As an Account Manager, I compile all of the PPC data from the previous month and create what we call “the month-end report.” We send these out to our clients every month.

The month-end reports show how a PPC campaign performed both during the previous month and over time.  After sending these reports, I usually get a few calls from clients asking different questions about the reports. Below are some common questions, and how I answer them.

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Q. What are “Campaigns,” i.e. what is the Regional Campaign?

A.  Each campaign contains certain groups of keywords and have their own ads associated with them. For example, clients often ask what the Regional Campaign is.

I explain that this campaign contains keywords related to the location of their dealership, surrounding cities, and terms related to the name of their dealership. Furthermore, there are definitions of each campaign at the bottom of the report that should help with any queries like this.

Q. What is CTR?

A. CTR refers to the click-thru-rate of a campaign. Broken down, the CTR is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. An impression is a single display of an ad on a search engine.  

Thus, CTR is the ratio of clicks to actual impressions.  In the auto industry, the average CTR is 1%, so anything over that is considered to be good.

Q.  What is the best average ad position?

A. Most clients think the closer to an average position of 1, the better. However, statistics show that the 3-4 position is actually most clicked on. So if you see an average position of 3.5, fear not, your ads will do very well there!

As you can see, we don’t receive too many questions about our reports, as our goal is to make them client-friendly. However, those are the questions I get most frequently. Feel free to call me or any of the other Account Managers if you ever have questions on the month-end PPC reports!