Google Adwords Click Through Rate. What is it and how does it work?

Part 1 in a 3 Part Series

When it comes to advertising on Google Adwords, everyone wants to pay less for each click, yet still rank high enough that you get great traffic to your site so that visitors can buy things, use your service etc. 

By now most advertisers know that just bidding the most for a keyword is not the way to reach number one and definitely not the way to stay profitable.  Google uses a quality based bidding system, specifically Quality Score and Click Through Rate.

Have you ever been puzzled at just how Google calculates Click Through Rate (CTR), Quality Score (QS) and how it affects where your ad shows?  This is the first in the three part series.  There's alot of good information here that will save you alot of headaches.  In this post, we'll give a basic idea of how CTR is calculated here.  A bit on how to use this information will come in a future post.

Click Through Rate.  How Much Do People Like your Ad?

Google Adwords uses click through rate as one of the factors to establish quality score.  Quality score in turn accounts for how much you'll spend on each click and where your ad will show vs. your competitors ads, whether #1, 3, 4, etc.  How do you calculate Click through rate (CTR)?  It is the amount of times your ad was clicked on divided by the total amount of times your ad was shown (impressions) to searchers.

CTR calcuation:  clicks divided by impressions. 

For example:

1000 clicks divided by 10000 impressions = 0.10 or 10 % CTR

500 clicks divided by 10000 impressions = 0.50 or 5 % CTR

100 clicks divided by 10000 impressions = 0.01 or 1 % CTR

As you can see all three ads showed up 10000 times (or 10000 impressions).  The more clicks, the higher the CTR, which is what you want.  Why?  CTR is one of the main factors in having great Quality Score.  And because  Google Adwords rewards those who have the best CTR with better quality score it is best to focus on getting that CTR up and not just upping your bids. 

Check out Google's simple video below to see this visually:

Click Through rate is a piece of the pie in Adwords but an important metric for success.  How does it relate to Quality Score?  And how can you use quality score to lower your cost per click, raise your ranking in the Adwords results and get people to your site profitably?  Next month we'll have a on the often mysterious topic of Quality Score:  

Understanding Adwords Part 2:  Google Adwords Quality Score. Decoding it (Somewhat)

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How to Setup Up Microsoft AdCenter to Manage Clients - Part 1

So your clients love the awesome work you did on the Google Adwords PPC accounts.  But they want more!  What next?  Its time to start advertising on Microsoft (Bing) AdCenter PPC plaform. 

Why Should They Advertise on Microsoft AdCenter?

Since about 2010 Microsoft not only provides search results for Yahoo! but also provides Pay Per Click ads for both Yahoo! & Bing.  So by having your clients advertise on MS AdCenter, you're getting them the other 25 or so percent of search traffic they don't reach by only using Google Adwords to advertise with.

Frustration turned to Happiness!

But how to set things up right at the beginning so you can manage all your clients AdCenter PPC accounts in one umbrella account just like you do using Google Adwords My Client Center (MCC)?  There are a few steps, and at times it doesn't make sense. 

I had to call Microsoft, spend hours figuring it out and this and the following few posts will help you to set things up right, avoid frustration and many hours of work.  

This series of 4 posts will explain:

1.  How to set up the main umbrella or shell account.

2.  How to have your clients invite this manager account to manage their accounts.

3.  How to set up users to manage the accounts you've been invited to manage.

4.  The last post will show how to import your clients Adwords campaigns into AdCenter.

How to Set Up the Master Client Manager Account

You'll have to first set up a master "shell" account.  So:

1. Sign up for an Adcenter account.  Since you wont be using this account to actually run PPC campaigns, you really don't have to ad billing info.  
2. Be sure to use not your personal name but something generic such as your business name so other people can log in if needed.
3. Add all your company's relevant information. 

That's it!  And its the easiest part, in part two you'll have to create and assign users to actually manage the accounts.

Can You Have Multiple Adwords Remarketing Codes On A Page- Yes!

As many know, using Adwords Remarketing (also called retargeting) to get your message across to people who visited your site but did not convert is awesome.  It's a great way to market to people after they leave your site- and it works! 

However, a common question is in setting things up is:  How can I make sure that people who have converted (bought something, signed up for something, etc.) no longer see my Remarketing codes?  You'd set up a Custom Combination.  You could have this combination set up like so:  Show my ads to everyone who visited the site but did not convert.  So you'd put one code on your site that shows up on every page, and one code that shows up only on the "thank you" or "order confirmation" page. 

