The click-through-rate (CTR) is a critical metric in an AdWords campaign. It is a reliable indicator of your ads’ performance. A campaign with low click through rate can cost a lot. You need to find effective ways to increase AdWords CTR from the get-go to make it worthwhile.
Improving your CTR brings two benefits:
- More traffic to your website
- Lower cost-per-click (CPC) cost
Many conduct extensive case studies and research to find an edge. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that some simple adjustments in the Google AdWords campaign can have a big effect.
Here are five such simple but effective ways to increase clicks on your Google AdWords ads.
Tactic 1: Increase AdWords CTR with Callout Extensions
If there is one thing that people will pay attention to, that is offers. They can be useful in generating conversions. A part of Google’s ad extensions, the callout extension feature allows advertisers to highlight unique selling points in their ad copy.
This extension increases AdWords CTR capabilities by promoting various offers from your website. ‘Discounts,’ ‘Free shipping,’ ‘24/7 Support’, ‘Mega deal,’ these are the magic words to generate a click.
Furthermore, callout extension helps improve your ads rank and appear higher than others. All in all, this is more effective than other extension features such as call extension.
Usually, 2-6 such callouts are displayed within the ad to capture people’s attention. And with recent advancement in mobile ads, there are even callouts that are optimized for mobile.
As an advertiser, you have significant control over the feature; you set up the whole process manually. You specify what time and text it will display. However, there’s a 25 character limitation for each callout. You can also edit the callouts without resetting the statistics.
Tactic 2: Increase AdWords CTR with Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are one of the most important aspects of Paid Search or PPC campaigns. They are instrumental in defining the appropriate target audience. Negative keywords prevent your ad from triggering to wrong search queries. They also increase the relevancy of your ad group and thus, improve quality score.
Adding negative keywords is quite simple, it comes in three match types:
- Broad match
- Phrase match
- Exact match
Google processes the incoming search query and matches keywords to see its relevance to your ad. By filtering out irrelevant searches, you are ensuring that only those with the highest probability of clicking will look at your ads.
This narrowing of the sales funnel saves you from wasting time and resources. Experts’ advice to apply exact match filtering to broad or phrase campaigns to achieve maximum CTR possibility.
Tactic 3: Increase AdWords CTR with Brand Bidding
Competitors are blessings in disguise. Most people have a very pessimistic view of the competition. But they can offer a lot of helpful insights, even if unintentionally.
Look for the most profitable and useful ads the competitors are using and target them. Thanks to tools like SEMrush and SpyFu, this has become easy.
Bidding on competitors brand and keywords is fair and straightforward — this is called Brand Bidding. Unless it is copyrighted or trademarked, you can go nuts!
Many people do that to increase AdWords CTR. It is a good way to get high-quality traffic and clicks, especially for small to medium companies. But it is best to refrain from using exact keywords of your competitors, as it may lower the quality score.
According to experts, the best practice is always to bid low. Instead of going for the top seat, choosing to stay low ensures you get those individuals who are looking for an alternative. It is also helpful in keeping quality score high and bounce rate low.
Tactic 4: Increase AdWords CTR with Compelling Ad Copy
Words have power. They can draw out emotion and encourage activity. With the right words, we buy things that are not needed, daydream of faraway lands.
Smart marketers have a solid understanding of the human psyche. They use our psychological impulses to influence us.
As the advert copy consist more than just the display URL, advertisers capitalize on this opportunity to use impactful words.
What type of words is most useful depends on your business and target customers.
Words that triggers emotional response are more likely to attain clicks. According to Wordstream, the top emotions include anger, disgust, affirmation, and fear.
There are also words of inclusion; this means they don’t want to be left out. Most people dread it. Using words that create urgency within the individual is a great way not just to get clicks, but also conversions.
Tactic 5: Increase AdWords CTR with Dynamic Keyword Insertion
Even though it is considered to be an advanced AdWords feature, this is a simple way to increase AdWords CTR. Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) maximizes CTR rate by personalizing the ad text with the search term.
The principle is simple. DKI creates a space in the ad copy. When a user’s search term triggers your ad, that exact search term will be inserted into the place; this, in turn, creates more relevancy to the searcher.
We are more inclined to click a click that has the exact search on their title. For example, if you are a car dealer, you’d have to create ad campaigns around different models of cars. So, when someone searches for a specific model, the DKI will insert that search term into your ad text.
You can enable this feature by inserting a unique piece of code into the ad. As a result, the ad will appear differently to different customers.
Wrapping Up
According to Internet Live Stats, there are around 3.5 billion searches per day in Google, which is why Google is the ultimate search partner for your paid search campaigns. Advertising in this platform provides the best possibility of success. But you need people to click your ad, go to your landing page and create conversions.
There are many other best practices like adding keywords in display URL, countdown timer, compelling calls to action etc. But keep in mind that optimizing an AdWords campaign is not all about following the best practices. “When it comes to optimizing AdWords campaign, the truth is that there is no one size fits all tactics that will be proved to work,” said Khalil Saleh, a CRO expert and co-founder of Pricemama. You should continue testing your ad copies as long as your campaign deliver the result you want.
If you utilize the tactics we mentioned here to increase AdWords CTR, you’ll have plenty of those precious clicks and be on your way to success.
Comments: