If you’ve noticed a decline in clicks on your Google Ads, the reason why may come as a complete surprise. However, this is not a sign you shouldn’t ever ignore because prospects for financial gain can be lost. Instead, you should thoroughly think about the reasons behind it and try to get to the solution. Remember – every missed click means that potential customers go to a competitor instead of you. As only 3% of website visitors really end up making a purchase, so it’s crucial to attract them in the first place. But what are the reasons why click volume decreases? What should you do if the number of your clicks suddenly decreases? What steps can you take to identify the source of the issue and implement a solution? To answer your question, we’ve consulted experts in SEO for moving companies so make sure to continue reading!
What is Clickthrough Rate (CTR)?
Before we proceed to reasons why click volume decreases and approach any serious website marketing analysis, it’s important to understand what clickthrough rate (CTR) actually is. CTR is a Google Ads metric that has remained largely unchanged over the years and it’s easily calculated by dividing the number of times your ad is clicked by the total number of times your ad is displayed (impressions).
Even though CTR is a simple metric, it is also one of the most important metrics you can use to analyze your company’s success. Therefore, don’t make a mistake in thinking that CTR is solely relevant for gauging how convincing an ad is.
So where exactly does CTR fit in? CTR is used in a variety of contexts, including but not limited to:
- Ad quality and relevancy measurement.
- Finding out which keywords and ads have the most competition.
- Comparing keyword bids to campaign budgets.
You may now be wondering, “What is a good CTR?”. Recent research by Instapage found that the average CTR for search queries was 5.06%. But don’t stress if your typical CTR is lower than normal in your industry. Further in this article, we’ll let you know the reasons why click volume decreases and give you quick solutions for them.
Four important reasons why click volume decreases
If your website experienced a sudden drop in performance, one of the following four reasons is most likely the cause.
#1 Drop in Quality Score
Quality Score shouldn’t be seen as the be-all and end-all of metrics. However, it may be that a lack of attention to this statistic is at the heart of the fall in click volume.
Your ad’s Quality Score is based on the following factors:
- CTR predictions.
- Relevance of advertisements.
- Accuracy and relevancy of the landing page.
You may skip the guesswork when deciding where to focus your optimization efforts thanks to Google Ads’ comprehensive review of all the regions provided. You can solve this problem by optimizing your Quality Score based on the “grades” Google gives you for your keywords.
#2 Decreased impressions
If your CTR has stayed the same but you’ve seen a drop in clicks, the main cause is likely a decline in overall impressions. The following are some of the most typical causes of a sudden drop in views:
- Seasonality – There will be lulls and surges in sales if your product has a seasonal release schedule. It makes sense as when there are fewer people looking for what you provide and searching for your keywords, fewer people will see your ads.
- A recent change to your bidding strategy – There may be a disconnect between your daily budget and your desired ROAS/CPA/CPC if you’ve recently made adjustments to your bidding strategy. When expectations aren’t met in this way, it can have a devastating effect on how people view you.
- Update negative keywords – You’ve got to tighten up your negative keywords, just like many other advertisers. This is because Google has relaxed its requirements for certain types of keyword matches. However, it’s possible that you’ve put too many limits in place using negative keywords. As a result of these competing disadvantages, the overall impression may suffer.
So what can you do to fight a decrease in impression? Regardless of the time of year, the solution is to examine current Bidding Strategies to check if their targets are in line with (and achievable) performance objectives. Also, check your negative keyword lists for any potential conflicts that could be preventing your ad from being displayed.
#3 New ads
Ok, so you’ve looked into different ways to advertise a business and created some brand new ads that you rolled out company-wide. You can’t wait to see the results of your updated ad copy. However, you have found that the contrary is true, and your click volume really decreases. How did this happen?
When you make changes to your campaigns, especially to your ad wording, you effectively put your campaign back into a learning phase. The performance may fluctuate throughout this time. While Google’s algorithm figures out which ads are most effective, you may observe a decrease in click-through rate.
It’s obvious that no advertiser would want this. You’ve put in the effort to create a flawless new copy, but now it’s failing to meet expectations. The question then becomes, “What can we take away from this?” Before you stop running the “old” ads, split-test your new ads using the A/B method. Stopping all commercials and starting fresh with new ones might be disruptive to a campaign’s success, but this can help smooth things over.
#4 Your competition managed to outbid you
You have no power over the competition. However, what you have control over is the way you respond to it.
Let’s say you’ve got a maximum CPC of $5 per click on a certain term but you keep seeing that a rival site is outranking you. It’s quite possible that your rival is outbidding you. This is easy to fix if you have the resources to be more competitive in your bidding process. After all, more frequent appearances might boost your impression and click-through rates.
Another case in point is when a rival business outshines your own ad material. Let’s pretend you and your competition sell identical products, but they’re offering a discount while you don’t. Think you know which ad will earn more clicks? The promotional ad, of course.
If you aren’t able to run a campaign, one solution is to examine your ad wording to see where you can make improvements to set yourself apart. Make sure you use all available ad extensions to boost your ads’ visibility and prominence.
Final thoughts
Therefore, if you notice a dramatic drop in your clickthrough rate, one of the reasons why click volume decreases we’ve listed in this article is probably behind it. But don’t panic. Solutions to this kind of issue are typically concealed somewhere below the surface. You can probably uncover the causes of halted campaign performance if you take the time to look into the data and evaluate it. Once you know the reason behind it, you can easily reach out to experts in digital marketing for movers that will help you make the most of your advertising efforts.
