What Is Clicks Per Search (CPS)?
Clicks Per Search, or CPS, calculates how often people click on a search listing out of how many times it shows up for searches. Getting this percentage means dividing total clicks by total eyeball views.
If a company's search listing attracts lots of clicks nearly every time it appears, it'll have high CPS. Low CPS means their listing doesn't entice searchers to click over very much.
CPS gives helpful insights to search engine optimizers and advertisers. It reveals how interesting and relevant people find your information in search environments. High CPS signals that your content strongly piques searchers' interest when they see you.
Making improvements that boost CPS leads to more clicked search traffic to your site. You can tweak wording or focus to better catch the eye amidst the crowded results pages. Evaluate CPS regularly to assess ongoing search listing performance.
Why Is CPS Important?
Tracking how often searchers click on results for a business's keywords shows how appealing and useful your listings seem to searchers.
If each search brings lots of clicks, it means you're showing up prominently with compelling results. People see you and want to tap in. However, a low CPS signals issues with how visible or engaging your content is for relevant searches.
Analyzing CPS data thus helps tailor better search optimization and website content that draws more searchers from results pages onto your site.
You can make tweaks aimed at boosting curiosity and interest factors based directly on the types of searches people already use.
For advertisers specifically, CPS indicates how well your ads and their targeting keywords capture attention. High CPS means each ad splash gets strong traffic at an efficient cost.
Make ads more alluring and keyword targeting more focused to improve user experience and increase clicks per search further.
CPS provides an excellent benchmark for how appealing and click-worthy your presence is on critical search engine result pages.
How Does It Relate to Zero-Click Search?
Zero-click searches refer to search queries where the user finds the answer directly on the search engine results page (SERP) without clicking through to a website.
Examples of zero-click searches include weather forecasts, calculator results, and quick answers to common questions.
For advertisers and marketers, this shift poses challenges in terms of measuring and optimizing CPS.
It becomes important to consider not only the number of clicks but also the visibility and impressions received by their ads or search results.
Adapting strategies to optimize for zero-click searches, such as optimizing content for featured snippets or leveraging structured data markup, can help improve visibility and potentially increase the CPS even in the context of zero-click search.
How Is CPS Used in Online Advertising?
CPS (Clicks Per Search) can be used in online advertising to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.
It is commonly used in platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads, as well as other search engine marketing platforms.
By analyzing CPS alongside metrics like cost per click (CPC), conversion rate (CR), and return on ad spend (ROAS), advertisers can gain insights into the performance of their campaigns.
CPS helps advertisers understand how often users click on their ads in relation to the number of searches made.
It provides a measure of user engagement and the relevance of the ad to the target audience.
A high CPS indicates that the ad is successfully generating clicks, suggesting it is attracting interest and potential customers.
On the other hand, a low CPS may indicate that the ad is not resonating well with the audience, and adjustments may be needed in terms of ad copy, targeting, or bidding strategies.
By monitoring CPS, advertisers can optimize their campaigns to improve click-through rates, maximize ad visibility, and ultimately enhance their return on investment.
It allows them to make data-driven decisions, allocate resources effectively, and refine their advertising strategies to achieve better performance and reach their campaign objectives.
How to Find CPS?
The best-known tool for checking clicks per search is Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer Tool.
In its “Keywords metrics” section you can find the value of CPS for a particular keyword.
Apart from that, to calculate CPS, you need to track the number of clicks generated by a keyword or advertisement and the number of searches conducted for that specific keyword.
Here's the formula to calculate CPS:
CPS = Clicks ÷ Searches
For example, if a keyword generates 50 clicks and has 1000 searches, the CPS would be calculated as:
CPS = 50 ÷ 1000 = 0.05
This means that for every 1000 searches of the keyword, there were 50 clicks, resulting in a CPS of 0.05.
Conclusion
CPS is a valuable metric for advertisers and marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their online advertising and marketing campaigns.
By tracking CPS, advertisers can determine which keywords and advertisements are generating the most clicks and adjust their campaigns accordingly to maximize their return on investment.