How to get a 45% click-through rate for your ad.
April 4, 2009
Whether you're monetizing a site with AdSense or with affiliate links, the click-through rate (CTR) is your bread and butter. The higher your CTR, the more money you earn. This is especially true with affiliate programs, since there is no Smart Pricing involved.
Here's a method that I use to great effect when I'm sending traffic through to an affiliate program. The example I'm going to give actually gets a 45% click-through rate. That means that about half of my visitors actually click-through to visit the product page.
1. Put a large, contrasting ad at the top of the page.
The ad colors should be strikingly different than the color of the rest of the site, and it needs to be above the content of the page. This makes it almost impossible for a visitor to miss.
Also, keep the ad copy short, sweet, and in a large font (again, so it doesn't get missed), and put a graphic to the right of the text — the graphic should preferably be a picture of the product you're trying to sell. Here's an example ad that I use on a site whose background color is brown:
The above ad gets about a 17% click-through rate. Not bad at all! But I don't stop there.
2. Follow the ad with a very useful (but short) review or informative article.
People don't typically want to take an hour to read your 6,000 word essay on the wonders of green widgets — at least, not on the web they don't. People surfing the web are looking for short, easily digestible (but very useful) information. So keep it short and sweet, and informative.
After giving the visitor who didn't click on your first ad some great information about the product, point them where to go to get a great product that fulfills all of the previously mentioned facts. Here's an example of the last paragraph I use at the bottom of my article on the porch swings site:
"Of course, I have a very strong preference in porch swings. There is one particular artisan who builds beautiful, durable porch swings from Cypress. His name is Ted Leger (pronounced Lay-shay), and he’s based in Louisiana (where a lot of cypress trees grow). All of his swings are hand made, and he can ship anywhere in the USA.
I strongly recommend you
Click here to view the variety of porch swings he has available."
Notice again that it's short, but gives a strong recommendation of where I think the visitor should go to get a good deal. Following a well-written, informative article with a recommendation is a great way to get a high click-through rate to an affiliate product.
In this case, I'm adding an additional 28% CTR (I know because I track both links separately–the one in the ad above the article and the one in the link at the end of the article). It's important to track both separately so you can see how changes in the ad and/or article text affect the CTR of each independent ad.
Again, keep the article short. The article I use on the porch swings site is only 275 words long, including that last paragraph above. A short article encourages reading, since the visitor knows they won't have to invest a lot of time into it, and it also leaves them with time to click-through and see what you're offering right now.
The best of both worlds.
So 17% CTR for the first ad plus an additional 28% CTR for the second ad equals a 45% click-through rate altogether.
It's important to have both kinds of ads on an affiliate page, because it appeals to two separate groups of people: the ad on top appeals to people who are looking for the product right now — it just sends them directly to where they can get it. In the case of the porch swings, that's 17% of the visitors.
The second ad appeals to folks who need to know they can trust you first. A well-written article helps establish that trust and your own expertise in the subject. Once that's established, the strong recommendation gets them to follow the advice and click-through. In the case of the porch swings ad, another 28% end up doing so.
3. Get targeted traffic
It doesn't matter how well your green widgets page is designed to drive traffic to an affiliate program if all of your traffic is expecting a page about blue doodads. While it's unlikely your traffic will be expecting something completely different than your page offers (especially if your traffic is coming from the search engines), it behooves you to research what kind of traffic will convert the best before putting a lot of energy into ranking for those keywords.
So how do you find out what keywords will convert into sales before you're ranking for those keywords in the search engines? There's two ways — one is free, the other presumes you can afford to spend a bit of money ahead of the game (but if you can, it's worth it).
Step 1: Test your keywords' commercial intent.
I hope I don't sound like I'm harping on this, since my last couple of blog posts have made it clear that this is important, but I really think it bears repeating again. Be sure to test the commercial intent of your keywords before you put out all of the time, energy and expense it takes to rank for those keywords. Simply put, the commercial intent of the keywords is how likely the searcher is to be wanting to buy something.
Step 2: Create an AdWords campaign.
