Figure 2-9. Borders.com PPC landing page mismatch for the term “technical books”

There are two different ways to measure the effectiveness of the ad copy used to drive visitors to a website:

Click-through rate (CTR)

This is the percentage of visitors who view an advertisement and click on it to land on your website. Highly optimized ad copy can have CTRs close to 10%.

Conversion rate

This is the percentage of visitors who click on a particular ad and actually convert. Highly optimized landing pages can generate conversion rates that are 10 times better than the overall website average.

Ad copy can influence the number of click-throughs to a landing page. On most of our campaigns, we are willing to accept a lower CTR if the traffic we receive has a higher chance of converting (i.e., is more targeted). For instance, if a client has a high-priced service or product, it is likely that a small percentage of those who click through are willing to pay. Very often we ask clients to place the price on the ad so that the traffic is highly targeted and qualified. Although this results in less traffic, it saves our client money since they do not pay for unqualified clicks by visitors who will be shocked by the price. Additionally, the conversion rate skyrockets because visitors to the landing page are well aware of what is in store for them as they click through. With paid campaigns, optimizing for higher-quality traffic starts with testing different ad copy and comparing the CTRs on the ads, as well as the conversion rates they generate.