Marketing has always been an integral part of a business’ success. Therefore, it’s no surprise when we witness the continuous changes and developments that are taking place in the world of marketing. For a business owner or small business marketing manager, it’s important to ensure that sufficient attention is paid to the response generated from different advertising efforts.
To make things easier, Google has come up with different benchmarks that you can keep track of to measure the quality score for your paid search engine marketing efforts. Many companies today use these benchmarks to gain clarity about their position in the market as compared to that of the competitors’.
Google Ads Benchmarks & Their Significance
Google uses a Quality Score Formula to determine the ranking of each ad. Keeping track of your quality score can help you improve your overall marketing efforts and focus them on areas that are generating conversions.
Knowing the key performance indicators in the form of benchmarks provided by Google can help businesses compare their standing in the market and spend both money and effort on marketing techniques that are working.
Some of the most important benchmarks that you should be keeping track of are:
- Average Cost Per Click (CPC)
- Average Cost Per Action (CPA)
- Average Conversion Rate (CVR)
- Click-through Rate (CTR)
You can use the information derived from monitoring these benchmarks to devise a Google Ads Strategy which will significantly improve your overall marketing performance. It’s strongly recommended to seek the help of professional marketing agencies like MARION. With so many metrics to keep track of, many businesses fail to identify the exact cause of their less than average benchmark performance without the help of pay per click services expertise.
What is an Average CTR?
One of the important benchmarks requiring your attention is the Average Click-Through Rate (CTR). The click-through rate on Google Ads reveals exactly how many of the people that see your ad actually end up clicking it.
CTR is an important benchmark since it gives your business a clear idea about the performance of your ad’s positioning, use of keywords, and imagery. Moreover, while a basic CTR only tells you about the number of clicks for every ad, Average CTR calculates for you the number of clicks as opposed to the impressions of your campaigns.
What is a Good CTR for Google Ads?
There is no single click-through rate that you can regard as ideal for every type of business. That’s because a good CTR varies depending on the industry you belong to, the type of business you have, and your future goals. However, you can find out how good your Google Ads click-through rate is compared to that of your competitors with the help of free tools.
Average CTR Across Industries
As mentioned earlier, the average CTR will vary for a particular business on the basis of the industry it belongs to. However, the average CTR is generally around 1.91% for a search ad, and 0.35% for a display ad. Recent figures shared by WordStream show the following:
| Industry | Google Display Network (%) | Search (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Auto | 0.41 | 2.14 |
| B2B | >0.22 | >2.55 |
| Consumer Services | >0.20 | >2.40 |
| Dating & Personals | 0.52 | 3.40 |
| Education | 0.22 | 2.20 |
| Finance & Insurance | 0.33 | 2.65 |
| Health & Medical | 0.31 | 1.79 |
| Legal | 0.45 | 1.35 |
| Real Estate | 0.24 | 2.03 |
| Technology | 0.84 | 2.38 |
How to Improve Click-through Rate in Google Ads
To improve the response that your ad gets from the audience, you need to incorporate some of the techniques that help gain more attention from your target audience. These include:
- Making sure that the ad copy is relevant to the interests of the target audience. To come up with such a message, you will need to get to know your target audience first. Identifying who you are targeting and formulating a message according to their needs will help your ad gain more attention.
- Adding the review extension to your ad can also boost response. This is because most of the customers today make purchase decisions based on the reviews they find online. Incorporating a review extension will not only increase the trust factor but also generate a higher response.
- Coming up with a message that does not only focus on making a sale but rather uses softer communication methods goes a long way in boosting your average CTR. It has been witnessed that ad copy that “talks to the customer” is more likely to get a response than one that clearly states the importance of making a sale.
- Keywords hold immense importance in the creation of a compelling ad copy. Simply stuffing keywords into your ad will not do the trick. Instead, you will need to creatively use one strong keyword that will help you get the right attention. Attracting the right traffic will increase the likelihood of a response as well.
The importance of a good average CTR cannot be doubted, but there is a possibility you achieve a high click-through rate with an incredibly low number of conversions. The main goal of every business is to increase the number of customer conversions, so it’s essential to focus on the overall ability of your ad to generate the right response through these clicks as well. A good average CTR is only achieved through improving the quality of your message.
Bottom Line for Your Average CTR in Google Ads
The easiest way to improve your average CTR is to increase the quality of your ad. Rather than focusing too much on the CTR that you are getting, it’s more productive to spend time looking for ways to improve the performance of your ad. For this purpose, get help from companies that provide specialized digital marketing services, like our team here at MARION.
MARION helps you boost your performance and improve your overall Quality Score by investing in the right online marketing efforts.
Contact MARION today and find out how our experienced team of Houston web developers, SEO experts, and marketing specialists can help you grow your business.
