I’m sharing this mainly to see if there are improvements that can be made so I would welcome your ideas, opinions and feedback.

Before we look at how the tool works let’s set it up.

The Spreadsheet

You can get the spreadsheet tool here. But you’ll need to create your own copy so you can change the settings and keep the data private.

http://bit.ly/rZzW2k

Within the document is a sheet named ‘Settings’ where we’ll need to input the login details of your Google Analytics account and the source and medium for the traffic data you’d like.

I’ve included a key to show examples of medium and source settings but by default it’s set to call organic visits from Google.

Add Profile ID Keywords

Firstly you’ll need to get the profile ID for the analytics profile you wish to get the data from. Once you’ve selected it from the profile view the ID number will appear in the address bar  you’ll want everything after the ‘p’.

Finally, replace Keyword 1, Keyword 2 etc. with your desired keywords.

The Formula

I’ve used the following formula to pull in the Google Analytics data from the account we’ve specified in the settings sheet. Hopefully by breaking it down you’ll be able to not only understand but improve it and get around some of problems the limitations I’ve found.

=getGaMetric($B$6,”visits”,B17,C17,CONCATENATE (“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5,”;ga:source==”,Settings!$B$6,”;ga:keyword==”,A10))

=getGaMetric()

Tells Google Docs what the formula is to do, in this case it will request metrics from a Google Analytics account.

$B$6

The cell that holds the analytics profile ID

“visits”

The metric we wish to fetch

B17,C17

The start and end date of the period we wish to call data for

CONCATENATE()

I was unable to write a formula that could pull in the keyword automatically and fetch the data without doing it in fragments. I would welcome your ideas on improving this.

“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5

Fetch visitor data where the medium by which they arrive exactly matches the value in cell B5 on the settings sheet.

“ga:source==”,Settings!B$6,”

Fetch visitor data where the medium set above is true and the source exactly matches the value in cell B6 on the settings sheet.

“ga:keyword==”,A10

Fetch all the data that matches the medium and source specified where the keyword matches exactly the value in cell A10.

Issues

Data Can Be Slightly Off

It’s logical to think that as the data is being pulled directly from Analytics the figure outputted should match exactly the figure given within the Analytics interface yet it seems to always be less, albeit by a small amount.

It’s possible that Google Docs works on a different time zone to that set within the analytics account but I’m unsure.

Too Many Requests

I’ve only included 4 keywords as 4×12 months = 50 requests for analytics data at any one time. This seems to be the limit as if you add anymore it returns an error.

Does anyone know if 50 is indeed the limit or if there’s a way to get around this?

Changing The Year

This method requires a start and end date be specified for the data you wish to collect, hence the table January to December. Is it possible to have the year held in a separate cell and pulled in to make the date valid?

I have tried this method and while it’s entirely possible to concatenate two cells to give a valid date format the getGaMetric function does not seem to like it.

Here’s the spreadsheet again – please get in touch if you find it useful or have any suggestions on improving the usability.

Step 1: Enter your search query and go the results

Step 2: Click on a search result – I went with animatedknots.com

Step 3: Press back on your browser to return to the search results and you’ll see the following fade in from red to blue:

Step 4: If you click the link you’ll either be asked to log in or you’ll see the following:

And that’s it – I will never see results from animatedknots.com again! I of course have no problem with this website and have removed the block.

What does this mean for website owners?

It’s no secret that Google is on a march to stamp out bad content from appearing in its search results as the Panda updates show, but this is giving people the ability to filter their own search results based on their own personal tastes and opinions on what constitutes relevant and quality content.

As a website owner it means that low quality content is going to be subject to blocks from logged in Google users. While this isn’t a significant percentage of Google users it is a percentage that’s likely to increase.

Could this affect my SEO?

As with most things Google do, it’s hard to say for sure what the real intentions are but it’s not unreasonable to imagine Google penalising websites that have been voted down by many of their own logged in users and I expect it won’t be long before we start hearing about examples of this.