Here's the even more common question:  If you put the code on every page of the site and another code on the "thank you" page, wouldn't you have to make sure that the code that's on every page of the site is not on the thank you page, aka wouldn't that confuse Google's tracking to have them both on the same page, and how do you do that? 

This is a valid question as you don't want the two codes not working correctly.  Also, usually when you put a code so it shows up on every page of the site, you usually drop it in the footer, header or some part of a template that automatically shows up on every page on the site so you don't have to paste it in each page, one at a time.  Finally, if you did have to exclude a code that shows up on every page of the site from just one page such as a thank you page, it may be a paint to do this or impossible?  So with these thoughts in mind here's the answer right from Google regarding the question:

If you put the code on every page of the site and another code on the "thank you" page, wouldn't you have to make sure that the code that's on every page of the site is not on the thank you page, aka wouldn't that confuse Google's tracking to have them both on the same page? 

Answer:  No, you can multiple Remarketing codes on the same page.

Answer straight from the Google team:

Thanks for writing in.

Yes, you can have multiple remarketing codes on a single page as long as
they are tracking multiple actions. Thus in this case the codes will work
fine, since the 'all visitor' tag is placed on all pages. Thus a user
would be part of this list even before he lands on the thank you page.

Once on the Thank you page, the user gets added to the 'signed up' list.
The custom combination you have created is also perfect since it includes
all users in the all visitors list and excludes all users in the 'signed
up' list.

Some other cases where you can have multiple lists on same page:
1. Track users for multiple attributes - list for all users who visit the
website and all users who a certain page. Using this we can
create lists for users who visited the website but did not go to that certain
page.
2. Track users in specific duration - list for all users who visited the
website in last 60 days and another list for users who visited in last 30
days. Using this we can create custom list of users who visited the
website in between 60 and 30 days.

Thanks Google! 

So, in review:  If you need to put a remarketing code on every page on your site, paste that in.  It may also show up on the conversion page, no problem.  Then drop the code for the conversion page on that page only.  Wait until your audiences get 100 total visitors between the two codes.  Create a Custom Combination of everyone who visited the site but did not convert.  Make some ads- Start remarketing to those potentially lost visitors.  Done!

Knowing this definitely simplifies the putting of Adwords Remarketing codes in, doesn't it?

What has been your experience using remarketing?  Let us know!

How Much Advertising Does Google Control? And Why Should it Matter to You?

Its amazing in just under about a decade and a half the growth of Google as the one of world's largest advertising platform.  This of course, has coincided with the move away from traditional print advertising and the worldwide acceptance of the internet as the go-to place for information. What are some brief takeaway for business owners?

How Big is Google's Advertising Platform?

This includes Adwords, Doubleclick and other Google properties.  Let's put it into perspective:

1.  Google receives almost $5 of every $10 spent on online advertising worldwide. Its total income from advertising last year was over $29 billion. To put this number in perspective, the total advertising revenues of all US newspapers combined last year was less than $22bn. And the major US television networks (excluding cable and local stations) earned  $21.7 billion in advertising.  (-indra de lanerolle).

2.  As far as online advertising goes, ZenithOptimedia has issued a report that tells us this:  Google controls44 percent of global online ad revenues.  AKA:  Way ahead of its competitors and the dominant online force (including Android/mobile).

What does this mean for business owners? 

There's good news and bad news:

1.  Bad news:  The days of set it and forget it are over.  Remember when you could just put an ad in the newspaper?  Or had to meet once a year with the Yellowpages guy to update your ad?  Those days are over (See picture to the right).  People search for EVERYTHING online. 

What does this mean?  Businesses have to either:

A.  Learn how to market their website and business online, which means paid search, organic search, local listings, social media and constantly changing and adjusting things. 

Or if you don't have the time (or desire) to do this: 

B.  Learn enough so you can understand some of what goes into online advertising so when you hire a professional internet marketer who can know enough to hire someone who is actually knows what they're doing and won't rip you off (very difficult) and will get you the calls, emails and leads you need to keep your business growing. 

