CTR dropped when I discontinued adwords

I think it may be possible that visitors that came to my site via one of my adwords ads were more likely to leave through a click in adsence. Since my rankings have increased i have been cutting my adsence budget so I could use the money elsewhere. My trafic has stayed the same with the new found trafic from the serps, but my CTR is down by a whole percent. And I don't mean that its down one percent of what my total CTR was. I mean my existing CTR-1.

Has anyone else ever sean this? I'm wondering if i should reinstate the adwords.

 

I've never thought of it before, but that makes some sense. People who clicked on an AdSense ad to get to your site are the ones most likely to click on another one.

 

I can't help but wonder if I paid for a ton of traffic through adwords if it would pay off in adsence and orders. The more money I pump into adwords, then the more money i would make with adsence. It is a possibility that it may work.

Anyway, I have reinstated my adwords so I'll update later to let you know how it went.

 

Believe it or not, in my experience natural SERPs don't replace AdWords. There are some people that prefer to click on ads while others that prefer the natural listings.

I NEVER cut back on AdWords (or Overture) when my SERPs go up because I did once for a trial period and I lost sales.

A double barrel strategy works better in my opinion.

 

I guess so. i just thought i could put the money to better use elsewhere but now I don't think it is a good idea any more.

 

FTEGal - I would just watch your CTR and Conversion rates closely on your Adwords. I suspect you will not see them change much but your overall conversions will increase due to the new visitor base you will gain from the natural SERPs.

There is of coourse a possibility that this depends on industry but I have seen others report the same thing many times.

 

Personally, I click on adwords more often than serps. Usually they are better targetted.

 

I also think for e-commerce sites people seem to be more reassured and buy more often when you have an advert AND are in the top 5 in the natural results.

Again just my own observation

 

I know what you mean. I find myself using the AS Preview Tool more and more these days, simply because the ads are more likely to satisfy my search than the SERP's. I think that says a lot about the decline in the quality of the SERP's.

AmCy

 

Thats a very interesting point. Now that I think about it, I usually check the ads first before looking at results to.

 

Maybe someone would like to test the inverse.

Will CTR increase when you run an AdWords campaign?

 

I'll tell you when I've got enough money available to run a AdWords campaign - hopefully next month.

 

it would be logical. people who come to your site via ad words are likely to leave the same way (that's how they find their info online)

 

I have learned this the hardway also. I stopped the ppc because of the natural serps being so high and lost some sales.

 

well, i have turned the adwords back on so I will let you guys know if my CTR returns to what it was before.

 

I dont see how the two would be related....

 

They can be related due to the fact that some searchers get ad blindness and when scouring the net they begin to naturally ignore adverts, if they click on an adwords ad in google then its would be a logical assumption that they pick up and reads the adverts/adwords and would be likely to do so again if its pertinent to what they are looking for.

Other users searching google tend to get ad blindness a lot more and see it as a distraction getting in their way of what they want, these people clicking on the natural listings would possibly be more likely to ignore adsense on the natural listings page.

 

Yeah but we were suggesting the opposite of ad-blindness was happening when users came via AdWords.

Stop AW = only visitors from natural SERPs. They steer clear from ads. Turn on AW and you also get visitors in via the AW clicks who do like clicking ads.

 

this thread makes me want to try adwords (currently i use adsense only)

 

People suffering ad-blindness would be the natural serp click throughs that ignore adwords and give a lower CTR on the website, people used to ads and who feel they benefit from them clicking on adwords would therefore give a higher CTR on the website, so it's not the opposite of ad blindness its an example of it, isn't it?

If you suffered ad blindness you would have less of a chance of clicking on the original adword in google, probably carried on going through the natural results and would make a lower CTR visitor to your site.