Hundreds of Keyword; Barely Any Traffic, What Gives? (Google PPC)

19 replies
Hey everyone,

I have put together a list of 650 keywords to start with via Keyword Elite.

They are all on [exact match] and obviously a lot of them are long tail keywords.

All keywords are in groups related to their root keyword and I have written two distinctly different ads for each ad group.

This campaign has been running for over a week and a half now and I have pruned out keywords that:

A: Highly unlikely to convert into a sale based upon instinctual analysis (e.g. free, tips, report, etc)

B: Are pulling my CTR down ( usually give 100 impressions per keyword to find out unless I know its not right for my campaign )

I have multiple keywords converting at around 2% and but they are only getting about 7 clicks per day???

There are plenty high traffic keywords throughout that don't seem to be getting the kind of impressions that I thought they would and I am curious if any one else has had this issue? (I am sure)

Also, I have grouped the keywords that are converting into separate campaigns with broad, phrase, and exact match on; and I have actually lowered my traffic. ( da fuh?? )

Any and all help is appreciated, I have read Perry Marshall's book and taken his advice as well as many others.

-Ryan
#barely #google #hundreds #keyword #ppc #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    Have you looked at how your ad is written? Does it actually entice the customer to click your link, by teasing a possible solution to their question?

    It could be bad keywords, but more likely a bad advertisement.
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    • Profile picture of the author rawservices
      Originally Posted by tpw View Post

      Have you looked at how your ad is written? Does it actually entice the customer to click your link, by teasing a possible solution to their question?

      It could be bad keywords, but more likely a bad advertisement.

      Well the way my knowledge works about PPC is that you get a large list of keyword related to your subject; filter out all the non potential buying keywords ( free, report, tips, etc on and on ) by putting them as negative keywords, and group all related root keywords together then write two ads that compete against each other.

      I have done this and like I said I am getting a 2% CTR ( not bad I think to start ) on certain keywords that I have then put into a separate campaign in their own group and have kept the winning ad and re-written a different one to compete against it.

      Problem is, in one days time I get maybe 7-10 clicks, and this is, according to my research on google, keyword elite, and seo book a high traffic keyword.

      The ad's are fine for what I am targeting it appears, I just don't get enough traffic.
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      • Profile picture of the author tryinhere
        Originally Posted by rawservices View Post


        The ad's are fine for what I am targeting it appears, I just don't get enough traffic.
        very hard to tell with what has been said, but from here look at your ad position, where is it placed in the mix, where possible to retain a profit try and lift your ad position / max cpc and see if this helps.
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        • Profile picture of the author rawservices
          @tryinhere:

          Ad position: 4-8th

          Profit irrelevant because I haven't had enough visitors to develop a good vision of what to expect. ( new offer )
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          • Profile picture of the author tryinhere
            Originally Posted by rawservices View Post

            @tryinhere:

            Ad position: 4-8th

            Profit irrelevant because I haven't had enough visitors to develop a good vision of what to expect. ( new offer )
            Yes, sorry i posted before i seen your last reply, the position seems fine so now work on your ctr on those ads, try and aim for a min of 5% and more if possible / much more

            start to think of your ads / ctr in the same way as the quality score rating

            CTR%

            0-3 = poor
            4-4 = borderline
            5-7 = average
            8-10 = good
            10+ = excellent

            Set your current ctr as your bench mark / marker to beat and then set about improving that factor of your campaign.
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            | > Choosing to go off the grid for a while to focus on family, work and life in general. Have a great 2020 < |
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            • Profile picture of the author rawservices
              Originally Posted by tryinhere View Post

              Yes, sorry i posted before i seen your last reply, the position seems fine so now work on your ctr on those ads, try and aim for a min of 5% and more if possible / much more

              start to think of your ads / ctr in the same way as the quality score rating

              CTR%

              0-3 = poor
              4-4 = borderline
              5-7 = average
              8-10 = good
              10+ = excellent

              Set your current ctr as your bench mark / marker to beat and then set about improving that factor of your campaign.

              Thanks tryinhere, that CTR scale is pretty large for Google don't you think?

              If you have had even 5-7 I would love it if you could share with us the ad's you used ( assuming its an old campaign you don't use )

              I'm just curious as to the writing style and for what keyword?

              Also, how long did you run your campaign before you re-wrote your ad?

              Thanks for the reply!
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              • Profile picture of the author tryinhere
                Originally Posted by rawservices View Post

                Thanks tryinhere, that CTR scale is pretty large for Google don't you think?

