Google Ad Words gave us PPC data junkies a great new way to segment data in July. Dubbed “Top vs. side,” this segment broke out performance data for ads appearing in the top spot, above the SERPs, vs. ads appearing on the right side of the page.
PP C marketers across the web were quick to comment on what the change meant for them in terms of performance data analysis (here, here, and here). The data confirmed what most of us already suspected: ads at the top have a much higher click-through rate (CTR) than ads on the side.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, Google started showing PPC ads not only at the top and side of search results, but at the bottom too. While this move was new for Google, it’s not new for PPC: Yahoo routinely shows ads at the bottom of the SERPs. Still, some PPC pros were concerned about how their ads would perform at the bottom of the page – despite the fact that Google claims higher CTR as the reason for displaying ads at the bottom of the page.
But is that really true?
Well, Google isn’t telling us: side and bottom ads are combined into an “Other” bucket in the AdWords reports:
OK, fair enough – but I was still curious whether ads at the bottom of the page really get a higher CTR than ads on the side.
So I decided to take a look at performance data for our clients before and after the addition of ads at the bottom of the page. The data is very interesting.
