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You always want to see your ad dollars go to good use, and your conversion rate helps you see that this is the case. No matter your current conversion rate for your PPC campaign, there are some steps that you can take to improve it. Each of the methods we outline below should produce results, and when combined, you will be well on your way to a conversion rate of 10X.
Before you take the time to learn how to boost your PPC campaign conversion rate, you need to make sure you know how to complete a calculation of conversion rate. Your ad analytics program likely performs this calculation for you automatically. Even so, you should understand where this calculation comes from and be able to occasionally perform your own calculations to confirm those of your program reports.
The formula for conversion rate is:
(Number of conversions / Number of clicks on the ad) x 100
As an example, if 500 people saw your ad and clicked on it and 50 of those converted, you would do the following math:
(50/500) x 100 = 10%
And your conversion rate will be 10 percent.
It is also smart to know what types of conversion rates are common, so you can ensure that your goals are reasonable.
The average PPC conversion rate is 2.35 percent, while the same rate for Google Ads goes up to 3.75 percent. To give you an idea of what you can achieve, the top 25 percent of Google Ads advertisers have conversion rates averaging 11.45 percent. You will also want to pay attention to what conversion rate you are looking at, as it will be different for the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, and email campaigns.
Based on those figures, 10 percent is a strong goal for your conversion rate, assuming you want to be one of the leaders. Anything about 5 percent would be good.
With the method for your calculation of conversion rate and goals in mind, you are ready to look at how to boost that conversion rate to 10X.
It bears mentioning that before you start improving your calculation of conversion rate, you need to know what it is. Otherwise, you will not be able to create a realistic goal or track the progress you make with the other methods on this list.
One of the most important things to do to boost your conversion rate is to ensure that the landing page the ad takes viewers to matches the content of the ad. They should have similar language and goals. If, for example, the ad encourages viewers to buy a specific product, the landing page should take them to that product, not a related one. If it encourages them to sign up for your newsletter to get a discount, the landing page should be the sign-up page for the newsletter, not your home page or a product page.
As a bonus, this will also boost your Quality Score with Google Ads in addition to improving your conversion rate. That comes from the fact that you will have a better ranking for relevancy. Remember that with a higher Quality Score, you are more likely to win bids for keywords even with slightly lower bids.
In addition to ensuring that your landing page and the ad have the same purpose, you should take a look at your landing page as a whole. Remember that the landing page delivers your first impressions. Few tips to focus in your landing page:
i. Direct Visitors Toward Completing the Desired Action
You should have a goal in the back of your mind as you create the landing page, with the goal specifically being an action that visitors will take. Then, work toward this goal. If your conversion rate is lower than you would like, see if your landing page is confusing or showing too many actions for visitors to take. Keep things simple and limit it to just the action you prefer, or maybe one other. If you have more than one action on the page, do something to make your preferred action stand out, such as using a larger button. Ideally, you will have one landing page and ad per action.
ii. Make Forms Simple
In the case of desired actions that include filling out a form, make the form simple for visitors to finish. People tend to avoid long forms, so keep it short whenever possible. If you cannot keep the form short, then make it several pages, but gather the most important information, like an email address, on the first page. This way, you at least have contact information if the visitor stops filling out the form.
In the case of multi-page forms, include a progress bar, countdown such as “Only 3 steps left!” or something similar. People are more likely to continue filling out the form if they know it will not be much longer.
iii. Take Care with Headlines and Content
Also, take the time to optimize your headlines. The best headlines will be short, easily visible, and impactful. Remember that people tend to prefer headlines that are about 6 words, as these are easier to process. At the same time, they should not take up too much room on the page.
In addition to the headlines, the main text itself should be strong, resonating with the visitors. Use the space to discuss how your offer can benefit the visitor while maintaining the voice that your brand is known for.
iv. Check the Page Load Speed
Do not forget to check the page load speed for your landing page. Remember that every second it takes to load, your conversion rate will drop. As a bonus, having a fast landing page will also improve your SEO efforts. At the longest, your page should load within three seconds.
v. Use A/B Testing
While you are optimizing your landing pages, consider A/B testing. This involves creating two different landing pages and randomly showing each of them to different audiences. It lets you see which landing page performs better, so you can focus on that one.
A/B testing can be for differences that are small or significant. You can test something as simple as color changes. For even better results, however, you should use A/B testing to try out different offers or page designs. You can also use it to test various CTA buttons to see which one works best, or even if having multiple CTAs confuses viewers and reduces your conversion.
vi. Pay Attention to the Entire Conversion Funnel
Take the time to figure out whether your typical conversion follows the “standard” conversion funnel of awareness, interest, decision, and action, or takes a different route. Then, consider creating different landing pages for each step of the funnel, each of which should be optimized with the visitor’s goal in mind.