                If you have had even 5-7 I would love it if you could share with us the ad's you used ( assuming its an old campaign you don't use )
                I'm just curious as to the writing style and for what keyword?
                Also, how long did you run your campaign before you re-wrote your ad?
                Thanks for the reply!
                You are only bound by the limitations you place on yourself and what you allow yourself to think. expand your thinking just a little at a time, test and re test / you will be surprised.

                just one account with the top 10 keys in order of impressions and the ctr

                CTR
                4.82%
                4.00%
                11.36%
                3.13%
                3.13%
                5.00%
                5.26%
                11.11%
                12.50%
                12.50%
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        • Profile picture of the author rawservices
          BTW everyone keyword search volume ranges from 200k - 25k per month per keyword I am targeting. (broad) 90k-9k (exact)
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  • Profile picture of the author John Alves
    Are you making a profit? That's the question that needs to be answered. I wouldn't worry so much about the CTR or anything because Google is going to slap you eventually anyway. They get picky after awhile and start boosting up your costs. Atleast, you're doing exact match. You have a higher chance of making money and your traffic will convert better.

    As far as those "high traffic keywords", maybe the competiton is outranking you. Or, it could be that they are not actually high traffic. Search the keyword in Google and see if you're in the sponsored listings. In my opinion, you can only get so far with PPC these days. Years ago, it was so much easier to get conversions. People have been tracking PPC conversions and clicks, and they have been going down a lot over the years. Searchers know they are advertisements, and they just don't trust them or want to click them. This is why it's important to get traffic from different sources.
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    • Profile picture of the author rawservices
      Originally Posted by John Alves View Post

      Are you making a profit? That's the question that needs to be answered. I wouldn't worry so much about the CTR or anything because Google is going to slap you eventually anyway. They get picky after awhile and start boosting up your costs. Atleast, you're doing exact match. You have a higher chance of making money and your traffic will convert better.

      As far as those "high traffic keywords", maybe the competiton is outranking you. Or, it could be that they are not actually high traffic. Search the keyword in Google and see if you're in the sponsored listings. In my opinion, you can only get so far with PPC these days. Years ago, it was so much easier to get conversions. People have been tracking PPC conversions and clicks, and they have been going down a lot over the years. Searchers know they are advertisements, and they just don't trust or them or want to click them. This is why it's important to get traffic from different sources.

      I have do have other sources, but their has to be a way to tap google for crying out loud, it's got the highest traffic in the world by far.

      I certainly AM in the top 7 of the advertisers.

      People are getting smarter but seriously; the majority of people are still worried about "the news" therefore I can sell to them via PPC on google.

      and I haven't seen ANY conversions because I've seen a total of 83 visitors from different keywords. I'm just trying to figure out how I've seen people say they have a list of 10 keywords that generate an insane amount of traffic... "I just stumbled on these keywords and it made me 100k in 3 days!" huh?

      The niche I am promoting is kinda competitive ( around 0.45 for top spot ) but I am bidding for around 5-8th place, which is where you want to be to sell.

      Thanks for your input :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author JennSpencerIM
    What are your quality scores for the ads? Maybe that is affecting the number of times your ad is being shown for the search terms? Just a thought! I have the same issue sometimes and I can't figure out why my ad isn't showing...thinking I should be getting more traffic, but its not.
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    • Profile picture of the author rawservices
      Originally Posted by JennSpencerIM View Post

      What are your quality scores for the ads? Maybe that is affecting the number of times your ad is being shown for the search terms? Just a thought! I have the same issue sometimes and I can't figure out why my ad isn't showing...thinking I should be getting more traffic, but its not.
      Quality scores are: 8-6 / 10 per keyword.

      I know how to design a great LP's: Tons of content relevant to keyword / fast loading / psychology infused / marketing funnel / no tables / etc

      What is a good quality score per keyword?
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      • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
        Originally Posted by rawservices View Post

        Quality scores are: 8-6 / 10 per keyword.

        What is a good quality score per keyword?
        6/10 is not a good quality score. I would try to raise that as much as
        possible.

        Try to get 10/10 if you can, or at least a 9/10.


        Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
    Originally Posted by rawservices View Post


    There are plenty high traffic keywords throughout that don't seem to be getting the kind of impressions that I thought they would and I am curious if any one else has had this issue? (I am sure)

    -Ryan
    Everyone has this issue, Ryan. The traffic volumes given from keyword
    research tools, including and especially Google's, are not reliable. It can
    be either over/under stated.

    It appears yours maybe be over-stated. But from what I have read, you
    may want to give it more time to get a more accurate picture of the
    impressions for your keywords.

    Also, I trust you are making heavy use of negative keywords? You should
    because, if done properly, it will increase your CTR.

    What you're experiencing is not unusual.

    Also, your daily impressions are affected by your daily budget. But I'm sure
    you know that, already.

    Ken
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    • Profile picture of the author rawservices
      Originally Posted by KenThompson View Post

      Everyone has this issue, Ryan. The traffic volumes given from keyword
      research tools, including and especially Google's, is not reliable. It can
      be either over/under stated.

      It appears yours maybe be over-stated. But from what I have read, you
      may want to give it more time to get a more accurate picture of the
      impressions for your keywords.