You should always do step one, but if you can afford to spend a few dollars in advance, creating an AdWords campaign can actually be an investment that will save you untold amounts of time and money down the road.
You see, before you try to rank for a set of keywords, you can put up an AdWords ad for each of the sets of keywords you've selected that have strong commercial intent. Spend enough to get a few hundred visitors for each keyword, and track your conversion rates for each keyword.
Once you've done that, focus on the three sets of keywords that convert the best and work to rank for those. If your budget for this is small, then set your AdWords bids lower and be patient (because if you bid lower, your ad won't show as prominently and it will take longer for you to get the traffic needed to properly test your conversion rates). But if you're patient, or have the money to spend, you will find out which keywords are razor-targeted for what you're trying to sell, and that means a lot of saved time, effort and money from trying to rank for keywords that don't convert into sales.
Summary
So to sum up all of the above, you can dramatically improve your click-through rates for affiliate pages by:
- Putting a large, noticeable ad on the top of your affiliate page.
- Having a short (but informative) article that is followed by a strong recommendation.
- Getting razor-targeted traffic to your page, testing each keyword's commercial intent and, if you can afford it, testing the conversion rate with an AdWords campaign.
Following these few simple guidelines will make sure that none of your efforts are wasted, and that as many visitors as possible end up going to the product page and purchasing the product that you're working to sell them.
Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.
Comments
89 Responses to “How to get a 45% click-through rate for your ad.”
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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Great post Jon. Especially the Adwords testing. I've been too lazy to try that in the past but it will be part of my next project.
Interesting article. Definitely worth testing.
Thanks!
Great point on article length. They teach you in journalism 101 to write a 6th grade level and keep it at 300-500 words for press/news releases. Same applies to content articles, like johnathan says short, sweet and informative
Jonathan,
This is definitely worth a try, as I think we tend to write reviews that are too long, thinking (or maybe hoping) that more information is better.
Thanks for the great tip, as always!
Mark
Testing commercial intent, I still need to read what you think about this but I do like what you have posted Jonathan. As far as testing with adwords… I have found that the popular and business targeted keywords are always saturated. Although sometimes, using market samurai you can find targeted words that no one is bidding on or the exact phrases are slim to none while the broad match are full of competition.
So, How could you target a page that has high SEO competition kw's but low adsense competition? That would mean your major source of traffic would have to be from PPC campaigns right?
Thanks for the article,
Sean B.
Great information here. Adwords is a great playground for a variety of website marketing tests that can be applied to a site's naturally ranking pages.
Jon,
Fantastic information. Worth it's weight in gold. I'm very surprised to see the difference in ctr between the top banner and the simple recommendation link at the end of the article.
Patrick
Jon,
Cool stuff and thanks for sharing. A couple of thoughts come to mind.
I noticed, in looking at the site, that:
1. You have "click here" in both links. Does that have an impact? Sometimes it seems to improve CTR, and other times it doesn't seem to matter (at least where I've tested it).
2. You have 12 words in the anchor text in the bottom link. Have you experimented with more/less text?
3. The links are cloaked/redirects, so they appear as though they're pages on your site rather than links that go directly to the sales page. Do you think that has an impact on CTR?
4. The site is a tight niche directly related to the product itself. I'm thinking that if your site were about wooden decks, or home improvement, or anything else more loosely related that your CTR would likely be lower, even with this same setup. Thoughts?
Thanks,
Kurt Schmitt
Great article as usual. I particularly like the idea of adding a text link after the text to entice a click through.
Great info.I like the affiliate as the smart pricing does not come into play. thanks!
I see I am doing the right thing I just need to get more traffic to my site
This will be well worth testing for me, I seem to struggle with my click through rate on many of my affiliate programs.
Thanks for a great post and sharing your Adwords idea to test conversion rates, I am sure this will help me!
These are great suggestions. I have been putting my affiliate photos after about 200 words, I will try your suggestion.
thanks for the good information
Great tips Jon.. thanks for sharing.
I like the tip about the image being a total contrast to the content, since it does grab eyeballs… and the copy on that image helps get the click.
