I remember at the time when I first got into SEM a very a low figure was usually cited - circa 2-4% of searchers on Google click on AdWords ads. However, that was back before Google put AdWords listing above natural results as opposed to only alongside them.
Surely it must be a higher percentage now though? I can't find any recent study that gives any kind of figure however.
Has anyone seen a recent study discussing this?
Sorry, I have not. It must be much, much higher by now. I am a seasoned Google user, and it is becoming harder and harder for me to identify what the paid ads are anymore. So, I can't imagine how the casual user can tell the difference anymore. I was counting down to see what position I was in for a keyword the other day, and I had to go back and recount twice because I was counting an ad in there.
Its been around 30 to 35% of organic traffic for a few years that I am aware of.
Yeah - I was trying to find rock solid evidence on that not so long ago - but failed. put it this way - I have seen PPC ads with less than 0.1% CTR up to 14% CTR (and I'm talking huge number of impressions here - so we are talking statistically significant though 14% is very rare in my experience), and from speaking to an SEO expert guy recently you should expect around a 10% CTR if you are in the top 3 organic results.
I'm not sure where the figure comes from, but as SemAdvance says above - I *think* it is something like 70% organic and 30% PPC - though this will depend on the situation.
Still - it would be nice to see a link to some decent research / statistics on this subject....
This alone serves to demonstrate that any average rate quoted is meaningless.Originally Posted by jordanmcclements
Additionally, given that the relationship between organic and sponsored listings is query string dependent, and that the intents of those who click on one vs the other are dissimilar, comparisons of the CTRs of the two lack a common context.
I agree.
All the same - it would be interesting to see some comparisons between CTR and conversion rates where a web page appears in the top 3 results for the same search term for both PPC and organic traffic..
Can't speak for the universe; but, in the arena re. tickets for entertainment events, I rarely see any overlap between the organic and sponsored listings.
Well considering the fact that 3.5% to 4% is an excellent CTR; I would have to say it would be safe to assume that less than 5% of searchers are actually clicking on paid ads.
On "Google Search" as Opposed to the "Search Network" 3.5% to 4% is in my experience not particularly good (unless your ads suck).
Here are some real world examples:
Ad1 - approx 44,000 impressions - avg. pos. = 2 - CTR = 14.18%
Ad2 - approx 1 million impressions - avg. pos. = 3.8 - CTR = 6.79%
Ad3 - approx 120,000 impressions - avg. pos. = 6.9 - CTR = 4.52%
To clarify - if you have 'Search Partners' turned on in AdWords and are not viewing your report segmented by 'Network' then your CTR is likely to be a good bit lower due to your ads appearing on sites like eBay and Amazon and who knows where else...
As others have said it's completely subjective. It depends on the quality of the natural results, the quality/relevancy of the ad, the vertical etc. etc. etc.
I regularly see 10%+ CTR rates on brand terms and sometimes 1% on more generic terms.
When I made the original post I was looking for an overall average e.g. previously 10% of all clicks on Google were on PPC ads but now 25% of all clicks on Google are on PPC ads (since ads have appeared above the natural results). That's all.
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