On Tuesday October 18th, Google announced on their official blog that over the next few weeks visitors to Google.com who are signed in to their Google account will be redirected to a secure version of the search engine (SSL Search) as found here:

https://www.google.com

Amy Chang from the Google Analytics blog said:

“As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users…”

“…This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet café.”

What Does This Mean For Website Owners?

Currently when a user visits your website through the organic search results the search query used to find your website is recorded in your analytics package. This data is often used to identify the phrases that contribute to sales or goal conversions on your website which can then be used in marketing activities to grow sales further – this is especially true in regards to SEO where the focus is improving rankings on these keywords. It’s also useful in identifying pages on your website that attract visitors with certain search queries but causes them to bounce.

For example a visitor may arrive using a query that is perfectly related to the content of the page but if the term or a variation of it is not immediately obvious on screen it may cause people to bounce, despite it being precisely hat they were looking for.

With the new changes starting to take affect this data will no longer be available where a visitor meets the criteria above. Instead this data will be grouped under “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting.

Currently the changes only affect a small number of Google users that search through Google.com rather than regional versions such as Google.co.uk however it is likely to be rolled out to all signed in users in the coming weeks.

FAQ

How much of my analytics data will be affected by this?
The percentage of your visitors data that will be affected by this change in the short term will depend on the percentage of your visitors that arrive through Google.com, however even when completely rolled out Google estimate less than 10% of that traffic will be affected, even when .co.uk users are redirected to the secure search.

Will this change be rolled out to non-logged in users?
While Google has not said as much there is speculation that this will be the case as it was with personalised search results that moved from being exclusively for logged in users to all users in December 2009.

Should the changes be rolled out to all Google users it will result in the search query data currently available becoming completely unavailable for visitors arriving through organic search.

Will Bing, Yahoo! & Ask organic data still be available?
Yes, this change only affects traffic arriving from Google properties; however it’s important to keep in mind that Google’s UK share of the search market was 90.78% in October 2011 compared to 3.7% for Bing and 2.5% for Yahoo! so data is likely to be sparse and not necessarily reflective of the search queries that convert from Google.

Is there an alternative source for this data?
While there is not another source for the data in its current format you will be able to access the search query data that is supplied by Google Webmaster Tools through your Google Analytics account. At present this data is only held for 30 days and is not associated with ecommerce of goals data.

Will this affect data collected from AdWords?
No, only organic search data will be affected. All keyword data that is currently available for Adwords will remain available.

Which analytics packages will be affected by this?
All analytics packages will be affected by these changes, including but not limited to:

• Google Analytics
• Adobe Omniture
• WebTrends
• ClickTracks

Will this change the way SEO is carried out?

If secure search is rolled out to all Google users as discussed above, it would mean a change in the way SEO is carried out as the data available to help with developing effective strategies will become limited.

Data gleaned from Google AdWords will become increasingly important in this scenario and the quality of a website, both in terms of content & usability will become even more important than before. While such a scenario would pose problems for website owners looking to carry out SEO, it simply poses new problems to be solved and almost certainly they will be solved with the kind of well rounded, forward thinking and holistic strategies that that practicing SEOs who adapt will be able to provide.

However it’s important to note that this is speculative at the moment and while it’s important to think ahead, it is equally important not to get carried away worrying about what might be. For now you should keep practicing SEO as you always have but keep monitoring the announcements that Google makes and be prepared to change as required.

What Can I Do To Prepare?

Retroactively analyse your data
While it’s still available it’s important to go back and look at historic analytics data which will give you an idea of the keywords that drive sales and those which could with improvements in rankings, something many of you are no doubt doing anyway.

If you’re a retailer you should be especially interested in the seasonality of these keywords so you can co-ordinate your marketing with this.

