Blended Results CTR

[Daniel]

Was wondering if anyone could direct me to a study, or discuss their experience with CTR with blended results (3 regular results, then local 7 pack).

 

[Dave]

Not exactly but pretty close to what you are asking and maybe with a little extra data:

We have some smb sites with strong presence. The presence has been strong for certain keyword combos for several years and a variety of presentations by google over time.

By example: A search phrase that was "business service"/city name. In other words it was a discovery search not a recovery(name) search.

Last yr we had a site with an organic result above the PAC. The organic result had some thin site links under it. The PAC was showing a one Map rather than a PAC.

Beneath the PAC we had one or two interior pages. Beyond that on the first page of google there were some third party sites referencing our smb and there were competitors.

We ran ppc 24/7. It was a regional campaign but I believe it included searches with that exact phrase from around the country.

We estimated total clicks into the site. It included ppc clicks, organic clicks, and we created an estimate on "not provided clicks". (we did that by analyzing organic traffic keywords minus "not provided". We also tested that against analytics before "not provided" came into being.

Very strong presence. We tested this methodology on a variety of phrases.

Rough findings: With the above presence we were getting about 60-65% of all impressions/searches per Google Adwords. That was a lot. Of that, the ppc portion was in the 10-15% range of the total ie the organic/maps part was in the 50-55% range (we had #1 ppc).

We tested other phrases. Recovery phrases(name searches) had higher click through rates (against ppc impression totals). Other discovery searches with less and less prominence had lower ctr's against total impressions in that region.

We can't reasonably replicate these studies today. Way too much google traffic is coming in as "not provided". We can't know how much is hitting on the PAC result or an organic result. Currently our smb's are seeing about 50% of all organic google traffic as "not provided".

Its a hideous amount, IMHO.

btw: I'd love to see other data like this if anyone wishes to show it or has it.