click throughs

Why am I getting a lot of click-throughs but low sales?

If you’re finding that with your Google Ads campaign you have a high click-through rate (CTR), i.e. a high number of clicks to the number of impressions (usually given as a percentage), you’re justified in feeling pleased. It shows a large number of people clicked on your ad to be taken to your website.

However, this measure of immediate responses to an ad doesn’t always correspond to a high number of people then becoming paying customers. And if you’ve got a nice high CTR but a low number of resulting conversions into sales, you’re far from alone.

But, having worked hard to get so many visitors clicking through, clearly you don’t want to squander all that effort.

Here’s what you can do – there are no easy or quick fixes, but here are a few potential solutions. You need to understand and tackle the cause of the problem rather than masking the symptoms.

  • Know your audience

Conduct research to ensure you’re giving your target audience what they want, at the price they’re happy to pay. Understand searcher intent, and what you’re trying to achieve with each keyword used.

  • Make best use of ad extensions

Ad extensions are extra bits of information you can add about your business, such as a phone number, or a link to a particular web page. They’re free, but the usual charges apply for any resulting clicks.

Google says sitelink extensions boost CTR by 10%, call extensions give conversions a 10% lift.

So ad extensions will work if they are relevant and add value to the user experience. If you’re targeting mainly local traffic, for example, include your business address.

  • Ad message doesn’t match the landing page

Your landing page is a key factor in quality score, so it must perform well. The message must match your ad’s.

If someone is looking for a woman’s black dress, they don’t want to see a generic landing page for dresses then have to hunt for the black ones.

  • Effective use of ad groups

An ad group is a single set of ad options run against a particular set of keywords in Google Ads. They help keep your Google Ads account organised. Look to see if you’re using too many keywords in a single ad group. This could be stopping you from getting the results you want.

Finally, it’s always worth thinking if you’re being compelling and creative enough in distinguishing what you offer from the competition. If you’ve tried all of that without success or spending too much time on PPC versus running your business then why not take a look at our PPC service packages.

Talk to us today if you feel your conversion rate doesn’t match your CTR – we’ll gladly discuss some options.