We do most of our work “behind the curtain”, and while we can’t speak to some of the specifics of our execution (our clients get the credit), we can share some general thoughts or stories. Names redacted, of course.

Atop the list of common, often frustrating trends is the tendency for a client to focus too much on CTR. It’s logical, I suppose, but where we don’t have a statistically significant volume of conversions to chase CPA, it’s CPC that we should follow. For Paid Search, CTR is always something to monitor, but where CPA isn’t in play, CPC is always the focus. Higher CTR in a PPC environment can be problematic, with click volume directly driving your ad spend. Altering text ads to blindly chase CTR is another pitfall. I recall experimenting with “bad credit ok” and similar text in a previous [professional] life. I could push CPC to the floor, flood the site with traffic, even drive a CPA that was laughably low. All of that was meaningless, because the applications were of zero value to lenders; looks great on paper, worthless in reality.

Beyond SEM, we’re normally talking about particular placements, ad formats, audience segments, even comparing the overall performance of various ad platforms to determine where to allocate a client’s budget. Notwithstanding the impact of ‘value’ of a click, which we mush account for when we’re able, it’s CPC that drives the discussion. There are exceptions, like comparing performance of ad creative in an A/B format, or flat-rate negotiated buys. Negotiating and managing homepage buys with Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft back in the day, CTR was a huge focus. More clicks on a static cost is a good thing.

It’s not intuitive, but when a client is looking to maximize website traffic with their ad budget, it’s critical to have this discussion and manage expectations and focus points. Layering-in boundaries and settings to ensure quality traffic, including identifying high bounce rate sources/placements, makes it a bit more complex. For the same reason we don’t chase CTR, we can’t chase CPC or we’ll be scraping the bottom of the barrel for clicks that are cheap for a reason. Don’t get me started on mobile in-app placements; $0.40 CPM, $0.13 CPC, and a 3.27% CTR from a 320×50? Half of your clicks never registered a website session (inadvertent clicks, backed-out before your site ever heard a knock at the door), and those that did show a 97% bounce rate… complete trash.

Be mindful of the metrics you monitor, and what expectations or assumptions you might be enabling with respect to how, when, and where you depict particular metrics. Take the time to highlight or more directly call-out the metrics that you know take precedence. Where necessary (client by client), point-out metrics that you’re intentionally ignoring, or that otherwise aren’t the focus but might have been a distraction for your client.