The Best Click-thru-Rates Comes from Great Account Structure

If you’re relatively new to ppc, this claim can seem rather bold. I promise you the title is not misleading or just to ‘get the click’. Account structure involves clearly defining the purpose and settings for each campaign and ad group in an account.

The most commonly talked about aspect of click-thru-rate involves the actual ad copy matched up with the right keyword. In order to right good ad copy it is imperative to understand who you are targeting, but it is even more important to understand what the user is searching for at that moment.

Better Click Thru Rates = Higher AdWords Keyword Quality Scores = Lower Costs Per Click

1. Day Parting

Let’s start at the ad copy level. Consider the following concept: a good ‘Call Now’ search ad during the day is probably a terrible ad at night. Why, because most users aren’t expecting to call at night. If your business can actually handle at a late night call it would need to be explicitly stated in the ad in order to be effective. The solution would be to Create a separate mobile campaign and choose effective day-parting. The remaining campaign should still consider day-parting for times of night when the click-thru-rates drop off significantly. 

2. Call-to-Action:

The call-to-action itself is an important distinction. To save time, many account managers rely on a single campaign to handle each area for desktops and laptops, tablets, and smart phones. It has been shown the smart phone users do not convert at the same as displayed in the following article: Mobile conversion rates lag behind tablet. Users searching on a smart phone are far more likely to call a business than complete an online form. Why go against the grain?

3. Match Types

Once the right ads at the right time of day are established comes the keyword factor. Matching ad copy with keywords should be obvious, but different match types may confuse the issue. The biggest question is “What search queries are triggering your ads?” Phrase and especially Broad Match attract a much wider variety of search queries than Exact Match. The search query ‘auto loan rates for good credit’ could trigger the keywords “auto loan”, auto loans, auto loan rates, or even +rates for +auto +loans (broad match modifier being used).

4. Add More Keywords

That’s a lot of weight for each of those keywords to service. How does one write ad copy for all of the myriad search queries a keyword could service? Add more keywords, separate the ad groups, and use negatives. If a more general keyword, such as “auto loans”, isn’t performing well, but it’s being triggered for ‘bad credit auto loans’, the account may lose the ability cover that search query effectively if the bid for that keyword is dramatically lowered If the keyword ‘+bad +credit +auto +loans’ is added there is no longer a need worry about that concern. Keep checking the search query reports to find new keywords to add, block, or move to another ad group.

5. Campaigns as Silos:

The same match type problem may also create inappropriate ad serving. The keyword “home mortgage” may be triggered for the query ‘home mortgage refinancing’. The search intent of ‘home mortgage’ is more likely to informational to find rates or explanations for a home purchase loan. On the other hand, the rates and information regarding refinancing of a home are very different. The account may be able to service both, but the customer needs are different. This is handled easily by putting the keywords in separate campaigns and using a few well-placed negatives to funnel the queries into neatly divided silos. Caution: excessive use of this technique may create significant gaps in queries for which the account is triggered.

Each of these concepts can be broken down further, such as making sure the sitelinks are written well for the individual campaigns. However, that should be enough information to get started re-considering the entire account. After all, the click-through-rates depend on it.