Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are a great way to drive traffic to your website and promote conversions. However, if your landing pages aren’t carefully crafted for success, you’re paying for clicks that won’t do anything to increase your bottom line. With the right conversion rate optimization strategies in place, you can increase your PPC ROI.
5 Tips to Increase Your PPC ROI
#1. Use Emotional Triggers
Emotionally driven copy converts. Studies show emotional ads are nearly 2x more effective than rational ads. Which emotions do you want to trigger? Happiness, for the most part. Typically, the more positive an article, the more likely it is to be shared. However, people are also likely to share when negative emotions stir them to action, despite preferring good news to bad. People are not likely to share content that leaves them sad. While this applies to things like articles and memes on the Internet, you can still use these emotional triggers to inspire action on your ads, as well.
Generally, shorter, basic words appeal to our emotions. So, instead of, “concern” use “worry.” Instead of “immediately” use “right now.” Instead of “difficult” use “hard” or “tough” and so on. Instead of “receive” use “get.”
Your space is limited with AdWords, so it’s important to get your message across with the shortest possible words. You only have 25 characters in your headline, 70 characters in the ad text, and 35 characters for your display URL.
#2. Choose Keywords Carefully
If you’re targeting the wrong keywords, you won’t get conversions. Keywords fall into one of three buckets: informational, navigational, and transactional. Go after the transactional keywords with high commercial intent. People who use these keywords are ready to buy, which is part of the battle. Catch them when they’re ready to buy, and you’re much more likely to convert.
Take time to audit your account regularly for keywords that are in the way of a good campaign. Ditch the keywords that aren’t performing well, even after you’ve adjusted your copy. Ditch plurals and misspellings. Regularly cleaning your keywords will make it easier for you to focus on the keywords that are converting.
#3. Use the Right Ad Formats
If you’re in the ecommerce space, consider using shopping ads. CTRs for shopping ads on computers, smartphones, and tablets, are between 2 and 3%, but search ads are on the decline, at least on computers. As more people turn to shopping with mobile devices, the prevalence of shopping ads continues to increase.
According to AdGooroo, the top paid search advertisers, on average, spent over half of their budget (63%) on product listing ads (PLA) and the remaining budget on traditional text ads. Walmart.com spent 71%, BestBuy spent 79%, and eBay spent 93%. The PLAs had an average CTR of 5.96%, while the text ad average CTR was 4.91%.
#4. Test, Test, and Test Again
Split-test your PPC ad copy by running multiple versions of the same ad to see which gets the highest CTR. Then, choose to continue running the ad with the highest CTR, or continue testing with other variations to see if you can push the CTR even higher. Split test your:
- Headline
- Call to action (CTA)
- Display URL
If you’ve sparked their interest enough to get them to click the ad, that’s only half the battle. You need a stellar landing page, optimized for conversion rate as well. Just as you ran multiple versions of the same PPC ad to see what worked best for your audience, split test your landing page. Run various tests where you change one element at a time, to keep clear, concise, data. Consider split-testing:
- Layout
- Copy and CTA
- Color scheme and button color
- Offer
- Graphic/photography
Another way to gain insight into what people are doing on your website is to use a heat mapping tool. Heat maps let you see where users are spending the most time, and doing the most clicking. If you have an optimized page, then you should see a lot of activity around your buttons. If you notice lots of activity in one part of the screen, but it’s not the activity you want, consider changing your layout.
#5. Invest in Remarketing
Remarketing is a valuable tool because it allows you to reconnect with people who visit your website without converting. An average of 68% of customers who place items in their cart will abandon it, and retargeting can help bring them back. The Google Display Network has remarketing tools, as do Facebook and Twitter.
Decide which visitors you want to retarget. For instance, you can retarget based on product page(s) they visit, retarget based on reaching a certain page in your checkout process, or based on the fact they haven’t visited a certain page. Retargeting abandoned shopping carts helps improve conversions simply because sometimes people simply forget to go back and finish the checkout.
Now, Bring it All Together for Better PPC ROI
The stronger your keywords are, the easier it is to write the targeted, emotional copy that compels people to click on your ads. Following those tactics makes it easier to write the content you need to keep their attention once they’re on your landing page. How can you optimize your landing page?
Write a compelling headline. Keep it relevant to the PPC keywords. Keep landing page copy clear and concise, and targeted to the PPC audience. If you’re running multiple PPC campaigns with different audiences, send them to different landing pages that have each been designed with CRO in mind. Keep the design clean and uncluttered. It builds trust, and helps draw attention to your CTA.
While you may not see your conversion rates skyrocket overnight, applying these tactics to your PPC campaigns will make a difference. If you’re noticing a higher CTR, but still not getting an conversion rate increase, analyze your landing page and your offer. Be diligent and continue testing until you find your “secret sauce.”
