RevContent

Key Strategies for Improving CTR and Maximizing Conversions

click through rate

Between email correspondence, shopping for necessities, and searching for solutions, American adults spend nearly eight hours a day online. That’s why digital marketing is such an effective approach for today’s advertisers. Digital marketing allows advertisers to deliver tailored campaigns to highly targeted audiences for a greater chance of a conversion. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are a powerful way to reach people where they spend their time. Make the most of your marketing efforts with key strategies for improving your clickthrough rate (CTR) and maximizing conversions for sales generation and revenue growth.

What Exactly Is CTR?

One of the most commonly used forms of digital marketing is PPC ads, in which the goal is to entice your audience to click on the ad. When they do, the ad sends them directly to your website where they can:

  • Learn more about your company
  • Shop your products
  • Complete forms
  • Register for memberships or newsletters
  • Convert to a paying customer

CTR is a way of determining the efficacy of your PPC ad. It calculates how many people clicked on the ad (clicks) versus how many people saw the ad (impressions). Your CTR provides important insight about each PPC ad. If someone chooses to engage with it, it must resonate with them in some way. This generates interest, boosts engagement, drives traffic to your site, and potentially leads to higher conversion rates.

But CTR is more than an invaluable metric. It also impacts your bottom line. For every click an ad receives, the advertiser pays a small fee to the publisher. While this is great for advertisers on a budget, it’s also important to ensure you’re spending marketing dollars wisely. Understanding which ads are performing well and which aren’t can help you identify why ads aren’t as successful and make necessary changes to boost success rates and maximize your advertising budget.

How Does CTR Impact Conversions?

To create a successful digital marketing campaign, you must realize that CTR is not the same thing as conversions. While CTR will reveal the percentage of people who click on the ad, it won’t convey how many of those people actually convert. It’s possible an ad can have a high CTR rate with a low conversion rate. Unfortunately, this means you’re paying more for each conversion you secure. 

Ultimately, CTR is all about getting people to your site. Once there, it’s up to you to guide people through the sales funnel and complete their customer journey. Website layout and design, useful content, and prominent call-to-action buttons can all help achieve this goal, but CTR is the key to maximizing conversions. If people don’t click on your ads, then they won’t be directed to your site where they can take the action you desire. While a high CTR doesn’t equate to high conversions, it certainly sets you on the path to success.

6 Strategies for Improving CTR and Maximizing Conversions

To increase the chances of securing more conversions begin by focusing your efforts on CTR. Here are six strategies for improving CTR and maximizing conversions for growth and success.

1. Know Your Audience

Today’s consumers not only demand tailored content, but 71% of consumers also expect it. To create relevant ads that meet the unique needs of your audience, you must first know who you’re trying to reach. Conduct in-depth research and analysis to learn about their shopping patterns, buying habits, which platforms they’re frequenting online, and what kind of content would appeal to them. 

Monitor social media chat threads and forums to see what candid information people are sharing online about you and your competitors. Look for a gap to fill, an opportunity to meet a need that other companies are missing. Or find ways to improve your ads and products for a more successful campaign. People will provide invaluable feedback if you’re willing to seek it out and take advantage of their constructive criticism.

Understanding your consumers’ needs, preferences, and pain points can help you create ads that attract their attention and entice them to click for more information. Creating buyer personas can help you identify your ideal customer. This information can help shape your PPC ad campaigns for a higher CTR and, ultimately, greater conversions. 

2. Create Powerful Content

Ad copy can play a big role in CTR. If an ad is underperforming, examine the wording you’ve used to connect with your audience. Perhaps your message isn’t resonating with your prospects because you’re not using the right tone of voice, you’ve included too much technical jargon, or the ad is simply too text-heavy. Assess better-performing ads and see what is different from the ones that need improving. Resort back to your audience research and use that information to create powerful content that’s sure to resonate. You’ll see several clues to help guide your approach to ad creation.

If your audience has a short attention span, keep messages brief and to the point. If the demographic is a younger group, consider a conversational approach. Always remember to write with your audience in mind. The more you connect with them through your ads, the greater your CTR will be.

3. Optimize Text

As you work on building impactful advertising copy, remember to optimize text so it aligns with searches. Begin with your headline, which should be concise, eye-catching, and include one or two focus keywords. 

Next, be sure to include high-performing keywords in the ad copy to target a more specific audience. Although this may cost you some impressions and clicks, you’ll attract more qualified traffic and are thus more likely to boost your CTR. Avoid keyword stuffing (cramming keywords for the sake of making as many matches as possible). Consumers will spot this right away, and you’ll lose credibility and trust with your audience. Instead, provide value to your prospects with relevant keywords that are useful in your ad.

Hashtags are useful across multiple social media channels. Find out which hashtags are trending or popular in your industry and include them in your ad copy. This can help boost visibility and make your ads easier to find for those looking for your solutions.

4. Use a Compelling CTA

A call to action (CTA) is one of the most important aspects of a digital ad. It’s the wording or image that compels a person to take action. Your CTA acts as a guide to show users their next steps, and it’s what ultimately gets them to visit your website for more information and conversion opportunities. Your CTA should be prominent in the ad, perhaps in a contrasting color and bold font. It should also:

  • Be clear and specific: avoid cluttering the ad with too many choices
  • Create a sense of urgency: not wanting to miss an opportunity, people are likely to respond to wording like “Act now!” or “Register today!” 
  • Offer a value to the user: incentives can benefit your prospect and also earn you clicks
  • Consist of action words: if you want people to act, you have to tell them how

Studies show that a personalized CTA performs 202% better than a generic CTA. Use the audience research data you’ve collected to create a CTA that resonates with your specific viewer and see your CTR climb.

5. Implement A/B Testing

When it comes to PPC and CTR, a lot of your success will simply come down to trial and error. Although it takes time and effort, A/B testing can be a highly useful tool in fine-tuning your PPC ads. Launch two ads, then compare their performance to learn what’s performing well and what areas need improvement. Adjustments could include:

  • Wording or tone of voice
  • Punctuation
  • Images
  • CTA phrasing

Once you identify what needs to change, make the adjustments quickly and launch the ad again. Continue to test and course correct as needed. The more testing you perform, the more you’ll begin to see patterns of what attracts your audience. As you continue to adjust your ads, you’ll begin to see your CTR climb. 

6. Prepare Your Landing Pages

Once your PPC ad is performing well and earning high CTR, you want to be sure your website is prepared to guide visitors through the sales funnel. Make sure your layout and design are intuitive and easy for people to navigate. Clearly label tabs so people can quickly find the information they seek. The text should be broken up into easy-to-read segments, surrounded by plenty of white space so the information is gentle on the eyes. Provide several ways for people to contact your service team with questions, even if it’s a chatbot that can provide basic answers. 

CTR doesn’t mean much if you don’t get people to convert. Make sure that once shoppers arrive on your website, your landing pages guide them to take your desired action. CTR combined with an optimized and well-designed website work together to maximize conversions.

Improve CTR and Maximize Conversions

Through human insights, organic strategies, and super cool tech, we create meaningful native advertising experiences that connect brands and their consumers in positive ways. 

Contact us today to learn how we can help you improve CTR and maximize conversions.

Share this post

SUBSCRIBE

Get the latest native advertising tips delivered straight to your inbox. 

Lets talk revenue

Create Your Campaign