10 replies to this topic

[Vertster]

Google and Overture want advertisers to focus on achieving a high CTR. Makes sense... they enjoy higher revenue per ad shown!

The problem is, maximizing CTR often does not result in maximum conversion rate. To push up your conversion rate and ROI often means reducing your CTR by screening out the tire kickers with your PPC ad creative. Of course you can focus your keywords and qualify the clicks that way too, but your overall volume will decrease. Businesses with enough margin can afford to go after the really competitive high volume phrases. These are a few of the things to consider...

o On Overture, qualifying visitors before they become visitors is much easier since they have a much larger creative space for copy. Also, as long as your click index is high enough, your okay with them. No big benefit for you having a high CTR yet...

o On Google, you lose the benefits of higher rankings, lower costs created by a high CTR. However you save money on cost per aquisition by lowering your overall adwords bill.

o One stragegy (I don't recommend but some direct marketers will) is to not screen out "tire kickers" at all, and hope your copy can convert non prospects into buyers.

Just curious how much time other people spend thinking about this stuff, and how you figure out what to do for each...

[Bernard]

Nice post.

I personally prefer to describe the product as clearly as possible with relation to the search term to maximize the CR (at the possible expense of CTR) for unbounded ads with negative keywords.

But my ads are not driving people to a B2C site where consumers are purchasing anything on-line. I'm not trying to draw impulse shoppers.

I've got a B2B site where the goal is to generate qualified leads for a niche technical product. Having unfocused traffic generates more unqualified leads which then waste our time. So the costs of having a high CTR are more than offset by resources required to process unqualified leads.

[Haystack]

I've run into this with sites where people could be searching for information rather than a paid solution. In cases like that we'll usually stick some pricing information into the description.

My phrase of choice to limit non-targeted traffic is, Full Service. It seems to help but it's hard to track.

On the reverse side of things, I've worked with a client who could basically convert traffic on any search term. I pretty much had reverse my normal mindset by going after phrases that include normally horrendous terms like Cheap and Free.

[Hippo]

I currently have 7 active Overture clients and 3 active AdWords clients. At first, I worked hard to keep my CTR up. Then I worked hard to keep my ROI up.

Now, I have come to the conclusion that the real goal of PPC is not CTR or ROI, but total profit. Let's face it, if it makes money, do it. Then optimize it through testing.

Another thought is that you can spend every minute of your life monitoring these things and thinking about CTR and ROI. In reality, just follow some standard accepted concepts of prequalifying and tracking conversions. You will know relatively quickly what is working and what does not.

One last comment is that Google searchers tend to like "informative" style ads. I have seen some of my ads perform better when they are descriptive and factual by nature.

[compar]

I find it really hard to figure out what will and will not attract or discourage surfers. I ran an AdWord campaign where I offered a $10.00 rebate on the initial order. I assumed that this would limit my CTs to people who were serious buyers and who would take advantage of a $10 rebate rather than go to someone elses site.

The results were amazing or dumbfounding to me. Very few of the CTs actually applied -- they had to fill out a form with name and email address -- for the rebate. And then the really confusing thing is that very few of those who did apply for the rebate subsequently make a purchase. Go Figure!

[Haystack]

Now, I have come to the conclusion that the real goal of PPC is not CTR or ROI, but total profit.  Let's face it, if it makes money, do it.  Then optimize it through testing.

We manage this by isolating terms that have proven to be winners through conversion analysis and manage bids on those terms separately from the rest.

[compar]

We manage this by isolating terms that have proven to be winners through conversion analysis and manage bids on those terms separately from the rest.

Can you explain that in a little more detail. I'm not sure I follow.

[Haystack]

For example, in Overture, we move terms into a new ad group called Winners or BigMoneyTerms once they start showing up as terms proven to convert to sales or leads (depending on the goal of the site).

Since we now know those terms effectively convert, we can bid more aggressively on those terms and do so with confidence.

[compar]

For example, in Overture, we move terms into a new ad group called Winners or BigMoneyTerms once they start showing up as terms proven to convert to sales or leads (depending on the goal of the site).

Since we now know those terms effectively convert, we can bid more aggressively on those terms and do so with confidence.

What time period do you use for evaluation before making these decsions. I find that performance on an individual term or AdWord can change or fluctuate dramatically from day to day.

[Haystack]

Hi Bob,
the time periods vary widely based on the industry, ad spend, B2B vs. consumer site, etc. Very subjective. On a B2B site we'll normally do this monthly but it can be done on a shorter timeline for high spending consumer sites.

At the same time, we'll look for terms that are real dogs and drop them from campaigns. In the case of Overture, this could be because the terms happen to be syndicated onto a lot of poor traffic sources such as domain squatter directories. In our experience, that traffic barely converts and not at a level justifying the same cost as "search" traffic.

[AussieWebmaster]

I've run into this with sites where people could be searching for information rather than a paid solution. In cases like that we'll usually stick some pricing information into the description.

My phrase of choice to limit non-targeted traffic is, Full Service. It seems to help but it's hard to track.

On the reverse side of things, I've worked with a client who could basically convert traffic on any search term. I pretty much had reverse my normal mindset by going after phrases that include normally horrendous terms like Cheap and Free.

using Full Service in certain industries would get you plenty of clicks and closes... lol...
But the adult webmaster in me is hard to repress...
I agree with the qualifying... in the real world I work with currency broking and there are way too many people kicking the tires and way too many idiots beating up the prices of keywords... so you have to develop all the tricks in the bag to keep good numbers coming through...

using qualifying terms as opposed to negative terms works well for me... foreign exchange is a plus priced term but can also be banged by so many fringe searches that you battle constantly with the CTR... students etc so better qualify instead of backdoor