Learn from AdWords
As previously discussed this data will still be available for AdWords traffic so make use of this data wherever possible to guide you on making marketing decisions. Keep in mind that the paid search keywords shown in Google Analytics are the keywords set in the campaign and not the actual search query used by the user. That data is available from within your AdWords account.

Integrate social sharing ability to your website
Google has made no secret about its desire to move away from the link trust model it currently uses to rank web pages for search terms as it is open to manipulation. Over the last year or so new ranking factors have been introduced that look at how popular a page is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+ and this is set to become an ever more influential in time. If the keyword data available is going to be reduced it makes sense to get any head start you can and having a strong social presence is important.

Make Google+, Facebook & Twitter most prominent, and if desired include social bookmarking sites but hide them to avoid clutter.

This video shows an update straight from the horse’s mouth about just some of the changes Google makes to its search results pages and algorithms over the course of a year to help drive more relevant search results for users.
Every year, Google implements over 500 improvements to its search algorithms. That is 500 changes to the ways in which Google will decide which websites rank, in which order and for which search queries. These changes are tested in a variety of ways before launching. They initially use ‘Raters’ who compare results pages to decipher manually which is more relevant. These changes are then tested and monitored in a live environment to learn if the feedback and findings from the ‘Raters’ translates to actual users. If this is the case, the changes are made live for all to use.

This is how Google continues to be a leading force within the search market and why users continuously return to search. However, it does mean that it can be extremely difficult for agencies to guarantee anything. Google could change their rules from one day to the next and this could have a huge impact on your websites positions as well as how and where they are displayed.

So what can agencies guarantee?
A good agency will work alongside the client to ensure that best practices are implemented both on and offsite. They should also be at the forefront of releases of new algorithms and changes to search results and keep you up to date on elements that may impact you and your business. Most importantly, they need to know their onions. This comes from experience and learning. By looking at the results that search engine marketing has generated and reporting on these in a clear, ’non techie’ way you should be able to see clear value from your agency and understand what can be done to further improve your online positioning as a successful business.

Originally the deal was to include delivery of paid search (PPC) adverts, but due to dificulties merging the platforms the deal currently extends to the natural (organic) search results only.

The merger started in August 2010 in the USA and Canada and now it’s being rolled out in Europe, with Yahoo! properties presenting Microsoft Bing results in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

A Yahoo spokesman said:
“For Yahoo! this is an important step toward our goal of improving the overall relevance of Yahoo! organic search results and attracting a larger audience to Yahoo! Search. This transition will also enable both companies to continue to innovate on their respective consumer search experience, whilst relying on a common algorithm used by a combined user base.”

Since the launch of Bing, Microsoft have been attempting to improve the quality of their organic search results with ever more tweaks to the search algorithm, which comes under criticism for being too easy to manipulate by those with ill intentions. However there is hope that this merger will provide the funding and resources required to improve.

There is some speculation about how this merger will affect organic search traffic to websites, but given that Google has a 92% share of the search market in the UK (Bing & Yahoo! combined hold just 6.78%), it is not expected to be significant.

For those websites with a US audience the results may be a little more interesting, where combined, Bing & Yahoo claim 29.7% of the market; however the serving of Bing results to Yahoo! users was launched 12 months ago with little outcry from UK businesses.

The table below shows the market share of Yahoo! & Bing combined alongside that of Google in the key search markets in Europe:

So How Will it Affect Me?

In truth the answer is probably very little or not at all, but it’s important to look at your own website in isolation. If Yahoo traditionally provided visits & sales where Bing did not there is a chance that you’ll see some negative results from this merger, on the other hand if your keyword rankings were good in Bing but not Yahoo! you may see a small improvement.

If you’d like to discuss how this merger affects you in more detail or get advice on what to do next, get in touch with one of our SEO account executives who will be more than happy to discuss your website and how best to move forward.

What is a PPC management tool?

