Imprssions/Clicks

[Ryan Ward]

I know this depends a great deal on the quality of your ad, but, what knid of nunbers am I looking for? I have two ads running right now and I just want to know a general rule before I make changes.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

[RonnieG]

No such thing as a general rule for this. Make sure your campaign is running only on search network, and not content network. Otherwise you will never really get a good number to work with. If your CTR is 2% or better, Google will like you. If less than 2%, your clicks will cost more and your ad position will also suffer. My rule of thumb is to be happy with an average CTR, across many ads, of 6%-11%, which can be attained if our average ad position is in the 1.3-1.6 range. If your average ad position is not that good, your CTR generally won't be either.

So, it is a multivariate feedback loop:

Higher bids (initially) = better ad position = better CTR.
Better long term CTR history = lower bids and/or better ad positions.

Lower bids (initially) = worse ad positions = worse CTR.
Worse long term CTR history = higher bids and/or worse positions or don't show at all.

QS, or Quality Score, also plays a big part these days. See recent threads on WebMasterWorld's Google AdWords forum on that topic.

[Ryan Ward]

Ronnie,

Thanks for the reply. Good information. I have only been doing this for about three days and I am watching the keywords that I have higher bids on and the ad position moved up and the CTR is improving. It is to early to gleam any sound information as I have only had about 1000 impressions at 1% CTR - 10 clicks. I am looking to watch this improve with the higher bids which has placed me in higher ad spots. I will follow allof my keywords and ads closely for this next week and see where it stands.