So you had a cup of hot coffee, and now you are ready to see the results of PPC ads. Your expectations are a high conversion, but when you open the analytics, all you notice is click-through rates (CTR) are lower as opposed to your efforts.
Low CTRs are not a big deal in the world of PPC ads. Especially when we know that 80% of searchers ignore paid ads, and switch to organic results. Click-through rates from paid ads are even tough to achieve with 615 million devices using Adblock. That doesn’t mean PPC is dead.
Moz’s action/conversion tracking highlights the fact that paid ads are 1.5X more effective in generating clicks as compared to SEO. Imagine if you successfully generate such results from where you get high traffic leading to high conversion, high-quality score, and reduced cost-per-click. Also, studies show that pages with high CTR have high ranking positions on Google. Your ad efforts are well-paid here.
You need to look differently at paid ads and adopt a different way to catch users’ attention.
Today, we are going to breakdown seven actionable ideas to increase ad CTR in the age of Ad Blockers and high organic clicks.
7 Actionable Tips to Boost Your CTR with Examples
Try out these seven speedy ways to boost CTR with minimal effort and maximum results.
1. Understand Search Intent
Take a minute and think about how you start your content creation process. Do you think first about who your audience is? Exactly… Creating ads is equal to creating content. You have to put a similar logic of content creation while creating ads. Ads are no more about inserting a few lines and leave the rest on searchers and Google. Online users click only those results which are highly relevant to them — paid or free, no matter. Google also showcase ads and organic results, matching best with users’ queries. Let’s say I am a user with an intent to know about which are the best yoga mats. Currently, I don’t want to buy it. I need information (my search intent is to get knowledge on best yoga mats). What will I click? The organic results. This is the article I read.
Now, after reading a few articles on yoga mats, I decided to buy Domyos Yoga Mat from Decathlon. This time I searched for “Domyos Yoga Mat” (my search intent is to buy it). So this time, I clicked on the ad to buy the yoga mat.
As you can see, the ad is perfectly designed as per users’ search intent. It has keywords based on search intent, persuasive words like sale up to 60%, etc. to make me click. Long story short, understand your users’ search intent first. Think of the different ways your potential customers will search for your products or services. This is where you get the idea of keywords and description for your next ad.
2. Put the Main Keyword in Display URL
The most useful and underrated ad tip is putting the main keywords in the display URL. Ads have restrictions in words. You can’t insert all words in a single ad. That’s why marketers experiment with different types of ads furnished with various keywords. Display URL is your opportunity to add focused keywords. I wonder why brands don’t use it to their advantage. I see loads of ads with different keywords, but the URL is always the same, mostly the home page.
For example, I came up with an ad on Puma shoes, yet Amazon displayed home page URL instead of the one with keywords:
Wouldn’t it be much useful to include keywords in the URL? See the ad below and notice its effect. 
Next time, while creating ads, do put the primary keyword in URL to give users and search engine a clear idea.
3. Use Ad Extensions to Increase Visibility
Ad extensions are features to extend your ad. Thankfully, Google ads are not limited to title, URL, and description only. Google Adwords allows you to add more events to your ad via ad extensions. You can display location, phone number, other site links, price, app install button, etc. Look at this ad example of best lawyers in Boston:
4. Create Urgency with Countdown Timer
We all had moments when we face deadlines and our speed skyrocket. We forget everything and focus on one task. Deadlines are nothing but the trigger of a sense of urgency. If we know that the task is urgent, we won’t hesitate to finish it first. The same goes for ads. If we know that the deal is soon going to end, we first grab it so as not to miss an opportunity to save some bucks. See the ad below and tell me how much it triggers your sense of urgency.
Your CTRs will skyrocket if you successfully create a sense of urgency in users by giving time limits.
5. Catch Instant Attention with Symbols
How to make your ad stand out among competitors?With ads, you are not even getting a chance to display pics. Words are your only weapon and symbols add an extra layer of attention to your ad.
You can use any symbol as far as your creativity allows you to catch instant attention. Here are some: ü$é øƒ $¥mBøl$©opyrigh, dollar $ign$, ®egistered trademark,
6. Leverage the Power of Negative Keywords
Sometimes, Google display ads that are not 100% relevant to users’ query. For example, I searched for desktop computers online, and this Dell’s ad on laptops came up.
This ad is not relevant to my query. If I click it, it will be a waste of money from your side. It’s called negative keywords – the keywords that are not relevant to your ad, yet Google displays them when users search for it. Negative keywords not only waste search results but also attract unwanted traffic, making you pay for clicks that didn’t mean for your products at all. Google Ads lets you block such keywords to stop attracting unwanted traffic. You have to find negative keywords and their synonyms to add them to the block list.
7. Call Users to Action
Gone are the days when call-to-action was all about “read more,” “buy now,” etc. To make users click, you have to go in advance with your call to action. Check out these creative examples of clickable call-to-action: 
Mouth-watering!
Aren’t they?
Get out of “buy more” zone and experiment with different call-to-actions examples. Have a look at significant competitors or successful ads of all time to get some ideas
Turn On the Flow of Ideas
Once you are onboard with ads, you will need more and more ideas to experiment with. It’s better to keep the flow going before you run out of words. I would suggest you check out examples of successful ads and collect the one you find appealing. Keep your creative buckets filled with different words you find on the go.
All the best.
Image Preferences
https://mohitdave.com/rank-product-google-shopping-campaign/
https://blog.alexa.com/google-ad-examples/