It can be as broad as it sounds. There are multiple tools both online and downloadable which offer a variety of services from keyword generation and automated ad copy creation through to bid strategy optimisation and  analytics. The challenge I have had over my 8 years of working in the search market is a simple one, nothing offers me what I need! They can sometimes offer too much and cost an arm and a leg, or they only have strengths in one area or another. I didn’t think my wish list was that demanding but perhaps it is?

The Products

The Bid Optimisers

If only you could automatically apply bid strategy changes based on targets and goals per keyword. Well this is what these tools offer. Set your CPA, ROI, CPC, for example and these tools will apply CPC changes to your account on a keyword level to meet these targets. However without someone who understands the account and the goals looking to be achieved, these tools can be misused.

Often these tools only apply strategies once a day due to API costs and restrictions and in some cases can end up being less effective than a manual optimisation process. The benefits however would be where multiple keywords are running in many different campaigns all with separate strategies and goals. The retail sector can definitely benefit from these types of tools as the variety of product keywords which perform well based on completely different metrics. Some of the algorithms of these tools have been developed by high end data analysts and that is where the benefit comes.

The Reporting Suites

These tools allow you to generate and automate graphical representation of data to make the reporting process for agencies simpler and much faster. Normally these functionalities are partnered with one or more of the others to compile a tool that adds value over and above simply reporting.

If you can set up automated reports which are sent to you and your clients every week showing them data they need to see that can save huge amounts of time which may currently be spent formatting custom reports. However this will also restrict the variety of reports available to you.

The Analytics

About  5 years ago many analytics tools started jumping on the search wagon. Realising the massive growth in search as well as the need to see integrated reporting of all online marketing this seemed like a logical step… if done well. Some have done it well whilst others failed miserably.

Alongside this many PPC tools worked to integrate analytics into their offering to enable a platform to report on all online activity not just PPC. This is where the SEO and PPC offering became much closer as agencies could run and report on both alongside each other.

The key with these tools is normally you have unique tracking codes or redirects which allow you to track all online activity on your website. This makes it easier to integrate Social, banners, SEO, PPC , email data in one place and also manage and report on your whole online presence.

One big problem remains, you change tool, you have to change the code. For some businesses this means hours of developer time spent removing current code on the webpages and replacing them with new tracing code. This can sometimes influence the choice of sticking with your current supplier or changing to a new one due to the work involved in changing.

The Management tools

The other offering is the management suite, built to help save time. One interface, one login, one password with access to all your accounts. Bulk upload changes to all the major search engines in one go. Make multiple keywords, ad or campaign changes. Essentially these tools were built for agencies to make their day to day tasks more efficient allowing more intelligent strategies and creative ideas to be applied to clients’ accounts.

This can be a great time saver as some functionality of Yahoo and Microsoft are weak and take a huge amount of time, with one interface this makes things much simpler and quicker.

On the down side the tools are only as good as the access they have to the search engines. Google is a classic example – how many changes have they made to their AdWords tools, settings and reporting over the past 6 months? Quite a few, and to keep up with the developments 3^rd party tools need to keep developing and amending their tools to access the new functionality from Google – and that is based on Google allocating them access to do so via the API.

There will always be settings you need to make via the search engines themselves and sometimes if these tools are not ahead of the game they become dinosaurs within a few months with dated technologies and functionality.

So which PPC tool is the best?

Well with the wide array of solutions currently in the market and the variety of services they all offer it is difficult to pin down one. In fact none offer me exactly what I want, there are always the wish list function that are on the agenda but never seem to come.

A revert button to change any actions you have implemented back to their original state. This would save so much time. Or an advanced ad copy testing tool which truly makes sense of the adcopy performance and how to determine which ad’s perform ‘Best’. Or even a tool where you pay what you use, many of my clients don’t need all the functionality of Google AdWords free tools let alone the vast suite of products that are actually rarely used. Even these technologies sales teams themselves avoid functionality in the demo’s because it is either dated, irrelevant or was only built initially for one big client with huge budgets.