There were some questions about long phrases used as a link, I actually use those a lot, and use them descriptively. If however in the same article you have another link using anchor text that is shorter and whose role is for passing link attribution to the page being pointed to, what I would do is make the descriptive phrase link a nofollow link since its role in this case is directional… it is meant to get a reader's attention and get them to click the link.
Thanks for the tips Jonathan. Your advice is always worth testing.
Like a lot of the things you say, another pure GEM!
I am just starting to delve into ad sense as an income. Very useful and at a proper time for me.
OP
Hi Jonathan
Thanks for the great advice I will be trying out some of your tips as I am just starting to build a new website and have started building some page like yours so will tweak them to see how they convert as at the moment I am waiting a reply for a way to track my sales from a keyword level as i have no way to tag the sales pages
thanks again and take care
Paul
Good and helpful information here. Having high CTR in Adsense is the key in earning huge amount.
Jon,
Maybe the !7% and 28% CTR are really coming from different types of visitors. Maybe the 17% CTR is coming from visitors who are more visually oriented and the 28% CTR is coming from visitors who are more verbally oriented. It's possible that the "visual" people don't even see the text as well as they see graphics. And the "verbal" people aren't nearly as influenced by images as they are of textual impact. There really are different responses from different classes of visitors. By combining both approaches on your pages, you capture the interest of a larger audience. A left/right brain "one two punch". Way to go Jon.
Doug
i think an important part has been overlooked and one that, for me, separates the amateurs from the professional
the text in the ad should be balanced … for example, the text in your ad mentioned above states:
Ted's Cypress Porch
Swing
i would suggest it be formatted thus:
Ted's Cypress
Porch Swing
likewise with the rest of your text 'beautiful hand-made …' not formatted professionally
just my thoughts
serge
Most people always forget to do adwords test. I think this is the most important part.
I agree that a great image helps to convey your message and gets sales. Take your time to find a create a great looking image, and your sales will increase proportionately.
Jon's tips and ideas are always great — and they work to make you money.
Great job Jon!!!
Have a blessed day.
So brilliant that I skipped the end of the article to make this comment.
Now I'm going back to read it properly….
This won't work with AdSense. You're not allowed to ask a reader to click on an ad and you can't have images next to ads.
I'm interested in what affiliate network you're working with that has a wide variety of ads. Maybe clickbank?
Dave Jackson
"likewise with the rest of your text 'beautiful hand-made …' not formatted professionally"
Ah, yes, but that's actually a benefit in the hand-made market. Remember, it's appealing because a real person wrote it and recommends it, not a corporate giant.
"I have found that the popular and business targeted keywords are always saturated."
That's when you target the long-tail keywords (which usually convert better anyway). And remember, this is a market test. Even if you lose a few dollars to find which keywords convert best, you'll more than make that up once your site is ranking for those keywords.
Great post and insight! I've been using most of these tips but there's a few a need too incorporate more on some campaigns like the imaging and strong recommendation ~ Thanks!
Hi Jonathan,
Good piece of information, shall be implementing your advise to my site.
Regards
Madhan.
tq for this tips…
i interested with tips no 1
Hi Jon
This is a good idea for a niche blog.
You work with 1 blog post/page.
Will this still be good for blog with multiple blog posts/page?
Jon,
Great points about how to get people to click through. Like your suggestion on short articles. As mentioned above, many of us think more is better and I can see how short and to the point would work better. In thinking that through, I'd appreciate that personally as many others would also. The image next to the ad is always a good puller. Thanks for the tips Jon!
Mark
Practical and doable as always, Jon. Thanks! Will try it your way and see what happens. You know how to write for us ordinary folks!
Hi Jon,
This is good advice, because… by the time you've designed a campaign and set all wheels in motion you're capture page cum squeeze page is often done in a hurry without the proper qualities. I'm jusy double checking some of my sales pages…
Hi Jon:
The way you say things make them seem easy although they are not at all. Of course, is worth it to try it the way you suggest. Let's see what happen.
