Fretting On PPC Conversions? What Could Be Wrong?

Being a PPC manager, everyone must have at some point experienced this problem. No matter what you do, you are just not able to produce the conversions or scale them up. Years of experience do bring down tactful thoughts and ideas on optimizing the campaigns; some which break up and others that break through. It could be hard, strenuous and disappointing – the sight of those bulky PPC conversions costs.

So for those fretting on conversions as the KPI, we have compiled some checklists and techniques for you from the sweet and bitter experiences over the short and long run we’ve had over the years.

1. Goals

Be clear about the campaign goals. Speak to your client and be upfront on the success metrics. If you are running a branding campaign, the ‘conversion’ should never ever be your primary success metric. Similarly, for a sale oriented campaign, the ‘Clicks’ is never a primary success metric. Knowing your PPC campaign goals is important to tie your objectives to the right metrics. If you are not prepared here, you are heading nowhere and will by all likelihood upset yourself, the client and campaign performance.

2. Bid Strategy

Are you bidding too high or too low? If you have a limited budget bidding too high will run you out of reasonable number of clicks to generate the conversions. Similarly, bidding too low might dig your ad way down from the advertisers crowd costing you all the valuable prospects. Keep watching on the bids, their related performance etc and you would come to know the best bid strategy for the particular account.

3. Landing Page

Is your landing page in tandem with your ad? Let’s say you have brought in a visitor to your site from an ad about apparels and he ends up seeing footwear stuff. You vouch for a 10% discount or a freebie and the visitor sees nothing related on the landing page. Or still, you point all your ads to the homepage (most inexperienced advertisers do this). You lose the click, the money and the visitor. It’s that simple. Focus on enhancing user experience with a landing page that serves as an extended information of the ad displayed.

4. Clarity

Don’t end up using industry jargons in your ads or landing pages. You will know, but your visitors may not. Be simple, clear and precisely to the point. Illustrate using pictures (you know they speak a 1000 words, don’t you?) on your landing pages if appropriate.

5. Conversion Funnel

How effective is the goal conversion funnel on the landing page? Or still, have you planned one as such? Present the steps to conversion clearly and in a simple manner. Do not overwhelm the visitors by requiring a lot of information from them, or loading them with unwanted stuff. Lead them to the desired goal seamlessly.

6. Do Not Stagnate

Don’t sit back thinking you’ve done all that’s required on your part and the game should begin. Things might just not turn out right. You may not see conversions at all, or a very huge cost per conversion. Test alternatives to ad texts, landing pages, bid strategies, keyword targeting etc. You only do it most right by implementing a number of tests. Remember, there is no one hard and fast rule. The key to successful conversion is incorporating the science and art of optimization most appropriately, which varies uniquely from business to business.

7. Conversion Tracking

Ensure you have implemented the conversion tracking code on the final conversion page as per the instructions. Also make sure that you have goal tracking enabled in your analytics account, not forgetting to define the funnel steps. This helps find out what could possibly be impeding the visitors from converting and where in the conversion path.
There are of course other things beyond what we’ve discussed, that ought to be looked into. For instance, if you are not bidding on the money keywords you are never going to see conversions happening, which emphasizes the importance of extensive keyword research. Also, a situation may arise where some of the products or services may just not be right or ready for online sale. For some, the actual conversion might occur offline while the online front acts as a research medium. It requires careful tracking to decipher the success of advertising.