I am not an expert on all these tools however I have had my share of experience. Being influential to developing the concept for the functionality and display within DC Storm  – No guesses what the DC stands for? Digital Clarity also became the first UK agency to champion Omniture’s Search Center, not only reselling the product and managing the tool but also working with the product development team to really enhance the functionality and robustness. However neither of these tools fit the wish list. Every demo and trial and review I do there always seems to be at least one element missing which leaves me in disappointment.

However, there is a lot of worth in using the right tool as long as you have the right people driving it.

Google have recently been developing more functionality to auto optimise your bid strategies, a/b test strategies and ads as well as reporting on more data than ever before, and they are free.

I guess the key is determining which functionality is important and what value it ads to your business. Until there is a pick and mix pricing option or tool which is suitable for all clients the decision of which tool’s to use will always be a challenge.

SURVEY REPORT

I am planning to compile an up to date report on the available tools on the market and very keen to get some feedback on the tools below in regards to cost, functionality (what intelligence they offer over and above human optimisation ) and support (customer support to troubleshoot and guide on functionality) out of 10 marks, 10 being the highest. All feedback is greatly appreciated.

7.45am I arrived at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, a new venue for the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exhibition.
After a well deserved coffee and biscuit I headed to the 4th floor for the Search and Social Media breakfast workshop presented by Brad Kleinman – Director of Education at Online Marketing Connect.

He presented an overview of the Search and Social markets honing in on vital statistics that identified why ‘Social’ was becoming essential to most businesses and what market trends were being predicted. There were many sources used for the insights however the key resources which stood out were eMarketer and Global Web Index.

Some key points to take from the slide share is the shift in social media and how people are using different social platforms and comparing this to businesses opinions or approach to social media. Also the data showing that micro blogging has increased +35% based on research comparing wave3 to wave1, however writing blogs and visiting forums and chat rooms is down. A 35% increase in micro blogging raises the importance of the likes of Twitter as they are being recognised as platforms to share real-time and breaking information to a huge audience. It is now for the advertiser or social media strategist to plan how these social platforms can enhance business goals via these platforms by managing customer service, sales opportunities, product reviews or customer word of mouth selling to mention a few.

This was followed by the SES conference welcome and opening keynote presented by Jeffrey Hayzlette, Celebrity CMO, former Kodak CMO

A very entertaining and energetic presentation about story telling to engage with potential customers and focussing on what hayzlett calls the 118, others may know this as the elevator pitch. As well as this he talked about the 4 E’s – Engage, Educate, Excite and Evangelise and how these play a vital part in talking to your audience and building customer loyalty through your branding and positioning.

We were exposed to a few snippets of social media activity Kodak had run and one of the most facinating statistics came from a twitter campaign which they ran to come up with a name for their new waterproof video camera. They asked people via twitter what they should call the camera, the winners would have the product named after their idea and would be announced the mother/father of that product.
This campaign generated more followers and interest in a few days than they had had in the whole history of the account. This just goes to show how powerful the engagement with your audience can be. I would be interested to know how many of those followers then went on to purchase a Kodak product and within how long after the campaign.

The ExhibitionHall
The Exhibition hall was fairly ‘compact’ as we have seen year on year at London SES and it was interesting to see many SEO link building companies competing. Amongst the rest of the 19 booths was a majority of SEO services and a spread of social media tools and technologies as well as some search marketing software and analytics tools.

Although I did not attend the following days I heard the seminars on everyones radar (other than the cocktail reception and parties) were ‘PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle’, ‘Update on realtime search: I want it now!’ and ‘Killer Facebook Marketing Tactics’.

Did you attend? If so what seminars were of most interest to you? I would love to hear your feedback.

