Google seldom comments on click through rates on its flagship AdWords product. It is, after all, where they get most of their income. With millions of searches performed every day, however, the rate doesn’t have to be very high for them to clean up.

And, as it turns out, it’s not. In a thread on the Google AdWords Help forum, Google employee AdWordsPro responded to a question on what a “general” guideline for expected clicks might be. While naturally, there’s a lot of variation among industries and specific keywords, it’s interesting to see a Google employee comment (albeit vaguely) on an average CTR.

Says AdWordsPro:

On the other hand, to give you a point of reference to shoot for, an average CTR is probably in the neighborhood of 2% – meaning that for every 100 impressions, you would have received 2 clicks. I personally don’t think that a CTR statistic is particularly meaningful or even valid until about 1000 impressions have been received, however.

Advertisers who have really taken the time to learn how AdWords works, and who spend lots of time managing their account and tuning things up often ‘earn’ a CTR in the double digits.

Naturally, paying attention to your account helps you make more money off it, like experimentation. AdWordsPro also notes that once you have a decent click through, the more important statistic is ROI.

Several years ago, we saw studies indicating that average CTR was around 3% (and there’s enough leeway in AdWordsPro’s statement that that’s certainly included).

What do you think? Does that sound like a reasonable average CTR?

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