1 reply to this topic

[chorn]

My PPC campaigns are based mostly around advertising on "city name" keywords. In a particular market, my keywords "cityname" and "cityname state" each are performing well and have around a 3%CTR. In the "cityname ST" ad groups, the CTR is more like .3%.

I eventually sorted out that I needed to use ZIP codes, street denominations, and numbers as negatives because people usually type the ST abbreviation when searching for an address. I've done all the SQR's, don't see anything, can anyone suggest on why this KW variation is getting far less clicks? This same phenomenon holds true with different cities and on Google and MSN so I think it's more an issue with matching something wrong or negative KW's than it is with "user behavior" as Google claims... If I have a 3% CTR when someone searches "miami florida" or simply "miami", how does it drop by a factor of 10 to .3% when that search is "miami fl".

I'm advertising a vacation product, if that helps, and the ads are the same for all three mentioned ad groups... I exclude the state that I'm selling to, to cut down on local searches, addresses, etc.

Edited by chorn, 10 April 2012 - 07:21 AM.

[Michael Martinez]

I see a substantially different SERP if I search on the example you give ("miami florida" vs. "miami fl") and while I cannot say this may be the case for all similar pairs of queries, the busier page is the one where the state name is spelled out. It might be that consumers are more overwhelmed by all the UI options Google is providing them and thus more likely to click on an ad.

It's really hard to say as so many things can influence consumer behavior. You may actually be dealing with two nearly distinct demographics, sort of left-brain people versus right-brain people, simply based on whether they choose to spell out the state name or not.

That is a hypothesis, and perhaps one that is too complex for your situation, but it's the kind of stuff I have looked at through the years when studying organic query patterns with similar issues.