Let’s debunk AdWords results in this update.
Executive Summary: The goal is sales leads for your business. How do you get them?
- ADWORDS CLICK-THRU RATES (CTR): There are three AdWords ads at the top of the page. The first one only gets a CTR of 2-3% on average.
- SEO CLICK-THRU RATES: For first position in organic, it is 52% CTR–more than 15X the Google Ads. The first 5 organic positions achieve higher CTRs than the top AdWords paid position.
- EVEN WORSE CTRs: AdWords–top of page positions 2 and 3, and AdWords at bottom of page. Organic–any position below 6 on Page One.
- WHEN TO USE ORGANIC? For most searches. This is where at least 70% of your traffic should come from.
- WHEN TO USE PPC? Targeted keywords. When you need to develop traffic for a particular keyword. Maybe a new product or service? When you see good traffic from a paid keyword phrase this is an indicator for writing a page about it for organic ranking.
For more on this topic listen to the Voices of Search podcast featuring Doug Bell and Benjamin Shapiro recorded 05/25/20.
Overall, they indicate companies are moving away from AdWords as their effectiveness has gone down since 2010. Broad generalizations are never a good reason to make a change, but consider the effectiveness of your paid ads, and merchant shopping feeds. Is the ROI going up, or down?
Onward and upward!
