You cannot have a successful marketing campaign without making some changes throughout the process. The only way to improve your marketing strategy is to keep track of key metrics. Monitoring your performance on key SEM metrics is essential for any successful SEM strategy – especially if you’re paying for clicks (PPC), because you need to see a return on your investment.
If you don’t see the results you want from a pay-per-click or cost-per-click campaign, you could end up losing all the money you put into it. Small businesses with little money for a budget can have a big problem.
To avoid potential problems, you should keep tabs on key performance indicators for your SEM campaigns. If you want your ad impressions to improve, you need to get a better idea of what needs to be improved.
Metrics are measurements that provide insight into your PPC campaigns. The most important metrics are those that give you the most insight into your campaigns. How can you increase your website’s click-through rate? Check out these tips.
Key SEM Metrics
The most important SEM metrics to track are: ____.
1. Quality Score
Quality score is the most important SEM metric to consider. Keyword usage is important to Google because it is used as a metric to determine how relevant your keywords are. The goal is to ensure that searches are relevant to the ads being shown to make the browsing experience better. It’s determined by several factors, including:
- CTR or the click-through rate of the keywords you use and the ads that follow
- How relevant the keyword and the ads are when compared to the search query
- The relevance of the keywords you use compared to the correlating ad group
- The click-through rate of the display URLs in the right ad group
- Your landing page quality
The following factors all play a role in determining your Google Adwords quality score, which in turn affects both your ad ranking and the cost-per-click of your PPC campaign. This means that if you have a good click-through rate, you will pay less per click.
If you have a Quality Score between 7 and 10, you will pay less to advertise your services using Google Ads. If you want to keep the price per click low, you need to increase your daily budget. It’s as simple as that.
How To Access Quality Score
Before you can make improvements, you need to set a standard for your scores. Here is how you do that:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account
- Find the most relevant campaigns and correlated ad groups
- Find the Keywords tab
- Select “Customise columns” found on top of the ad table
- Select “Show Quality Score” in the drop-down menu
- Hit “Done.”
How to Improve Quality Score
To improve your quality score, try the following: To get a higher score, group your keywords together. You can also improve other details to make your ad more effective, such as the click-through rate, relevance, and landing page user experience. Your Google AdWords impressions will improve when you have a better CTR.
Every keyword used will have its own Quality Score. Make sure to review each keyword carefully to get the best results and lower your Google AdWords cost per click.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The amount of money you pay per click on Google advertisements is largely based on the number of times people click on those ads. This metric focuses on how effective an advertisement is in terms of the number of clicks it generates in relation to the number of times it is seen (impressions). The CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the percentage of people who click on an ad after seeing it. The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks on an ad by the number of impressions (the number of times the ad is shown). If your ad has a high click-through rate, that means it is relevant and useful to users who see it.
CTR is critical for your overall Quality Scores. It allows you to see if your ads are resonating with users. If you want to improve your CTR scores, you need to improve your keywords or ads. If you use more creative keywords, your score will improve.
Average CTR Across All Industries
The average CTR is different for every industry. The average click-through rate (CTR) for dating and personal services is 3.40%, while the average CTR for other industries like legal services and eCommerce platforms is 1.35% and 1.66%. The lowest percentage of people clicking on an ad after seeing it is 0.14%, for ads about potential job searches. This means that the average click-through rate depends a lot on what services and products are being offered.
How To Access CTR
Your CTR can be found at any time in your Google Ads account dashboard. Here is how you do that:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Select “Keywords” on the left page menu.
- Check the CTR column to see how your ads are doing. If the CTR is too low, remove the keywords you use and insert new ones. Make sure that you check the CTR regularly and make changes according to the results you see.
How to Improve CTR
How often your ad is clicked on is key to the success of your PPC campaign, no matter how you feel about the keywords you’re using. Your Quality Score on Google AdWords affects how much you pay per click. You can improve your click-through rate (CTR) by using a few tricks. This will help increase your Quality Scores, while decreasing the cost per click (CPC). Here is how you do that:
- Include countdown timers and similar details that generate urgency to promote a higher CTR. That way, people will feel that they have to click on the ad to see what it’s about before the timer runs out.
- Use available extensions to make your ads more visible.
- Include the main keyword into your ad’s URL. That will help rank your ads and help display them to the people looking for that specific keyword.
- Include a call to action to get more clicks. This one may seem obvious, but many ads miss that critical feature.
3. Conversion Rate
This measurement is also a simple calculation:
The conversion rate is determined by dividing the number of conversions by the number of clicks the ad receives.
Who Should Look at This?
Everyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s B2C retail, B2B manufacturing, ecommerce, local services, nonprofit, or something else.
Why Is This Important?
If you closely monitor your conversion rate from the beginning, you will be able to see how effective various campaigns are.
Start with the lowest ones. How did their performance in the current period compare to last month or last year? (If applicable.)
Paying attention to the number of leads generated by a campaign will point the way to improving the campaign.
