.
Many marketing experts think that LinkedIn Ads offer more value. LinkedIn has refined targeting, and you can make your product known to them so that you can tell them about something they didn’t know existed.
Summary: For B2B and B2C companies looking for a broad audience, Google Ads has enough targeting features. But for B2B firms that want to target specific groups, LinkedIn Ads has about 100 segmentation methods for micro targeting.
When you want lead generation, Google Ads has a broader reach and is the most effective. First, you can bring in a lot of prospects to your site without breaking the bank. The audience you’re after on Google visits the search giant with the idea to find the best product or service. This makes generating leads easier.
Getting leads from LinkedIn can be more challenging. Users of the platform may sign in to read industry news or talk to group members. No matter how perfect your ad is, viewers may not be in the mood to buy anything.
That said, Linkedin has a way to target ad leads through in-site messaging, which can generate plenty of leads.
When it comes down to dollars and cents, LinkedIn Ads usually are more pricey than Google Ads. As in Google, you can select cost-per-click or cost-per-impression.
LinkedIn also features a cost-per-send for InMail advertising. Typically, you’ll pay about $5 for each click, $6 for 1,000 impressions, and .80 for each send.
With Google Ads, the average CPC is $1. But to leverage that low cost, you need to work on your audience segmentation. If you don’t your ROI may be below what you want.
Summary: Advertising budgets for each platform depends on several factors. On average, Google Ads cost less than LinkedIn Ads. If your B2B company has a tight budget, you may want to focus on a limited variety of LinkedIn ads instead of a broad range of Google Ads.
So should you advertise with Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads? Yes!
What we mean is, it depends. The correct choice depends on your budget, product or service offered, marketing goals, and target audience. You should not assume that when you need a digital marketing campaign, Google Analytics Adwords is the only choice.
It’s critical to evaluate the market, understand who your buyer is, and make a data-driven decision about the best marketing platform to reach your well-defined goals. One type of company might do better with Google Ads, and another may find LinkedIn Ads preferable.
The great news is you don’t need to choose between the two platforms. Many businesses use both, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you have the budget, it may pay off to diversify your paid search advertising to get the best ROI.