Hosted at Microsoft’s London HQ, presenters included Orla Malone – Sales Associate UK and Ireland for Facebook, Director of Search at Bing – David Coplin and Colm Bracken – Microsoft Advertising’ Group Search Manager. It was a good turn out and some interesting case studies were delivered by Radisson Edwardian’s Amy Clarke, as well as some interesting insights into Microsofts steps to integrate Social and Search.
However throughout each of the presentations the elephant in the room was Google.

In the UK Google still holds 92.27% of the search market with the remaining 7.73% being split across Bing, Yahoo and other search sites according to StatCounter Global Stats data.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Search Engine Market Share

The US tells a different story however with Google only reporting to have 80% on Global stats but as little as 65.6% reported from ComScore for January 2011. However Google search on mobile is by far the dominant force in both UK and US.

The US search and social market leads the way for the UK and often we see the same or similar trends breaking in the US reflected in UK market. This would suggest that Bing’s Search Engine market share is likely to grow and that growth may be to Google’s detriment.

So what does this have to do with Facebook?

Well Microsoft and Facebook seemed very comfortable together and currently Bing provides the search results within Facebook. Facebook is the most used website in UK and with over 500 million global active users and 50% of them logging on every day, with this in mind if Facebook can integrate a search function that delivers the relevance at the quality of Google’s results then this may be a fighting force for Google. Whether they develop this themselves, partner with the likes of Bing to deliver the search results or if they move in this direction at all is something that Google must have on their radar.

The clear problem I see at the moment is Bing’s Search results are just not as relevant as Google’s.
To test this I ran a search for ’what is Quora?’ on Google and Bing and this was the result:

Bing is delivering Sponsored links for totally irrelevant ads to the search query as well as the natural listings being less relevant. The layout of the page even makes it difficult to find what you want and the related searches bear no relevance to Quora only the ‘what is’ part of my search query.
So Bing has a lot of work to do here in my opinion. But back to Facebook, if people are spending such huge amounts of time on Facebook every day, and this includes on their mobiles, tablets, PC’s and laptops, why not facilitate a search into the tool which allows users to stay in the Facebook environment but effectively search.

I then looked on Facebook to see what results were delivered on the same search for ‘What is Quora?’ to my surprise the results (which are powered by Bing) were more relevant than the Bing searches themselves? It displays fewer results but all are highly relevant to Quora.

There is no denying it Google have the Search market sussed at the moment, however in order to stay ahead of the curve and to drive search and social integration I am waiting to see there next move. Google’s search results currently integrate social results and often Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn results will populate the search engine results pages (SERPs) but what are they doing to engage with users on via social platforms?

Facebook on the other hand have their own challenges, people are there to communicate with friends and family, to share photo’s and updates on their lives, are they there to search? And if so what is the best way to facilitate that and try to take some of Google’s market share?

In every review, audit or consultancy I have done on a Google AdWords account I have always been asked by the client ‘What should my Click Through Rate be?’, ‘How can I improve my CTR’ or ‘Is my CTR good for my industry?’.

Now these questions do not have a straight forward answer. This prompted me to look into the influences of CTR and hopefully identify how you can try and gauge if your CTR is good, bad or indifferent.

What is CTR?

Click Through Rate is the percentage of clicks you have received from a number of impressions.

E.G. If my AdWords ad had 500 impressions and 50 people clicked on my ad my CTR would be 10%.

This is one way to measure the relevance of clicks based on the keywords you are using. By delivering a strong ad to capture people’s attention, which also clearly reflects your products and services on the website, the more likely you are to achieve a good CTR. In some cases though you may want a lower CTR to show you are deterring irrelevant users from clicking.

E.G. If you sell Skiing holidays and have the keyword ‘Holidays in France’ your ad copy is the only thing conveying that you only sell Skiing holidays. By making this prominent in your ad copy you can prevent clicks from those users looking for sunny holidays in France and hence you’re CTR may be lower.

What is in your control?

So when you are optimising your account to try and improve CTR what can you change to influence your CTR percentage.

