One of the most commonly asked questions about optimizing content campaigns is “what is a good click through rate?” The short answer…well…it depends. Your click through rate is going to vary based on:
- your account structure (keyword themed or placement targeted)
- the types of sites you are targeting (general or targeted, top domain or specific pages)
- the ad formats that you are using (text, image, video, mobile)
You really shouldn’t grade your account, campaign, AdGroup or even your ad copy based on average click through rates. If you run a placement report, you will find that click through rates vary campaign to campaign, AdGroup to AdGroup, placement to placement and ad to ad.
If your CTR isn’t what you expected or would like, dig deeper and analyze the individual sites, the pages your ads are showing on and the ad format and copy. Some general sites are just going to get lower CTR’s by nature and some ads may perform better on some sites but terrible on others.
For higher traffic and general topic sites, try a more generic ad and landing page and a softer call to action (like a free trial or report). As you get more specific with your targeting, use different landing pages and ad copy for the different audiences. Example: if you are targeting CEO’s with placement targeting, the ad copy and landing pages should be different from the placements, landing pages and ads that target merchandise buyers.
To evaluate your click through rate on the content network, use your networks tab to look at the details for your automatic and/or managed placements or better yet, run placement reports so that you are looking at all the variables for each AdGroup and ad.
For more information on Content Network strategies stay tuned to my YouTube channel, blog or you can still sign up for the Content Network Boot Camp.
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Ah you and your dog are so cute.
Check out my friends blog about bulldogs if your are a dog lover. (http://frenchietink.com/) He gets good traffic just from blogging about his/gf’s dogs. About the article, good analogy. I also watched your article “Below the Fold in Google’s Content Network” and had one question;not sure if I am doing something wrong but when I go to exclusions Adwords only gives me the choice to exclude placements. Below the fold is not there. Do I have have an agency account to do this or am I doing something wrong?
Nevermind above question, I just started over and it was there, I must have gone to the wrong campaign, thanks for the tip, going to try this and see how it works out for a few days.