Rand Fishkin made an interesting comment on ad optimization in a recent blog post. At the bottom of his post, he adds:

high CTR doesn't always mean better conversions, though there is often some correlation

This quote was then taken by GuyFromChicago at DigitalPoint Forums for a discussion. What are your thoughts of Rand's statement? Is he wrong? Is there a meaningful correlation between click through rates and conversion rates?

GuyFromChicago starts off with his opinion, saying that they can be a relationship between ad copy and conversions as long as the searcher will find what s/he expects beyond the ad:

While CTR and conversion rates can be related - theory being if your ad is well written (in relation to the keyword+match) and an accurate representation of what a searcher will find after clicking your ad the likelyhood of them converting will be higher - I've not seen this play out in the real world with any degree of statistical relevance.

But the problem remains that there is no statistical relevance, a thought that is echoed by other members. Some say that you can see a correlation if you have so many large advertising campaigns across a variety of niches, but this would take a long time to study. Another member feels that statistical relevance is even overrated.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

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