Christmas is fast approaching and there is very little time left for improving your Google AdWords campaigns!
So, let’s have a look at what you can do right now to increase your click through rates (CTR) without necessarily paying any more money.
1) Ensure Your Ad Matches the Search Query
Putting the keyword into your ad’s headline is just not enough.
Every one of your competitors does that. And if your ads are as weak as your competitor’s ads it just means that you will have to pay more to get a higher click through rate (by bidding more your ad position will be higher, thus CTR increases). The problem is not always the ad text itself. It might often be that you are showing ads on queries for which your ad is not relevant.
Look at the “Search Queries” list of your top ad groups and think about the search intent of people viewing your ads. Are your ads offering the exact answers to these searches..? If they are not, it’s likely that you are missing clicks despite having the highest ad rank.
For example, referring to the image below, because ad rank 3 appears more relevant than ad rank 1, it’s likely to generate a higher CTR.
So usually you don’t have to be ranking first to get the highest click through rate.
2) Improve the Campaign Structure
If you find a lot of different search queries within an ad group, it is because there are too many keywords in the ad group which are very different to each other. Which in turn means that you will not be able to write relevant ad copy.
Solution? Don’t have many different keywords in the same ad group. Instead, make more ad groups in which you group very similar keywords together. It’s the same with sorting buttons!
3) Don’t Overuse the Dynamic Keyword Insertion
Make sure you use the dynamic keyword insertion correctly. This feature can be very useful in some specific cases but if you are using it in all your ad groups you are probably losing clicks.
See? With improper use of dynamic keyword insertion your ad can look a bit dodgy.
4) Use Ad Extensions if Possible
It is not necessarily important whether people actually click on your ads’ sitelinks or if they actually pay attention to your address. What is important, however, is that the extensions will make your ad stand out (which does attract more clicks) so you should be using them anywhere it makes sense.
5) Expand your Negative Keyword List
This is especially important if you are using broad matched keywords, then your negative keyword list should be comprehensive! Otherwise your ads may be showing on irellevant queries and your CTR will drop. For inspiration see this huge keyword list. I am sure you will find many useful negatives there.