• Keyword Selection
• Keyword Match Type
• Ad Copy
• Negative keywords
• CPC bid price

Keyword Selection

Be conscious of which keywords you select to use. The more generic the keyword the broader the range of meanings. If you are looking to run a very tight, specific campaign with a high CTR choose long tail keywords which are very specific to your products and services. This will allow you to get a much higher CTR but can restrict the exposure and volume of traffic and conversions you can look to achieve.

Generic keywords will often overlap into other market sectors, meaning the keyword is relevant but it depends what the user is looking for. This is where generics are great for drawing in the users at the research stages, i.e. before they have refined their search, however they may not be the keyword to show conversion to sale.

Keyword Match Type

By choosing your match type you can influence how specifically you’re ads are matched to a search. Again the more volume you are looking for the broader you should match. If you are looking to refine your search terms and improve CTR it is recommended that you use exact match to appear only when someone searched for your exact keyword. This will limit the number of impressions you achieve and in turn clicks. However if you have selected your keywords to be specific and you’re keywords are on broad match you should get a higher volume of clicks from your impressions and a higher CTR.

Ad Copy

Your ad copy is the door to your landing page. It needs to tell the user what they are going to find on the next page they click to. Therefore by selecting the right keywords, match type and reflecting these searched in your engaging adcopy, this can influence a higher CTR. Try using pricing, incentives, USP’s within your ad copy and make sure they include your keywords.

Negative Keywords

Prevent the wrong clicks by using negatives. If you are on broad or phrase match then negatives are essential. Keywords like ‘Free’ and ‘Images’ are often top of the list to make sure irrelevant searches are not leading to clicks and wasting your budget. Without negatives you may see a lower CTR because you are not promoting ‘Free’ products in your adcopy for example. In order to increase the CTR, make sure the people searching are the ones you want to be clicking.

CPC Bid Price

It may not seem obvious that your CTR is influenced by your CPC however it can be. Position one on Google will often receive the highest volume of clicks and the highest CTR as it is the first listing that people see when they search. Often users will click the top ad without even reading it. Equally if you are half way down the page you are going to get a great deal less clicks but still a high volume of impressions generating a low CTR. By increasing your cost per click bid, you are likely to see an increase in CTR, however all of the above still apply to making that CTR as strong as possible. It is best to experiment with the best positions and CPC’s for the results you are hoping to achieve.

What is out of your control?

There are many influences outside of your control which may affect your CTR and this is important to take into account when optimising your AdWords campaigns.

• Google’s algorithm
• User behaviour
• Seasonality
• The Weather
• Breaking news
• Google instant
• Competition
• How Google report on CTR’s

So what is a good AdWords CTR?

I use a general rule of thumb when running accounts however there are always exceptions to the rule as that is the nature of Google and search marketing in general.

Break your reporting into 3 sections:

• Brand terms
• Generic terms
• Specific terms

From here I allocate an ideal CTR based on experience and results I have seen over the years as well as current trends and performance. This is not going to work for all industries, countries, campaigns, times of day and budgets, however it gives a ball park figure or bench mark which you can gauge your campaigns to, maybe just as a sanity check. If you feel you are not getting the results you expect from your campaign you should contact your account manager to discuss what options there are.

Expected Estimated CTR

• Brand terms – 10 – 100% CTR
• Generic terms – 0.5 – 5% CTR
• Specific terms – 2 – 15% CTR

You will often see that the generic keywords generate the majority of your clicks. Therefore on average you will notice your overall CTR will tend to follow the trend of your Generic terms. Remember, Google reports on the CTR for a keyword and its ad copy at any time of day. The averages can therefore vary dramatically just on one keyword. This is accelerated when you start to implement optimisation changes however the overall collective average may not reflect this.

Hopefully this gives a little clarity to a complex metric that can help you to improve the performance of your account or simply a better understanding of the reporting you are provided by your PPC specialist.