Most advertisers worry about the Average Position of their ads – it’s one of the simplest and most obvious metrics to follow, and the very notion of a ‘ranking’ brings out the competitive side in the best of us. However, to overlook the various issues surrounding the optimum Average Position is to risk wasting money and losing conversions. It may seem like a simple formula – “higher is better” – but there’s far more to Average Position than that.
What is Average Position?
First of all, we must understand what Average Position refers to. Put simply, it’s the position or rank that an ad most commonly appears in, with ’1′ being the top spot. You can see the Average Positions of keywords, ads, ad groups, campaigns and accounts on your AdWords interface.
An Average Position of 1 – 8 normally means the ad appears on the first page, whereas 9 – 16 normally means it’s showing on the second page.
Furthermore, a typical Google results page will show up to three ads above the organic listings, while the other positions appear on the right-hand side(in some cases, all ads appear on the right-hand side and there are no ads in the centre top position, if no advertisers have a high enough Quality Score and bid). As you can imagine, this ‘divide’ in positions has its own effect on ad performance.
Biggest misconception
Possibly the biggest misconception that advertisers have regarding their Average Position is that higher is always better. Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple and there are a few important issues that come into play here.
For a start, depending on your industry, searchers are likely to behave in different ways. Take two very different keywords as an example: ‘emergency 24hr plumber’ and ‘divorce lawyer’.
Common sense suggests that appearing in one of the top couple of positions for ‘emergency 24hr plumber’ will stand your ad in good stead, assuming it’s a well-written and highly relevant ad, of course. Whereas somebody searching ‘divorce lawyer’ is likely to spend a lot more time in their search, reading more ads and often clicking through to a number of sites before finally choosing their provider.
Therefore, it’s quite possible – indeed, likely – for our lawyer to prefer a position lower down on the page, as it might generate a satisfactory number of leads and at a lower cost, rather than vying with one or two competitors for the top slot. Our plumber, on the other hand, may need to appear in one of those top positions in order to bring in the desired number of leads.
Don’t take our word for it…
However, we don’t recommend you base your strategy on supposition. At least, not when there are perfectly good statistics available! Take a look at your account stats and see for yourself how Average Position affects other metrics – the Click Through Rate and Conversion Rate being two particularly pertinent metrics in this case. The results may surprise you.
Your first port of call on your AdWords interface should be the Segments drop-down. Choose ‘Top v Side’ to see how your account performance changes when your ads are appearing above the organic listings compared to when they appear on the right-hand side.
Second, you can look more closely by filtering your stats based on Average Position. Look at the variations in your CTR and Conversion Rate at different positions, and you’ll see for sure if there’s an Average Position you should be working towards.
And in any account worth its salt – with many relevant and specific keywords matched with highly relevant ads – there is usually no shortcut to achieving that ideal Position across the board. Your AdWords account benefits from constant monitoring, reviewing and adjustment, and getting that Average Position (at the right price) is no different.
No time for vanity!
Finally, if there’s one piece of advice we would offer any advertiser regarding their Average Position, it is to put vanity aside. Many an advertiser has spent money that didn’t need to be spent by pursuing the top spot regardless of all else. So don’t do it! Look at the Average Position that works for your company and let that determine your strategy instead.
