What’s in a Word? Plenty – Click Through Rate on PPC Jumps when Google Changes One Little Word

About a week ago, Google made a very small change to its search results. Did you catch it?

If you don’t bother with PPC ads, you might have missed it, but the effect was phenomenal. As reported on TheSearchAgents.com by blogger Alec Green, Google changed the phrase “Sponsored Links” to “Ads.” That’s all it took to see an 11.4% jump in click throughs.

The Search Agents analysts performed a pre/post analysis of user behavior between the last week of “Sponsored Ads” and the first week of “Ads.” Their findings:

Across all AdWords campaigns examined, the average position increased 1.5%

Total impressions decreased by the same amount.

Clicks increased 9.7%.

Average cost per click dropped 2.3%.

Total cost increased more than 7%.

Clickthroughs increased 11.4%.

The double-digit increase for clickthrough came as a huge surprise to the Search Agents team.

So what caused the change? Was it pressure from the FTC to be clearer to consumers what PPC ads are? Then, in turn, did it turn out to be true that most people didn’t know what a “Sponsored Link” was?” This isn’t likely, says Green, since the “Sponsored Links” typeface is the smallest on the page, and reducing the term by 11 letters to “ads” would make it even smaller and harder to see than it already is. If the increase sustains itself over the next few weeks however, that may be exactly what’s spurring the growth.