Poll: What Factor Affects CTR Most?

[SEO Montreal]

So you adwords experts, what do you think? Which factor affects CTR most?
Please
+vote
+discuss what you've seen
+discuss why you think that factor works most on CTR
+mention what vertical you're in. don't need to get very specific, but if you could say something like 'consumer electronics' it would be good.

I have my thoughts in mind but want to wait for a few votes to come in before commenting/voting, so I don't skew the results.

[Marcia]

I had to say position because if an ad doesn't get seen it doesn't get clicks. But I just last week read a study that indicated that a good title was the major factor.

[Kostis Panayotakis]

I would guess, content relevance which can be established by a very relevant key phrase.

[Marcia]

Kostis, according to the choices in the poll, would you vote that the keywords would be in the title or the text of the ad itself?

[PPC]

This is a great question. I think it depends on the product, industry, competition and type of term. Personally I think that at this point for most competitive markets, ads need to be solid in most if not all of these areas to achieve a high CTR yet remain profitable.

Overall I would say position and narrowness/broadness or keywords. I would actually consider narrowness/broadness to be targeted keywords (e.g. 'auto repair shop in akron') vs general keywords (e.g. 'car repair'). The more specific and the more relevant the search term, the more likely it is that competition will be lower, organic listings will be of poorer quality and top positioning will be more affordable.

Fo most terms is it helpful to have the term (or at least a portion of it) in the title and/or the description, whether using dynamic insertion or not. Also, you have to write titles and descriptions that grab the searcher and stand out from the competition. If all the ads on the SERP are identical and yours is halfway down the right side of the page, chances are CTR will be very low.

[Discovery]

In my view, a narrowly defined set of keywords, used within focused ad groups is what gives you a solid position resulting in a high CTR. Then on top of solid keywords you have a related title and ad copy, both of which should be different from the viewable competition. With this set up and a competitive CPC you should achieve the best CTR.

Excellent titles are not effective when used with broad or poorly selected keywords.
Dynamic titles work well with expansive product lines, but are more beneficial as a work flow solution than an effective and logical title generator. Hence the "Buy Babies on Ebay" titles.
Ad content - Important but the effectiveness is dependent upon the keyword selection and matching options.
Display URL - Unless you have a high value branded URL 1800flowers.com then its almost non factor, any slightly related name should work well. iwasajerkflowershop.com.

A lot should be said about ad differentation and the difficulty of being different with the ad's character contraints. The ad character contraints really hurt us in creating relevant ads, my competitors ads and mine can look just about the same to the consumer and this leads to inflated CTRs with lower conversions.


Discovery

[cvos]

I second discovery. It all starts and ends with the keywords. Resourceful marketers will conjure up low traffic high converting keyword phrases.

[dangdatkat]

CTR doesn't matter at all. What you should be looking at is conversion rate. Use multivarient testing, you can test any combination of different ad variables. For this example:

H = Headline; D = Description; U = Destination URL

Ad1: H1D1U1 (control)
Ad2: H1D2U2
Ad3: H1D3U3
Ad4: H2D1U3
Ad4: H2D2U1
Ad5: H2D3U1
Ad6: H3D1U2
Ad7: H3D2U3
Ad8: H3D3U1

Make sure you include &ad={creative} to the destination URL.
Make sure your conversion data captures the ad variable so you can see what ads sells.
Turn off the Google Optimizer which optimizes for the highest CTR.
Test and see what Ads generate conversions and not just a high CTR.

[AussieWebmaster]

You have to isolate the cases to find which is ultimately true... remember the question was CTR. Anything to do with the landing page or something not on the search result page has to be immediately dropped as irrelevant.

Position will impact CTR the most when it is manipulated... use of keyword insert can impact but that is after the position issue. Try working it in various positions and it may increase the CTR but not as much as position will from say 1 to 5 or under.

[SEO Montreal]

I've personally seen that narrowing my groups once I see what words get volume is the most effective, albeit indirectly. Because when you refine your adgroups, you end up refining your ad copy and titles and URLs.
With regards to URLs, I've recently seen a 1-1.5% jump in CTR by just getting the most relevant keyword to the ad in after a forward slash, like mydomain.com/bigpointofmyad

[farees]

Bottom line is does it really matter?- I think it's expected if you are a SEM professional to keep high CTR. Reporting to higher up's saying we have a high CTR is not going to make a difference, but successful conversion, reach and acquisition will.

- Farees