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What are average SEM PPC click-through rates?

Does anyone know what the average click-through rates are for Adwords, MSN and other sites, like local newspapers? Or is this type of information too general and you need specifics about the advertisement (e.g., automobiles, landscaping, etc.) to quote average click-through rates for SEM and PPC?

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3 answers

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mattleveque

That is a fairly broad question. You might try breaking it down by what you should expect the CTR to be for branded terms vs. generic terms. Brand terms should see much higher CTR and demand a much lower CPC as a result. Generic terms will vary, but from a Quality Score perspective a CTR below 1% on Search Network targeted ads should be remedied or paused since they will have an impact on the rest of the account.  

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  • 1

ariel

Specifically to PPC search engine campaigns on Google – I aim for click through rates of at least over 1%, but prefer 2-10% for targeted campaigns. If you are not running targeted campaigns, you can get results, but you should be focused on the best possible target market when using a pull medium such as search engines. Google instant is certainly changing that playing field a bit because it will inevitable shorten key phrases and make more broad key phrases more important. You’ll ususally see much lower click through rates on banner advertisements and the content network on Google AdWords because this is a push medium, meaning that you are hoping users are interested, but they aren’t explicitly looking for your service, in the way that they are in a search engine by typing in the key phrase and pulling for information.

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jeffreynichols

I would politely disagree with mattleveque. Google AdWords account managers consider a CTR of 0.2 or higher a positive result. Once you reach that threshold it’s time to look at how visitors who enter your site on those keywords perform on your site.

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mattleveque
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Not the Google AdWords Manager’s I’ve worked with. If you think about CTR as it relates to Quality Score, low CTR’s like 0.2% will negatively impact your overall account and overall CPC’s. Low CTR’s will also impact your ads position. This is pretty well documented, proven information by Google and other practitioners. Here is a video about CTR and QS that you might find useful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7l0a2PVhPQ

jeffreynichols
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The information I have came to me as recently as last week. Prior to this I was operating based on 0.5% CTR or better, this was a surprise to me as well. I meet with the account managers weekly. In fact, my meeting is at 2pm today. I will ask her to confirm that statement. Thanks for the video, matt.

jeffreynichols
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Okay, just got off the phone with them. Turns out she was talking specifically about a content network campaign we were working on. So in terms of search I would agree that 0.2 is too low.

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