Your Guide to Strategies That Actually

Impact Your Conversion Rate

PPC BEST PRACTICES

PPC Best Practices

So you’re a marketer looking to improve the effectiveness of your pay-per-click (PPC)

campaigns to drive more traffic to your intended destination and close more customers this

year. Excellent! But before I tell you just how to do that, first I’m going to let you in on a little

secret.

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They do now, Dawson…

PPC Best Practices

What I’m about to tell you is an unfortunate but very real truth about some of the most

widely used—and frequently blogged about—PPC conversion rate optimization (CRO) best

practices: they’re pretty much ineffective. The slight tweaks to your ad copy and bidding

strategy that you may have relied on thus far to enhance your campaigns actually do very little

in terms of enticing more of your target audience to become leads and customers.

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Noooo, Matt! Don’t do it!

PPC Best Practices

So if copy and bidding adjustments don’t cut it, what can marketers do to their PPC

campaigns to maximize their conversion potential and boost sales for their business? Quite a

few things, actually, and you’ll learn all about each one of them. Below, check out the

strategies you should be focusing on to achieve ultimate results.

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2016 PPC Best Practices for Boosting Your Conversion

Rate

1. Target Bottom-of-the-Funnel KeywordsIt’s 2016 now, and it is time to whip your PPC advertising efforts into shape. To optimize

your ads from the get-go and execute effective PPC campaigns this year, follow these top

strategies:

Many marketers experience this issue during PPC campaigns: They’re attracting the

attention of their audience and driving traffic with their ads, yes—but those website and

landing page visits aren’t resulting in the amount of conversions they would have expected.

If you are also experiencing this, your ads may be targeting consumers who aren’t quite in

the decision stage of their buyer’s journey through the use of too many top-of-the-funnel

(TOFU) keywords in your ad copy.

But consider this: only a lead who is in the early stages of researching a product or solution

(aka not ready to convert) uses such general keywords in their search engine research,

simply because they aren’t yet educated enough about what they’re looking for. To target

consumers who have a higher potential of converting as a result of your PPC ads, use more

bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords—those that are pricing and service-oriented.6

1. Target Bottom-of-the-Funnel KeywordsBut consider this: only a lead who is in the early stages of researching a product or solution

(aka not ready to convert) uses such general keywords in their search engine research,

simply because they aren’t yet educated enough about what they’re looking for. To target

consumers who have a higher potential of converting as a result of your PPC ads, use more

bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords—those that are pricing and service-oriented.

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2. Take Advantage of High-Converting Ad Formats…Well, this is a best practices post, right? It may seem obvious to use the highest converting

ad formats in your PPC campaigns to boost their conversion rate, but many marketers don’t

actually know what these optimized ads look like—nor that they can do the optimizing

themselves even after their ads go live! We break down a few important ad formats and

options that you should have on your radar and use to maximize your conversion potential:

(a) Use Shopping Ads to Market Your Products

If you’re an ecommerce business, then you need to be running Google Shopping

Campaigns. Consumers use Google’s search engine one a daily basis to find all kinds of

products that they need (including yours), and Product Listing Ads can help you

connect with them. Product Listing Ads pull product information, such as the product

image, price, and merchant name, from your company’s Merchant Center data feed.

This ensures that your product ads are always up to date and accurate (so long as you

keep your data feed that way), keeping your potential customer from feeling confused

or frustrated.

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2. Take Advantage of High-Converting Ad Formats

Want to start advertising your product inventory to

interested consumers? Check out our previous blog

post to learn more about Google Shopping

Campaigns.

(b) Add Ad Customizers

AdWords offers Ad Customizers that allow you to

dynamically insert specific details from a feed into

your campaign ads.

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2. Take Advantage of High-Converting Ad Formats

There are a variety of benefits to incorporating ad customizers into your PPC ads, such

as the ability to create a sense of urgency in your target audience and drive clicks. But

the biggest boost that ad customizers can provide is that they improve the relevance of

your ads, thus improving your quality score. You can also adjust such ad elements as

color, size, inventory and stock details, pricing, and seasonal sales to capture the eyes

of potential customers.

