Tips for Maintaining Good CTRs

Kim Thiel of Searchlight LLC has given tips for maintaining good CTRs in response to Search Engine Watch's query. To combat the inevitable click-through decline that happens during fragmentation, he has given these suggestions:
"One, we put more focus on multiple term keywords – these are obviously more focused and reduce the risk of unwanted matching. By adding significant 2+ term keywords, we can rely less on our one-term keywords, which tend to be the pain point. Two, regarding the single term keywords, we do still bid on them but are very much utilizing Google's new query report to see all the queries that we may not want to be matched to and add them as negative keywords.
Third, we have also started launching all major single term keywords on the different match types – on exact, broad, and phrase. This allows us better insight into which variation of the single term keywords is causing us the most unwanted clicks."
Tony Wright of SEW added:
"One other basic tactic that Kim didn't mention is the honing of your creative. Keyword insertion is a great tool when used properly; however, problems arise when everyone bidding on a specific keyword is utilizing keyword insertion tactics. Another creative tactic is to test special offers in your creative. For many, free shipping is still a great offer, even though many of us marketers see it as a passé offering. Believe me, this works. Finally, the best thing you can do to keep your CTR up is to know where your ads are showing.
Keeping up with the changes at the major search engines is a lot of work, but it's necessary for success in this market. So read, read, and read some more."