Thanks
Jesus Moreno
Thanks Jon. I like the color-contrasting picture, brief article, recommendation, and 'be sure to test the commercial intent of the keywords.' Great advice - especially testing the 'buying keywords.' Geoff.
There are two people who's blog posts I always read when informed a new one's out - Frank Kern and Jonathan Leger. Once again, you've cut to the chase Jonathan and given ALL the relevant detail. Excellent.
As a side note, I came up with very similar conclusions myself from my own long term testing, although my split was slightly different (I had the majority exit on the top ad rather than the resource box). Having said that, I use a link bait type of approach with my ads, rather than the 'standout' style you've adopted.
In answering Susoho, it's a very valid point. This approach works great in a solus position but looks dire on the category pages!
hey jon,
thanks for this tip.
i'd subscribe to ur newsletter.
Good one Jon. I have a similar CTR on one of my pages (actually over 50% through one graphical ad) and I believe it's the strong contrast in colour which creates this extraordinary click through. And the targeted traffic of course
Using Adwords to test is no new thing. The Stomper boys have been recommending this for time. My biggest problem with Adwords so far has been not being able to write effective enough ads to get a decent CTR. If the CTR is low for long enough your QS will drop and your minimum bids will become too high to collect any meaningful data.
So I suppose the key is writing a good ad. I have followed all the accepted wisdom on ad writing and still get these poor results.
In your experience does traffic from paid ads vs organic listings convert the same?
Great article
great post as always jon.
you should point us to where we can learn how to make those type of graphic ads or banners in wordpress.
do you use some type of ad or banner creator software or is it just html coding using a table?
Hi Jon,
Thank you for this article. Great info I will be using. Thanks alot. You are the best and you are always on point.
While the information is good and I do a lot of it I think your credibility would go up with people who don't know you if this page had some PR.
As usual Jon I enjoy your honest and informative posts.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge…
What software do you use to track your affiliate links?
Hey Jon,Thats a pretty good idea,Especially with the commercial intent rule,I usually always check the commercial intent before i optimize for any keyword so im not wasting time doing a 30 day seo plan.By the way have you tried Market Samurai? Its a great tool for the commercial intent factor,Thanks Jon for the great info.
What you say about getting a better click through rate is right on. Use different type of print and being short and to the point.
What software do you use to track your affiliate links?
I just create a PHP redirect script for each link and check the web stats to see how many times it was clicked each month.
I think your credibility would go up with people who don't know you if this page had some PR.
Focus on profits, not PageRank. I have an associate whose site has a measly PR2, but that site earned him (net) over $200,000 last year. I won't get into how much this blog helped me earn last year.
Still think PageRank matters?
Do you use some type of ad or banner creator software or is it just html coding using a table?
No, it's just plain HTML coding in a table with an image and a link.
This is a great post! Thanks Jon
Good post. Thanks for the tips. I'm going to go implement your methods on one of my sites right now.
Jackie
An approach the makes a lot of sense, to be sure.
A future article on how you set this up technically, what you use to track clicks and conversions etc., would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Great tip. I followed up on it by changing the banner I use on one of my blogs so that it'll contrast more with the background. thanks!
Bright and contrasting colors don't work all the time. Every website works differently, so it is not possible to follow the same methodology. Only by a trial and error method can someone strike the right balance. But generally, the above tips are worth the read for many who are starting out.
Jonathan, that is yet another great article. I am curious as to what software you're using to track the individual clicks? Are you using Google Analytics or do you have another piece of software that you prefer?
Thanks,
Mikael
Hi Jon,
Great stuff!
Thanks for the information. I can't wait to
try this on one of my affiliate pages!
best regards,
Laurie
great tips.
i've already applied the first techniques in some of my blogs.. and gives almost 50% CTR.
thanks for sharing this information.
Great Content.
Wow Jonathon your simple and descriptive article will give me a whole different set of pages to try out.
Thank you
Allen
I love it when you give examples. Thank you for being so specific. You have given me something very basic to work on. My conversion rate has always been too low.
