Google Ad Grants CTR Compliance
The Google Ad Grants CTR Compliance is one of the most challenging ones. Low CTR (Click Through Rate) is one of the most common issues non-profit organizations are facing with their Google Ad Grants Management. Google Ads requires your campaign to maintain a minimum of 5% CTR on a monthly basis in order to remain eligible for the Google Ad Grants program (more info on Google Ad Grants compliance). Now, you may think that 5% is a low number to reach, but in fact, the industry average CTR for regular Google Ads campaigns is around 3% or less. This is because most people ignore the PPC ads at the top of search results and skip to the organic search results. In order to maintain a stable 5% CTR you will need to optimize your ad grants campaign very well, using compelling and laser focused ads and keywords.
How to Optimize Your Campaign For High Ad Grants CTR Compliance
First, it is important to understand what is CTR and what leads to a high CTR. CTR means the number of times people click on your ad vs the the number of times the ad appears in search results. In order to make enough people to want to click on your ad, you need to:
1. Write Relevant, Targeted Ads
The only way to generate enough clicks to comply with the campaign rules (5 clicks per 100 appearances) is to write very specific ads with specific keywords related to the ad, so only people who are searching for this solution will see it. Otherwise, if you write general ads about a wider topic, too many people will not find it relevant enough to what they are searching for and the ad will have a very low CTR.
Example for an optimized, targeted ad with a good chance to reach 5% CTR:
Chronic Neck Spine Pain? | Suffering from Cervicogenic Headaches? | We Can Help
Learn what causes your cervicogenic headaches and how to find immediate relief.
https://yourwebsiteurl.com
Example for a general, not targeted ad that will not generate enough clicks for 5% CTR:
Chronic Headaches? | Best Headache Treatment | Read This
Expert professionals in the field with years of experience helping people overcome chronic headaches.
https://yourwebsiteurl.com
Can you see the difference? while both ads are targeting people with chronic headaches, the first ad is more specific towards people who are suffering from cervicogenic headaches generate from the neck spine. This ad, when optimized to show up only when searching for the specific keywords “cervicogenic headaches”, “neck spine headaches”, will perform much better as it is more focused and targeted to a specific audience, vs the second ad which covers a wider, less specific search term that may or may not be relevant to those who see it. This is where the use of Ad Groups comes to place. If you are helping for people who suffer from various issues, you will do best by creating a separate Ad Group for each specific issues or treatment, and limit each group only to a few most relevant search phrases.
2. Write Attractive, “Sexy” Ads
Once you have created separate campaigns, ad groups and ads optimized for super-specific topics and landing pages, the next step is to make sure your ads are attractive enough to make people trust and want to click on them to find out what help your organization has to offer. Here are some main guidelines:
- Strong Tiltes: Include key phrases that are relevant to what people search when the specific ad appears. This way the ad will speak to them as if it was written specifically to help them with what they are looking for.
- Informative Description: Make good use of the description section to provide information on how exactly the reader can benefit by visiting your web page and why they should trust your organization and give you their time vs other websites in search results. Emphasize your strongest “selling” points here.
- Responsive Ads: Responsive ads allow you to use multiple titles and descriptions that will show up randomly. These ads often have better performance and CTR and are strongly suggested by Google Ads.
- Extensions: You can ad extensions that will appear at the bottom of all ads with links to main landing pages on your website. This increases the “real estate” of the ad on the search results, attracts more attention and looks more professional.
3. Monitor and Keep Optimizing
As your campaign is running, keep checking the performance and CTR on a daily basis to see which ads perform better and which ads are hurting your overall campaign CTR and edit or remove them all together. Keep trying new ads ideas until you see that the CTR is stable above the 5-6% mark.
Following these guidelines above should help you find your way to reach the 5% CTR mark with your Google Ad Grants Campaign.
