This year we are focusing on unlocking holiday shopping success for our readers and customers.
Over the last number of weeks we’ve discussed 4 Incredible Tips to Help you Prepare for Black Friday 2021, How To Prepare For Shippageddon 2.0, and released The 2021 Black Friday Toolkit whitepaper which you can download below. 👇
In short, we’re getting you fully ready for the holiday season!
- According to Google, 58% of shoppers conducted their holiday shopping online last year.
- Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday combined accounted for over $14 billion in spending in the US.
These mindboggling figures tell us that now, more than ever before, it’s crucial that your business’s digital marketing strategy is bulletproof.
This includes all aspects of your online presence from social media, to your website and your advertising
Let’s find out how to ramp your online business up to win the holiday season!
Download your free whitepaper today!
The 2021 Black Friday Toolkit
Click-Through Rates (CTR)
A major factor of not only getting your business discovered, but also getting conversions, is a metric known as click-through rates.
As defined by Google, a click-through rate or CTR is “a ratio showing how often people who see your ad listing end up clicking it.” It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks that your ad receives by the number of times your ad is shown:
CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions
This information can be used to understand which ads or keywords are performing well or where adaptations must be made.
The aim is to achieve as high a CTR as possible. This is a good sign that consumers are both finding your ads and engaging with them.
Strategies to Optimize your CTR this Holiday Season
If you advertise on Google you’ll be able to find the CTR of your various ads, listings, and keywords on your Google account.
But with over 400 million web searches every day being conducted in the U.S. alone, how do you make your business stand out?
Let’s take a look at some strategies that will ensure you maximize your click-through rate!
#1 – Data is King
Many marketers prefer not to spend ours sifting through data. We like to be creative and fun and tend to tune out when the data nerds on our team start talking…
But the truth really is if we pay more attention to our data and utilize systems such as Google Analytics, we would see a massive increase in CTR and the quality of traffic we receive.
I won’t spend too much time on this as we have already spoken about “What’s new with Google Analytics 4?,” but this still deserves the top spot.
The key takeaway is to set a conversion goal to optimize your ad campaigns for conversions, ultimately improving your CTR.
#2 – Write Accurate, Attention-grabbing Headlines
There’s an art to writing a concise sentence.
A sentence containing all the information necessary.
A headline that will compel a consumer to click it.
A tagline that ranks highly in the SERPs.
Craft keyword-optimized, relevant headlines to increase your CTR.
#3 – Optimize your Meta Description to boost CTR
SEO is an integral part of achieving a high click-through rate for your business. We’ve previously taken an in-depth look into SEO Essentials For All Businesses and an important part of that discussion was keyword optimization.
The ideal meta description should be:
- 155 characters in length. This is so every word is visible on search engine previews
- Interest piquing for a potential customer
- Explains what is contained within the webpage
Take this meta description for example…
The best meta descriptions provide an answer to the question that a person has Googled.
The above example is attention-grabbing, specific to what it is, and tells the person exactly what they’ll find if they click through.
Extra tip: Include a date in your meta description or headline. This instantly shows the reader that this is an up-to-date article and should increase your CTR.
#4 – Utilize High-Quality Graphics
I have to give a shoutout to our amazing graphic designer, Claire, here!
She provides us with high-quality, themed graphics to optimize our business and showcase these blogs.
Having a good image displayed on the search engine will allow you to convey a thousand words to the user in just one image. It shows the user exactly what they should expect from this webpage or piece of content.
It also is very useful for breaking up long sections of text and images make your website seem more legit and trustworthy. All together visuals are an extremely effective way of persuading people to click on your link.
See, how pretty is that? 😍
#5 – Smart, Seasonal Budgeting
The 2021 holiday season will be a fantastic opportunity to increase clicks, conversions, and sales for your business. However, if you want to see the benefits of all the tips we just talked through, you have to ensure that you allocate enough budget to the holiday season.
As eCommerce businesses, we can assume that a large portion of our annual sales will occur in the three months leading up to Christmas. Therefore, we should also allocate a large portion of our budget to this time.
If you budget smartly for this exciting time of year and implement the four tips above, you should see an incredible increase in your CTR. The holiday season traffic can be unpredictable so be prepared to be adaptable.
Conclusion
The goal of each of these blogs is to better prepare you and your business for the upcoming holiday season.
I hope now you have a firm grasp of what CTR is and how you can properly optimize it for your company. Creating great headlines, optimizing based on data, and shortening URLs is great to get people to click your links. However, from there you must focus on producing high-quality and engaging content. That’s the real key to having a super high CTR, solving consumer problems with great answers.
There is one other thing you can do if you want to see truly incredible results…
Try Optily, the ad spend optimization software that will save you time and money. This powerful ad tech solution offers instant cross-channel optimization for your online advertising. There’s also a 14-day free trial so you could use it ahead of the Black Friday weekend and see if it’s right for you.
Worth a shot if you ask me! 🎯