      Also, I trust you are making heavy use of negative keywords? You should
      because, if done properly, it will increase your CTR.

      What you're experiencing is not unusual.

      Also, your daily impressions are affected by your daily budget. But I'm sure
      you know that, already.

      Ken

      Ken Thank you! This makes me feel better knowing this is common place.

      I am new to this, but I have done my research and know enough to develop a solid campaign, I just don't have the experience yet.

      I thought maybe someone could tell me where the land mines were that they hit and what I could do to get around them.

      I am using negative keywords.

      How long should I give a campaign roughly? I know it's different for every campaign but how about for a natural supplement campaign?

      Thanks,

      -Ryan
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      • Profile picture of the author KenThompson
        Originally Posted by rawservices View Post

        I am using negative keywords.

        How long should I give a campaign roughly? I know it's different for every campaign but how about for a natural supplement campaign?

        Thanks,

        -Ryan
        Ryan,

        No problem and you're welcome. I used to do adwords a lot but not currently
        doing it.

        As far as how long to let it run?

        I would say it depends on some things. Current CPC, how important it is to
        you - not being sarcastic, and even what the niche is because some niches
        convert better at different search engines. I don't know about yours, of
        course, but it may be one that doesn't do well at Google, and it may perform
        better at Bing, for example.

        I read a well-researched report about a year ago, maybe, and that person
        did a lot of testing. He recommended letting a campaign run for a month to
        get a really good idea.

        As you may know, statistical samples are more accurate as the size of the
        sample increases, generally speaking.

        Also, maybe take a look at the seasonal (monthly) variation for your keywords.
        It's possible you may be in a low search volume month. I believe you can get
        quite accurate seasonal data from Keyword Discovery. I'm sure there are others
        that will give you actual data instead of a bar graph, only.

        Check your server logs, awstats, and see what kinds of single keyword phrases
        people are using to find your site. I'm assuming you have enough data for that.
        I used to find some excellent negative keywords as well as useful keywords for
        PPC campaign from awstats.

        Use as many negative kw as you can think of because they will all help.

        Another approach depending on your budget. But be careful and monitor it closely.

        If your budget does not allow you the theoretically max amount of impressions,
        then temporarily increase your budget to get the max amount. Be careful
        and monitor closely.

        You'll get a better idea, or should get one.

        Hope all that helps and good luck.

        Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author Art Turner
    It really seems like you're going to need to try raising the position to either eliminate or confirm that as a cause of few clicks. I would shoot for position 3 and see what happens.
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  • Profile picture of the author Simon Lim
    Hey Ryan,

    A lot of people don't know about the distribution of clicks on Google's front page.

    For organic search results this is the approximate % of people that will actually click on a link on the first page:

    Rank 1: 52%
    Rank 2: 12%
    Rank 3: 9%
    Rank 4: 6%
    Rank 5: 5%
    Rank 6: 4%
    Rank 7: 3%
    Rank 8: 3%
    Rank 9: 3%
    Rank 10: 3%

    Obviously this isn't exact, and will differ for various keywords, but it's a general distribution. So depending on where you rank, organically, you will only get a certain % of clicks.

    This probably applies about the same for Adwords. I don't do any Adwords stuff, so don't know for sure, but there would likely be a distribution of clicks similar to the organic rankings.

    So you said you were going for positions 5-8, I'd say a 2% CTR is about right.

    Even if your ad copy is good, not everybody that searches a keyword is going to look at your ad. They've just searched for the term, doesn't mean they actually see your ad. That still counts as an impression though and will push your overall CTR lower.

    A lot of factors play a role in getting clicks and that distribution of clicks is one of them.

    Hope that helps.

    Simon
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    • Profile picture of the author rawservices
      Originally Posted by Simon Lim View Post

      Hey Ryan,

      A lot of people don't know about the distribution of clicks on Google's front page.

      For organic search results this is the approximate % of people that will actually click on a link on the first page:

      Rank 1: 52%
      Rank 2: 12%
      Rank 3: 9%
      Rank 4: 6%
      Rank 5: 5%
      Rank 6: 4%
      Rank 7: 3%
      Rank 8: 3%
      Rank 9: 3%
      Rank 10: 3%

      Obviously this isn't exact, and will differ for various keywords, but it's a general distribution. So depending on where you rank, organically, you will only get a certain % of clicks.

      This probably applies about the same for Adwords. I don't do any Adwords stuff, so don't know for sure, but there would likely be a distribution of clicks similar to the organic rankings.

      So you said you were going for positions 5-8, I'd say a 2% CTR is about right.

      Even if your ad copy is good, not everybody that searches a keyword is going to look at your ad. They've just searched for the term, doesn't mean they actually see your ad. That still counts as an impression though and will push your overall CTR lower.

      A lot of factors play a role in getting clicks and that distribution of clicks is one of them.

      Hope that helps.

      Simon

      Great info, gives a better view on organic searches for my other projects thanks!
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