Re-evaluate Your Targeting
If you are currently struggling with your conversion rate, take some time to examine your targeting. Maybe you are accidentally targeting an audience that is not interested in your products or services or your targeting is too broad.
To help with targeting, create customer personas, if you have not already done so, and use those as guidance. You should also look at the advanced targeting options included in your PPC platform.
What if you realize your target audience is too broad, but you still want to target everyone it includes? This is where segmenting will come in handy. Segment or divide your audience based on demographics, location, interests, or another factor. Create a separate ad campaign and landing page for each. This will let you overcome the broadness of your targeting without having to sacrifice any potential views.
Remember that not all conversions will take place the first time someone visits your landing page. Even if they did not convert, they still took a step forward in the process and expressed interest, so you do not want to ignore them. There are plenty of reasons they may have left your website, including getting distracted before buying or not being ready to buy yet.
Cross marketing is also important, as it lets you advertise to people who have purchased a related product. For example, if someone recently bought a motorcycle, even if it was not from you, you would market your motorcycle helmets or other accessories to them.
Remarketing or retargeting is when people who previously visited your website see specific ads. The best approach to this is to have your ads feature the specific products that viewers looked at on your website.
In addition to retargeting your own viewers, take advantage of the opportunity to target those in the market for your product or service. These are people who have shown interest in the service or product by researching it or performing other similar actions, even if they did not visit your website in particular. Think of this as an extension as the previously-mentioned cross-marketing.
Targeting in-market audiences performs a similar benefit to retargeting, as you know the viewers are already primed to make a purchase.
At first, it may seem unnecessary to run a branded campaign, as your brand name should bring users to your website. While that seems like it should be the case, it is not true for PPC ads or campaigns designed around SEO campaigns either. It is common for your competitors to optimize for or bid on keywords with your brand as a way to steal potential clients. This strategy uses the fact that even if someone searches for a specific brand of a product, they are frequently willing to buy a different brand instead.
Having competitors appear for your branded keywords is particularly harmful for your conversion rate, as you have already put in enough effort to get the potential customers to search for you by brand. When they buy from a competitor, it wastes the time and resources you already put in to reach that stage.
When choosing branded keywords, select those that include your brand as well as your most popular services or products.
To take the increase in conversions from a branded campaign to the next level include the branding in your H1s, not just the H2s. This can increase the calculation of conversion significantly.
As you set up your PPC campaign, you will get to choose if you want a phrase match, exact match, or broad match. Broad match allows for a different word order, exact match requires the same word order, and phrase match features a phrase instead of a head keyword.
Exact matches tend to have higher conversion rates but are more targeted, so you will not reach as wide of an audience. Phrase match and broad match are great for expanding reach.
If you do not use negative keywords, you are likely to get unqualified leads who are looking for something similar to your product but not exactly it. Start by looking at the search terms for the keywords you bring in. Pay attention to the intent behind the search terms and see which ones do not match your company or landing page. Add these to your list of negative search terms.
Just be careful as you choose your negative search terms, as you do not want to accidentally exclude qualified leads.
If you are not looking at your search impression share, then you might be missing out on valuable data and strategies. Your search impression share lets you know the percent of impressions that your keyword, campaign, or ad group got versus how many it could have gotten.
The figures you see in the search impression share can give you insight into how to best allocate your PPC budget. For example, let’s say you have a campaign with high conversions but a low share of impressions. This presents the perfect opportunity, as your conversion rate is likely to remain the same, increasing your conversions as you increase impressions. So, you would put more budget into this particular campaign.
Once you have solid conversion data, you can take advantage of smart bidding. Smart bidding refers to Google’s automated bidding strategies that rely on machine learning. Smart bidding includes the ability to use a range of signals during optimization and flexible performance controls. You also get transparent performance reports from Google. Assuming that you have gathered accurate data, tROAS (Target ROAS) or tCPA (Target CPA) can provide an additional boost to your conversion rate.
Of course, there is a tool! if you have not heard about PPCSignal and have not tried it yet you must use it at least once then you will come to know what you are actually missing. There are lot of hidden opportunities in you campaigns if you start focusing on that you will eventually realize a big boost in your conversion rate. With this tool you can even get an early warning if something started happened bad in your campaign or even you will get a signal if something good is happening. If you come to know early about bad things and you start giving an attention and fix the things timey, over the period of time it will affect your conversion rate and you will not only save big money but also will generate exponential ROI.
You can access PPC Signal from here.
Your calculation of conversion rate is a key metric for confirming that your PPC campaign is working well. You can increase it by improving your landing page, paying close attention to keywords and negative keywords, adjusting or segmenting your targeting, and retargeting, among other strategies.
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