Consumers are becoming more savvy in the way they search online, great targeting isnt enough to get their attention relevance of ad creative is now the driving factor in click through rate.

Click through rate (CTR) is a well known way of measuring your online campaigns success. CTR is determined by dividing the number of clicks your ad receives by the number of times your ad appears (impressions). Typically a display ad (banner ad) gets a 0.04% CTR. Standard click through rate in pay per click advertising (PPC) is much higher. You should aim for at a least 1%-2% CTR. The following article discusses methods to improve your PPC campaigns click through rate.

Paying for top position no longer ensures the most clicks

When Yahoo dominated the Search landscape, the advertiser that paid the most got top position. The logic was that the higher your position the more clicks you got. Part of Googles success was that they changed all that. Google added Quality Score to determine your ads position.

In Googles algorithm the amount the advertiser is willing to spend on a click still affects position, but the CTR of the ad also holds a lot of sway. Googles logic is that the ad that gets clicked on more is more relevant. Google rewards the more relevant ad by increasing its position. Yahoo and MSN have now been forced to consider Quality Score as well when positioning PPC ads.

This means that a higher CTR results in a higher Quality Score, raising your ads position but not its price. Therefore the most relevant ad gets cheaper traffic and more sales. So it is in your best interest to make your ads as relevant as you can to the keywords your prospects are using to find your site.

INSIGHT: Great targeting + Great creative = More visitors + More sales for less.

We believe the best way of improving your ads relevance, and thus its CTR, is through Creative Search Marketing.

What is Creative Search Marketing?

Creative Search Marketing can mean a few things:

1. Take your brand guidelines and other marketing communications as a starting point. PPC ads that borrow from ATL and BTL communications will be more relevant to consumers searching for your brand or latest campaigns. We have proven many cases where aligning PR with PPC can create a huge uplift in CTR and sales.

2. Write lots of ads. Ideally you should have a specific ad relevant to each keyword. While this is not usually possible, try and make your ad groups as small as possible, keeping similar keywords together.

3. Write consumer benefit lead ad copy and regularly test new propositions to try and beat the last best ad.

4. Optimise your landing page so its related to both your ad copy and your keywords. Google takes your landing page content into account when considering Quality Score.

If you follow these principles your ads will be more relevant, will get more clicks and will therefore get a higher position, which in turn will get you more clicks, creating a positive feedback loop, and all that traffic for less than your competitors who arent using Creative Search Marketing principles.