Based on what you see here, you may decide to:
- Test a new Call to Action (CTA) on your landing page.
- Update the key messaging on your landing page. If it’s lower than it should be, there’s a disconnect somewhere. Remember that your ad copy “promised” something to the person who clicked through to it. The conversion rate is a direct reflection on how successful (or not) your landing page was at fulfilling that promise.
- Similar to “cost per conversion”, this metric points the way to a deeper analysis on why a successful campaign is working. Can that campaign scale higher? Is there a lesson to be learned and applied to other campaigns or ad groups? There may not be, you at least need to make the effort to confirm.
Critical Context
Again, not all conversions are created equal. Some goals are easier to achieve than others.
A free trial that doesn’t require personal information or a credit card upfront is much easier to convert someone to than a trial that does.
ultimately, you need to decide which method will result in more customers payingfor your product or service.
How to Improve Conversion Rate
You can do that using a few different tactics. Here are a few good ideas:
- Add a pop-up to your website. Pop-ups raise the average conversion rate by at least 3%, but if you do things right, that percentage can go all the way up to 9%. You can do that by experimenting with different offers, placing delay timers on the pop-ups, making sure that they are easily closed, and setting up cookies that allow pop-ups only to first-time visitors.
- Keep your forms as short as possible. Let’s be honest; no one likes filling out huge forms with dozens of questions. If your goal for your visitors is to fill out forms, make sure that you remove all unnecessary fields and keep only the most essential ones.
- Include testimonials, reviews, and logos. If a visitor arrives at a website without any user reviews or testimonials, the chances are they will just close the website. Social proof plays a major role in increasing conversions, so make sure you implement it on your landing page.
- Make the first step as effortless as possible. Instead of bombarding your visitors with questions and forms, keep things simple. Request their email addresses first, and after they provide them, follow up with forms to get more information. If they don’t fill out the forms, you will still have their email.
- Improve your CTA copy. Using the standard CTAs like “Start trial” or “Sign up” doesn’t provide the best results. Experiment with different CTAs until you find the one that works best. Start your CTAs with the word “Yes,” and your conversion rate will go up instantly.
4. Search Impression Share
Your ad campaigns should be designed to reach a specific audience that is interested in your product or service.
This does not mean that your ads will be displayed all the time that the opportunity is available.
This means that your ad is being shown 80% of the time it could be shown.
Who Should Look at This?
Everyone. Whether a company is selling to individuals, businesses, online, or providing services locally, the category does not matter. (Notice a pattern here?)
How to Improve Search Impression Share
This isn’t the most important metric, but it should be high on the list and a crucial part of your analysis.
You want your ad to be shown for every opportunity and to have a report that is as close to 100 percent as possible.
A couple of common factors that play into this are:
- Budget allocation (see below in #4).
- Quality Score: Many studies, blogs, and conference presentations have covered (and debated) quality score in depth so I won’t here, but generally speaking, you can be reasonably confident that having a high-quality score is never a bad thing.
The highlighted line in the graphic below displays different metrics than the one above it.
The “search impression share” is 63 percent. This one has the highest cost per click, total cost, and cost per conversion. You should look more closely at this segment because it has a high cost per conversion.
Some of the things this examination could lead you to might be:
- Experimenting with your ad copy or the CTA’s given the low click-through rate (CTR).
- An analysis of the true value of these conversions. At $38.34 it’s the most expensive one. As stated earlier, not all conversions are created equal, so this one better be more valuable than the rest.
- Additional question: If these conversions truly are more valuable than the others, do you just need more budget or do you need to put intense focus into optimizing the path?
Critical Context
If you’re working on a new advertising campaign, especially in a competitive market, you’re probably trying to establish your position. Do not worry if it is low when you first start.
Don’t be discouraged if your data isn’t perfect from the start. As you get more information, you’ll be better able to take action.
5. Conversions Directly From the Ad
Huh?!? What does this mean?
Well, a conversion doesn’t always require a landing page.
An example of this would be a “call extension” that includes a phone number in the ad.
Why Is This Important?
If the quickest way to earn a paying customer is to receive a phone call or text message, then making sure that system is optimized becomes essential to the success of your business.
After the storm had passed, the homeowner was left with a huge mess in their yard from the fallen tree.
The person who is doing the search knows what they are looking for and why. The searcher wants to find someone who can quickly solve their problem.
The advertisement should address the searcher’s needs in order to earn a phone inquiry.
Critical Context
This report does not show how many clicks resulted in calls being received. Clicking on a phone number in a mobile ad should prompt the user to call the number.
Conclusion & Parting Advice
Do not depend on a single measurement to determine if your campaign was successful. Instead of looking for many different measurements, look for a singular measurement that can give you a place to start.
When you’re trying to figure out why something is happening, it’s helpful to look deeper and find the root cause. Once you understand the reason behind something, it’s easier to take action. If you want to improve your PPC performance, take action and be persistent.
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