How Damaging is Low CTR On Entire Adwords Account?

[Fraggler]

Hey guys, I am just wondering how harmful a low CTR for a handful of keywords (with high impressions) is on an entire campaign with thousands of keywords (in separate Ad Groups) and the entire acount (other campaigns)? The low CTR keyword has the majority of the searches for the campaign.

Is this going to harm the Quality Score of all future campaigns I run? If it does cause a huge problem then it really does limit the ability to experiment in out-of-the-box markets as well as some less targetted keywords *cough*domains*cough* that get high traffic but very low cost.

Here is one that I failed at monetising for anyone who wants to give it a crack:

"inglorious bastards" - note the mispelling. (sic) "Inglourious Bastereds Quotes" was a Google Hot Trend and when searching I noticed I kept spelling it the correct way which appears everyone else does too. When I was running it had no other competitors.

It got 30k impressions in 12 hours at $AUD0.04 a click but my offer wasn't converting and I don't have the time at the moment to fiddle with it - and I was obviously worried about how the low CTR with such high impressions was harming my otherwise double digit account.

[Affiliit]

Very!
Your adwords accounts actually has a quality score as well. It is based on your campaign's QS (and other things), so if your CTR is low, your quality score can get low and your whole account's QS can get low. That could lead to problems.

[Lucid]

If you have a low CTR, low being a relative term here, the two main reasons in my experience are improper keywords (usually too general, short tail) and/or poor ad.

As for the harmfulness, low CTR spawns low quality score. A low QS will result in lower positioning and higher costs. The QS is calculated for each ad-keyword combination so that is the only thing being harmed. In theory.

I've heard there is a group QS (possible in my opinion) and a campaign level QS (seems unlikely to me). These are hearsay to me as I've never heard it directly from Google. Not saying there isn't one just that I doubt the existence of a campaign QS. If there is one, I would think the weight is very low, as would a group QS, so nothing I'd worry too much about.

[eric_guy77]

Exactly, high ctr always give higher quality score yet low the click cost.

[Kevin_Hutto]

If you have historically low click thru rates for your account then it will catch up with you, but if you are just testing ads then it is mainly kept to the adgroup level if you split everything up properly. This is not stated from google, but thru empirical observation of the effects of adgroup testing on my account and my clients accounts over the years.

[Joshua.E1]

A low CTR (less than 1%) is not good, Google will remember that you have a low CTR keyword for that Adwords account, thus affecting the other campaigns too.

By the way, the keyword you are targeting "inglorious bastards" is not a buying keyword. In PPC, you must remember to always target buying keywords.

This keyword looks to me like a info keyword, and that also explains why the CPC is so low.

That Google has a bad record for the keyword "inglorious bastards".

You may want to set up a new account again.

[Lucid]

> If you have historically low click thru rates for your account then it will catch up with you

Like I've said, I've heard this said before, never from Google itself however. I don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense plus experience proves otherwise.

Say you have two groups selling vastly different, totally unrelated products. One can have a poor QS and the other a great one. One does not affect the other. Why would they? They are not related, not relevant to each other. Relevancy is Google's mantra after all.

> By the way, the keyword you are targeting "inglorious bastards" is not a buying keyword.

Josh is right. It is too broad. If you are selling a book or DVD, narrow your focus and use "inglorious bastards book" or "inglorious bastards dvd".

> You may want to set up a new account again.

Bad advice. Simply fix your campaign with proper keywords and ads.

[A. van Heerden]

It will certainly help to have a higher overall CTR on your ad groups and keywords to improve conversions and make your campaign more profitable...

[Steven Carl Kelly]

When I first started using Adwords, my CTR was terrible, some as low as less than 1%. Consequently, I found it hard to make headway in new campaigns. My starting QS's were always very low -- I had to attribute that to the overall history of my account.

Eventually I learned that I had to test, test, test and hone, hone, hone each campaign. Over time, I was able to develop my campaigns toward increased CTR.

These days, if any ad group is getting less than double-digit CTR (less than 10.0%) then I'm either going to fix it or delete it. Today (I just checked) I have one ad group that is over 42% CTR on good volume and that same ad group is over 30% (30.6%) for the past week. The QS on the keywords for that ad is now 10/10.

The benefit? Tremendously lower cost for much better ranking. When I started that ad group I was paying almost 50 cents per click just to get into the top 5. Now, as of today, I'm always in the number one position for that ad group and I'm now paying 13 cents per click.

[Fraggler]

Cheers guys,

My campaigns once settled usually have high CTR but I was more thinking about the affect of experimenting and testing broader words that aren't as targeted but a lot cheaper as well as marketing to the demographics, not the direct searcher. If it does affect the whole account then I know I have to be more careful from the start.

In regards to "inglorious bastards", I know it isn't a buying keyword. It is a word directed at a particular product though that I thought some of the people doing those poll based CPA campaigns might want to use...Inglourious Basterds vs Resovoir Dogs or something. Just an idea (you don't even need to PPC it).

[ayolov]

The way Google treats accounts is always mysterious, but I doubt they will ever give an entire account a grade depending on their marketing. A number of things could influence overall CTR and it's highly unlikely they take it into account for new campaigns you run.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Lucid

If you have a low CTR, low being a relative term here, the two main reasons in my experience are improper keywords (usually too general, short tail) and/or poor ad.

As for the harmfulness, low CTR spawns low quality score. A low QS will result in lower positioning and higher costs. The QS is calculated for each ad-keyword combination so that is the only thing being harmed. In theory.

I've heard there is a group QS (possible in my opinion) and a campaign level QS (seems unlikely to me). These are hearsay to me as I've never heard it directly from Google. Not saying there isn't one just that I doubt the existence of a campaign QS. If there is one, I would think the weight is very low, as would a group QS, so nothing I'd worry too much about.

Hi Lucid,

I believe that you are right, I have not seen evidence of a Campaign level QS, however I have found that there is definitely an account level QS.

You can verify this by setting up a new campaign and ad group in an account with a very poor recent history. Then copy the exact same new campaign to account with a great recent QS history. You will find that your initial quality scores are better in the account with the better QS history.

This indicates to me that there is definitely an account level QS based on recent account history.