The Good News: 

If you find a professional to help you OR learn how to market your site online yourself you can:

1.  Beat out your competitors not just because you outspent them for the largest Yellowpages ad.  No, online advertising whether paid or organic search rewards the smart advertisers.  It is not always he who spends the most wins, but he who understands (or hires someone who understands) how to market their business online wins.

2.  Get extremely qualified calls, leads, emails.  After all people aren't just picking up the paper or yellowpages.  They typing in very specific terms.  If you come up in the search results instead of your competitors for those terms.  They will call you.

Bottom line is this:  Businesses need to at least start putting into motion how they'll market their site either by doing it themselves or hiring a pro.  This begs the question:  How can you find the right person to hire for marketing your website.  You should call or email us ; ) ! 

Failing this, our next post will be about how to hire an Internet Marketing pro who will help your business and not just take your money.  This is a very requested subject, due to the number of people we've talked with who have been ripped off and the number of accounts we've taken over that had very poorly done marketing work.  What are you thoughts on the above?  Stay tuned...

Google +1 and the Effect your Adwords Campaigns

With all the buzz surrounding the launch if Google Plus (+1) a great question to ask is:  How will this affect my Adwords campaigns?   This article will address a couple of things regarding this.  (Please note info from the Adwords help file on Google +1 is in italics.)

It has to be admitted with Google being the planet's largest advertiser, with most of its profits coming from advertising and revenues from it in the tens of billions of dollars.  So any change is rightly watched closely by tens of thousands of paid search advertisers and the businesses' account they manage (Including us). 

You've probably already seen the little +1 button in both paid and organic search queries.  The simple idea is that people can click on that button and when people in your Google Plus network do, you either see a number or them.  This may add weight to whether you click on the ad, in a similar way that for instance a blog post with a Facebook like button with hundreds of likes may influence a searcher to read that post vs. one without many likes. In a somewhat similar way the +1 button, it  "lets users recommend the content they like on the web, helping to improve Google search for their friends and contacts"  (Google quote). Here's a picture of what this looks like ( You can see the little +1 icon in both the ads & organic results):

Also according to Google:  "When users click the +1 button for a particular webpage, their names and profile pictures will appear as part of personal annotations in their friends and contacts’ search results. Users will see their names and pictures beneath the ads and organic links associated with the webpage."

Of course when reading the above its clear that Google +1 can influence a searcher to click on one ad over another.  Depending on how Google +1 does and how many people adopt it, it may affect how your ads do or don't do.

This is all pretty straightforward.  But the thing that needs to be understood is what Google next says on the help file page in Adwords: 

"Whenever possible, the +1 button is associated with a site’s final landing page. This means a user can recommend a webpage by clicking the +1 button on that page, or the +1 button next to a Google search ad or search result associated with that page. For example, if a user +1's an organic search result with the same final landing page as your ad, the +1 count associated with both the organic search result and the search ad will increase."

This is where it gets a little more interesting, having the Google +1 clicks associated with the final landing page.  But not just for organic or just for paid, but for both.  So for instance if someone clicks on the plus one button for your paid ad and another clicks on the Google +1 for your organic listing, both clicks count to up your +1 count.  Why is this interesting?

There's been alot of debate on whether if you rank well organically for a particular keyword, should you also bid for that keyword in Adwords to show up both in paid and organic for that search.  Some people say yes, showing in both places reinforces in the searchers mind you're the site they need to visit.  Some say its a waste of time to paid for something you already rank well for organically. 

But as for Google +1, if it does indeed take off, having your site show up in both organic and paid and having the paid ad send the user to the same page as the organic page may result in a higher Google +1 count, and maybe more authority and searches to your site.

 In addition, we know Google is tracking plus one in Google Analytics and it seems likely they may use how many +1's your pages have to indicate relevancy and maybe even ranking.  And when it comes to quality score in Google Adwords we certainly could seem them using how many +1's your ads get as an additional factor in determining quality score.

That's alot of caveats but its something to keep an eye on.  Perhaps the final thing that is possibly confusing is this:  A searcher types in a search query.  They see the search results with the plus one icon.  Are they going to click on that icon when their not sure if its the page they're looking for?  It would seem like you'd just click on the link to find the page you want and once you're there its unlikely you'll go back to the search page to click on the +1 icon.  This means to get those +1 votes, you'd need to have the Google +1 icon on each page of your site like you have the Facebook Like button.

What do you think:  Will Google +1 be as big a factor as some think in how your Adwords campaigns perform?