Smart Hacks to Improve Google Ads CTR (Click Through Rate)

We all know and love the simplicity of using Google for researching almost everything. But when it comes to marketing on the platform, it is a different story. Google ads are an effective way to advertise your business, but a lot goes into making them cost-effective. An excellent CTR is a crucial indicator that your ads are correctly utilized. To operate a successful Google ads campaign, you need to do more than have quality content and a credit card. 

You need to venture deep inside the core mechanism of the platform and figure out how to get to the top of the SERP (search engine results page). Without narrowing down the different elements that affect your ad score, you might keep seeing results you are not expecting. The amount of money you pump into your campaign won’t matter unless your strategy is fool-proof. 

Firstly the Google CTR is the percentage of clicks you get on your ads. For example, your Google ad that you’re running could receive 100 impressions and five clicks. Then your CTR would be 5%. Most experts suggest an effective CTR on Google ads is between 3-5%. 

This blog will explore the top 9 ways to improve your Google ads CTR.Let’s take a look at them below. 

1. Negative Keywords

These keywords ensure your ad is not associated with search terms that might not have anything to do with your business. This would help your Google ads CTR and your Google ads campaign entirely. The main aim of Google ads is not to reach the masses but to reach consumers interested in your brand or business. By using negative keywords, you exclude your ad from SERPs that are not relevant to you and therefore, you would be avoiding unhelpful impressions. This would lead to a higher CTR on your ad. 

You would also be putting your budget at ease when the right consumer sees your ad pop up, instead of it being wasted being showcased to general consumers. If you have an ad performing poorly in your campaign, look at your keywords and narrow down the irrelevant ones. Once you have done that, move them to the negative keywords tab. You can analyze this data by going to the search terms report and selecting the low CTW keywords. 

2. Ad Extensions 

Google gives you the ability to add 10 extensions to your ads. Not every ad requires every extension in your campaign. But utilizing the extensions relevant to your ad is vital in taking full advantage of Google’s features. Users perceive the more relevant your ad, the better the chance of increasing your CTR is. Let’s explore some of the most common ad extensions available to you. 

Sitelink Ad Extensions

When your ad appears on the top three positions of the SERP, they have an extra line of text integrated into them. This is similar to organic search site links. Enabling the site link descriptions to your campaign allows you to add two extra lines to your ad, improving the ad CTR. If you choose to use this feature, you will make your ad stand out from the rest and reach the top spots of the SERP.

Call Extensions

Like the previous extension, the call extension allows consumers to contact you quickly. This would be a crucial element for businesses requiring phone calls to expedite sales. The advantage of these extensions is that people can call you directly from their mobile phones or desktop communication software like Skype with a simple click. The calls can also be recorded through Google Adwords for training purposes. This extension would make your ad unique and prompt consumers to click on it. 

Promotion Extension

If your business runs an offer or discount, you can highlight them on your ad so that cost-efficient users can click on them. 

There are four types of promotion extensions:

• Monetary discounts
• Percentage discounts
• Up to monetary discounts 
• Up to percentage discounts

Price Extensions 

These extensions are designed for consumers to click on them and then be redirected to the brand’s product page. This is an additional link to an ad that can display different price ranges and services. It is suggested that adding this extension would improve your overall ad Quality Score and, therefore, would increase your CTR. Accessing your product information is a deciding factor for most users.

Other Extensions 

These include:

• Call out extensions 
• Lead form extensions 
• Location extensions 
• App extensions 

Depending on the kind of business you run, you can pick which of these extensions are most relevant for you. For example, do not overload your ad with too many extensions, which might discourage the consumer.

3. Smart Bidding Strategies 

This bidding strategy utilizes machine learning to put your ad into auctions that would give them the best chances of getting clicks. You no longer have to find auctions through enhanced CPC manually. While the automation is not perfect and constantly evolving, you can still make changes to your ad to perform significantly better at the auctions. 

The machine learning involved in this process adjusts the bids of your keywords in every auction. This task is challenging to do manually and saves you a lot of time. When the machine does it for you, your ad can access more accurate and targeted auctions, leading your campaign to a higher CTR.

4. Different Ad Types

Previously most advertisers would resort to expanded ad types. However, you can now incorporate responsive text ads. These have proven to increase your ad CTR. You have the choice to include more than just three headline fields and two description fields in the search ads. Your chances of showing up on relevant SERPs will be increased. 

You have a wide variety of customizations that you can include in your ads. For example, if a headline is not suited in the top position, you can pin it onto the second or third positions and vice versa. This can all be done in the preview section of the ad tab. 

There is also a box above the preview tab that indicates the strength of your ad. This box updates itself every time you change your ad. You can tweak your ad accordingly to make it better by referring to the strength box. Google ads have also released a new Google Discovery Ads feature which is only for mobile phone users due to the increase in mobile searches. 

5. Keyword Groups

Google Ads prompts you to include several keywords in your ad groups and account. What should not happen is that you overload one ad group with too many keywords. This will affect each group’s advert texts and other keywords. For example, consumers who use your keyword in an ad group of 20 other keywords will not see the advert they are intended to see. The conclusion would be that your ad will receive a low CTR and quality score. You can solve this by grouping keywords into various smaller, more relevant groups and ensuring the adverts copy has a couple of keywords present in it as well. 

6. Split Test

Several tools you can utilize on Google ads will help you run tests on your campaigns. The split test is one such experiment. This consists of the creation of different versions of your ad copy. Experts suggest that when you perform a split test, you should include 2 or 3 ads from each ad group. This process aims to test each variation and determine the chance of getting a good CTR. 

Once the data is collected after some time, you can then narrow down what ads are doing poorly. Once you have stopped the unsuccessful ads, you can start a split test again using that as a starting point. However, it is crucial to remember that you must stop the poorly performing ads so you do not have too many ads operating in the same ad group. On the other hand, having several ads will result in an unsatisfactory CTR.

7. Remarketing Audiences 

The idea of a remarketing campaign is to target consumers that are most likely to view your product again. When these consumers first visit the ad, their data is collected and stored on the Google ads platform. These consumers could be first-time visitors or users familiar with your brand. The aim is to upsell customers most inclined to click on your ad and get directly to your product pages. You can also exclude consumers who are not interested in your brand when you start your remarketing campaign.

8. A/B Testing

The art of making successful ads with excellent CTR and a positive ROI is to test them effectively. All you have to do is provide headlines and descriptions. Google takes over and displays the most relevant combination to consumers. Some experts suggest you use two responsive ads and one search ad. You can count on Google Ads to test each combination and determine which will perform the best.

9. Improve Your Quality Score

Now this score is the most significant decider. Your quality score is the rating Google awards to you based on the quality of your ad, keywords and product landing pages. You will get a higher score if your content is relevant to the platform and it deems it necessary for consumers to see. Therefore getting a high ad rank on Google is vital for a good CTR. 

When you have users clicking on your ad, this is an indicator for Google to deem your ad resourceful for consumers and award you a higher rank. Over time this would mean you pay less as well. If you have a tight budget, your best bet is you aim at a higher quality score because that would mean you would pay less than your competitors on the SERP. However, being relevant and informative to consumers will always beat Google’s most prominent ad budget. 

These tips on how to improve your Google ads CTR will surely help you in your endeavor to master the mechanics of such an enormous platform. As you can see, the most significant budget doesn’t always mean the best results. Proper testing and quality content will get your ads to the top of the SERP and direct the most relevant traffic of consumers to your website. So keep experimenting and see how far it takes you.