(c) Leverage the Power of Video!

Ever heard the saying that a picture is worth 1,000 words? Well, a video is worth 1.8

million, and YouTube is the best place to promote your video ad to an engaged

audience. One of the most popular YouTube ad formats, TrueView ads, play before

other videos on the site and allow users the option to skip after five seconds (and you

don’t have to pay if a viewer skips your ad!). Since there is less competition on YouTube

compared to other search engines, your brand has a massive opportunity to reach and

convert a ton of consumers across a variety of different demographics.

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3. Personalize Your Ads

People are no longer shocked to find elements of personalization embedded into various

aspects of advertising, and in fact, have even come to expect it. Think about it this way:

When it comes to marketing emails, which are you more likely to open and read—the one

addressed to “Dear Customer” featuring generic copy on topics that aren’t relevant to you?

Or are you more likely to engage with the email addressed to your name that includes links

to blog posts relevant to the industry you work in, as well as items you might like based on

your previous purchases? That’s right—you’re going to open and read the email that’s

tailored to you.

The same goes for PPC advertising. Potential customers who are targeted with your PPC ads

don’t care about your need to fill your pipeline or your salespeople’s need to meet their

quota—the truth is they only care about what’s in it for themselves. Cater to this by crafting

your ad copy in the second person, keeping the importance on the consumer and not on

your company.

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3. Personalize Your Ads

It’s important to remember that online shoppers are humans, and to treat them as such. The

examples below show two versions of the same ad for a fake cyber security business. While

version A does provide potential customers with information about the company and the

services it offers, it fails to address them as people or speak to the challenges or pain points

they might be experiencing.

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3. Personalize Your Ads

On the other hand, version B not only communicates the value of the cyber security

business (protecting other business’s data from hackers and cyber attacks), but also

acknowledges the potential customer. The copy in version B also addresses the fact that

what the viewer is likely looking for in such a company is a sense of security, and caters to

that with the words “protect” and “safe”.

For more information on crafting effective but clear marketing messages, check out our

previous blog post on writing with clarity.

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4. Use Retargeting to Market to Interested Consumers

You’ve probably been hearing more and more about retargeting in the last year or so, and for

good reason. Retargeting campaigns use cookies to keep track of the internet users who visit

your site so that you can continue to market to them once they leave. It’s all about repeated

exposure—while your previous site visitors browse other websites, your retargeting provider

will show them ads for your services and products. Using retargeting, you can entice visitors

back to your website, and effectively convert these digital window shoppers into customers

for your business. In fact, potential customers who are retargeted with display ads are 70

percent more likely to convert.

A variety of ad platforms offer retargeting services, including Google and social media

networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn (we previously wrote about LinkedIn’s retargeting

platform Lead Accelerator.) To learn more about retargeting and remarketing, read our post,

Retargeting for Rookies: Your Guide to What it is and How to Use it.

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Conclusion

So marketers, the secret’s out and now you know. The key to really driving your conversion

rate isn’t in making minor adjustments to your ad copy or bidding strategy. The true PPC

CRO best practices are to target keywords that your bottom-of-the-funnel prospects are

searching for—including those that are pricing and service-oriented. You want to use high-

converting ad formats, such as Google Shopping Campaigns and video ads, to capture the

attention of your audience and engage them. It’s important to also personalize your ads so

that your potential customers feel like you’re speaking directly to them, which also helps

humanize your own brand. Finally, use retargeting to remarket your products and services to

previously interested visitors to your website to entice them back and convert them into

customers.

Do you have any PPC best practices that you’re using this year to share? Let us know! And if

you’re looking for assistance creating an effective PPC strategy or executing an optimized

campaign, look no further. Contact us today for a free consultation and to see how we can

help you maximize your marketing efforts.

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Website: www.sevenatoms.com | Phone: 415.513.0435 | Email: info@sevenatoms.com

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