Google Ads for pharma: 96% top-of-page impression share

The brief: top of the page and a high CTR

A pharmaceutical company came with two goals: hold position one or two in Google search results and deliver a CTR above 10%.

Both goals are about one thing: matching the query. In pharma people almost never search for a brand. They search for a symptom, a condition or an active ingredient, and the ad has to answer exactly that. Otherwise position will not save it: the top line holds a text people scroll straight past.

What the work involved

We connected the analytics tools before launch, to see which query groups carry a person through to the site and which deliver a click and nothing more.

We compiled the semantic core and wrote the ads for it. This is the bulk of the work in a task like this: the core is split into narrow groups and each group gets its own copy. One ad written for a mixed set of queries always loses to several narrow ones.

Wording is separate work in pharma. Ad texts are checked for more than click-through: a promise to cure pushes the audience away and risks rejection.

After that came management and regular optimisation: cleaning up queries, moving budget between groups, switching off anything that produced expensive and empty traffic.

What sits behind the numbers

On a budget of $26,600 the campaigns delivered 120,746 clicks at $0.22 each. Top-of-page impression share reached 96%. CTR came out at 22.69% against a target above 10%.

A 96% top-of-page share means the ad held first position almost every time. A CTR close to twenty-three percent means nearly one in four viewers clicked. In search that happens when the ad reads as a direct answer to the query, not as advertising.

Why the figures do not transfer directly

The $26,600 budget matters for context. Volume like that produces enough data to separate working query groups from random coincidences. On a small budget the same conclusions take far longer.

CTR and cost per click depend on how many advertisers compete for the same query, how narrow the semantics are and what season you are in. In a category with heavy competition the same actions will produce different figures.

The method transfers. A high CTR in search is work on queries, not work on wording. And one more thing: position is not a goal in itself. It only makes sense alongside the cost per click, otherwise the top line simply burns the budget faster.

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