Thanks
You're really kind enough to your readers because you're exposing this million dollar secret for free to your readers. I am following these tips to make money online.
These are certainly some tips I'll follow to increase the conversion rates of my ads. Thanks.
With me moving into a new niche, seeing that there isn't much of a way to monetise my first site past adsense, I was really hungry to learn strategies for this. I already have done the research to make sure that I am dealing with buyers on these keywords, and how involved the competition is so I ll take this information and strike.
Thanks !
Jonathan, yet another great post from you. Thanks. One thing I have been wondering is whether the "commercial intent" tool actually works. Have you read about anyone doing tests on it and about what they found?
This is honestly the most helpful post I've read from you.
I remember when people were putting pictures above google ads and their CTR skyrocketed.
Do you usually just make the whole thing a picture or do you use a table, does it make any difference? A table is probably a bit harder to set-up
And I agree with Rick, I enjoy examples, that's how I learn the best.
thats nice tips john, i think i have to try affiliate too since my adsense account got smart pricing which just pay me 0.02-0.04 /click, thats really bad
Great content here… specific and to the point. The sub headers are useful as well - it's what honestly got me to go back up to the top and read the article. Keep up the great work!
John Dennis
I have had click thru rates as high as about 20% for brief periods of time. But I learned a great tip here - thanks. Your contrasting colors for the top and last lines are brilliant. Have to give you compliments again on an outstanding use of a Revo Theme. Bravo Jonathan, well done.
Your post is solid information, thanks for sharing your experience.. I learn from that…
Great useful information. Thanks for sharing.
Much obliged Jon.
This is a great practical tip that I can use, and others can use, to go quickly beyond Adsense.
I've got a suitable affiliate product. Today I'll write an images ad and some resource boxes.
I think you can improve the CTR even more by making the ad more appealing.
This is a good example of what to do well written & thanks for sharing this info
Your numbers are amazing. Most of my pages are under 10%.
Sharing numbers and strategy is awesome.
Thanks
The conversion rate definitely goes up with different things that we can do. Audio and video are also great things that help the conversion rate.
I have a friend who has a website with a very low conversion rate. I'm gonna tell her to read this post to help her out.
All the best,
Eren
Excellent article!
I have been struggling to get a good click through rate since starting the Adwords.
Since taking your advice my click rate has jumped dramatically - Many Thanks
Just a question: Wouldn't having a 45% CTR on AdSense raise flags on Google's end and risk getting you banned?
This tips would really help all bloggers who wish to participate in affiliates. Thanks for this valuable information.
I'll keep this article on my mind coz this is the one I'm looking for.
Thanks Jon for posting this article.
A 45% clickthrough rate is amazing, and the way you achieve it is pretty logical. I read your earlier post about commercial intent and thought that was genius, and using it to get more sales is, well, genius again.
Hey very nice blog!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…
thanks !! very helpful post!
Focus on keywords is the key. With the many distractions of online marketing, it is easy to get off-track. But with a careful plan, results will show up positively.
Thanks for the info. Recently started using adwords at work and I need all the info on click through I can get.
A 45% CTR, unbelievable. Just wanted to know, does any one tried this steps and got the desired results? or this figure is only to make this post sensational to attract more traffic?
It really works, thanks for the tip!
Getting targeted traffic is the key. If people are interested in the niche they'll probably be interested in your ad. If they're not, no matter what kind of article you write, you want get a lot of clicks.
Thanks for sharing this information Jon.
I hope that you will continue on giving us nice tips and suggestions.
Very Nice Info About CTR …Click through rate depends on many values for SEO
I agree. An ad at the top for buyers and then one for the other "tire kickers".
I would kill for a 45 percent cliickthrough rate.
Putting a large, noticeable ad on the top of your affiliate page, will it annoy our visitors?
hi, nice to know this blog.. I know this blogfrom one of my friend in forum, he gave me this link : jonathanleger.com/why-post-duplicate-content-to-your-blogs/
this article is very useful, I never thought to get 45% CTR, I will use your tips.. sorry for the bad english.. next step is to subscribe and follow you on twitter..