We are always talking about CTRs but we rarely discuss how important they are to your Google Ads or SEO campaigns. Essentially, a CTR is how many users are clicking on your ad/link divided by the total number of impressions (views.)
Here is the formula below:
We refer to CTR in our SEO and Ads reports however, it is a very important metric to measure the success of any campaign you run such as email, social media etc. CTRs let you know when your content is working well and when you need to improve.
In Google, your CTR can impact your Quality Score and Ad Rank so it is a considerable tool to monitor.
So, what can positively influence your CTR and how can we maintain an effective campaign?
Adding a keyword to your URL – this improves the click-through-rate
Long-tail keywords also support CTR as they are much easier to rank due to reduced competition.
Including a Meta-Description into your web page. The general public won’t see it however, Google will!
CTRs vary between industries and what seems a small % to one group would be an excellent score to another. Adjusting your spend throughout the year to hone in on specific dates are important to your business. If you were a florist, spending big bucks on marketing for Valentine’s Day would make sense but not so much for a hardware store. This is because, in order to click onto a link, the user needs a reason. Your content is your sales pitch and we are asking the visitor to take action by clicking on the ad.
Click-Through-Rates for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
The ultimate goal for SEO is to place highly in organic results. It is no surprise then that results that place first are more likely to have higher click-through-rates. So, your CTR for SEO really depends on where you place in search results and the only way to improve this is to rank higher up than the competition. SEO is time consuming and challenging, not something that can happen over night. To improve you need to implement a variety of keywords that are high-quality & competitive, increase the quality of your website’s content and have other sites linking to yours. This last can be achieved through blogging and having your content published on other websites. Or, you can contact us here at Cultivate Digital to begin your SEO campaign, stress-free.
Pay Per Click (PPC) Click-Through-Rates
We love acronyms! PPC (Pay-Per-Click) are any ads that you need to pay for each time someone clicks on it. Examples include Google, Facebook & Instagram Ads. The average Click-through-rate for PPC is about 2%. Some industries, such as Finance, B2B (Business To Business), Consumer Services and Technologies, easily achieve this target whereas others like Legal Services, E-Commerce & Industrial Services struggle to make this percentage. CTR for PPC really depends on the industry you are in. Ultimately, you want to aim for a 3-5% conversion rate for your specific ads.
Some ways to improve the CTR for your ads include including special offers, adding strong calls-to-action and increasing your bids budget to gather more visibility.
Click-Through-Rates for Social Media.
CTRs vary depending on the social media channel that you are using. Twitter has the highest CTR with 2% with Instagram pulling less than half that at 0.96%. Facebook isn’t far behind on 0.72% however, LinkedIn only records a CTR average of 0.06%. The discrepancies between these come down to the fact that these platforms (especially Linkedin) haven’t traditionally been used for advertising. YouTube isn’t mentioned on the chart but the CTRs recorded for this channel average between 2 – 10%. As with everything, you need to understand your audience and what they are looking for in order to benefit from the time and money you put into your marketing.