Are you ready to give up on pay per click ads? Are you getting a lot of interest but not generating any sales? Regardless of whether you’re a rookie or veteran marketer, the following checklist should to help you avoid some of the common pitfalls we see far too often with pay-per-click advertising.
Are you using the correct keywords?
Using the right keywords, for an effective PPC campaign is crucial. Before a website is even built it is essential to do some Keyword research. Using Adwords, Wordtracker or similar platforms to find out what exactly the market is searching for is a great place to start. The research will help you decide which keywords should be used based on popularity (How many people are searching for that keyword) and price (the cost for a high page rank- “Max CPC”). The “right” keywords, in this case, are those that are going to lead into a visitor performing whatever action it is that you want them to ultimately take, whether it’s purchasing a product that you are advertising, signing up for a service or some other desired action. Don’t be too broad with your keywords, this could generate a lot of unwanted traffic and cost you a lot on your CPC. (Be Specific!)
So the keywords you have chosen are correct and you’re paying the top end CPC for a high page rank, what next?
Is your Ad copy good enough?
When designing PPC text advertising it is important to grab the reader’s attention this can be done by following these simple Steps:
- Use actual keywords in the ad copy
- Include a strong call-to-action “While Stock Last!”
- Making it Exciting, Quirky and most importantly, Relevant!
- Correct landing pages? Are you sending people to the right page?
- Spelling and Grammar? Do you have the correct spelling, grammar and punctuation? Missing out simple commas could potentially be a disaster for your campaign.
“My PPC campaign is generating traffic but still not converting”
So you are using the correct keywords, the ad is great, the impressions are high and the Click through rate is good, so why are you not converting? This may be down to the following factors:
Price
Is the Price of your product too high? Make sure if you are new to the market you offer the best price and if not there is some form of promotion or incentive.
People may not know about the market price and get put off when they click through. If this is a factor it may be worth stipulating the price in the advert to avoid confusion.
Page
Another issue may be the site itself. If certain adverts have been generating traffic and failing to convert you may want to take a look at the page in question. Are there any obvious mistakes? Is the primary message (be it a product, category or service page) obvious? Is the design up to scratch? Are there any Navigation Problems?
If any of the above is a factor it may be worth while doing some user experience and A/B testing, to see how people use the site.
Are you both online and in store?
A lot of the time people may get their initial referral from the PPC advertisement but may go to purchase in store, it is important to see this bigger picture and may be worthwhile finding how your customers found you, it may well turn out that your PPC is in fact bringing in the right traffic.
High involvement clicks and mortar business’ will often have online “window shoppers” as their customers will often spend considerable time and effort in searching for the right product. For example if you sell cars the majority of your click through will be from window shopping as it is a high involvement, high thought processed decision.
Product
If all above checks off right it may simply be down to:
- Is the product/service good enough? Check what are the competitors doing and see where you might be missing a trick.
- Stocking Issues, Do you have enough in stock? If you cannot supply the demand you will not make the sale!
- You may be in a market where conversions are more prominent in particular seasons, take this into account and don’t be upset that your range of jumpers are not selling too well in the summer.
Finding what converts…
Once you have found what converts, it is important that you stick with that system. The bottom line is that sometimes you just need to accept that you’re getting the best quality and quantity of traffic Google can give you on a particular keyword scenario. Of course, you need to be profitable overall, but it is completely possible to ‘mess up the mojo’ with what is working and shoot yourself in the foot by trying to get more for less. When developing a working campaign, Keep your old campaign paused, not deleted that way if your new campaign is not converting you can always revert back to the old system.