Companies use PPC (pay per click) marketing to increase their sales or get more leads. One common way to complement the PPC efforts is to activate your search engine optimization (SEO). However, not everyone is aware that conversion rate optimization (CRO) is also a necessary process that plays a good role in maximizing your PPC efforts. Let this article help you understand why.
What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?
CRO refers to the process of increasing your site or mobile app’s conversion percentage. There are many effective ways to achieve this goal, but the best one will depend on your campaign’s goals. For this reason, you must define what your brand is about and what works with your audience.
Some examples of CRO are adding pop-up messages on your site, adding convincing testimonials, reliable reviews, or live chat. Removing distractions and unnecessary form fields also helps improve conversion.
Any effort you make for the same purpose falls under this general marketing term. Typically, it involves the ideation of ways to make the goal possible and then testing and improving the hypotheses through different testing processes. It applies not only to websites you are trying to promote but also to your sponsored ads and landing pages.
To put it simply, if SEO is about increasing your page’s search engine rankings, the CRO makes sure that the traffic you generate takes the next action and makes the conversion.
What Makes a CRO Campaign a Success
When CRO works, you can face two possible positive effects: get macro and micro conversions.
Macro conversions refer to the primary goal of your campaign. It could be a subscription sign-up, an order completion, an enquiry, and other revenue-based conversions that give you actual measurable results.
Meanwhile, micro conversions are those actions taken halfway through your macro goals. It could be adding the products to the cart, watching a promotional video, signing up on an email newsletter, interacting on social media, and requesting a callback. Although these actions do not necessarily end in conversion, they still paved the way for a potential transformation later.
These two are the usual KPIs to assess whether your campaign is successful or not. However, you should keep in mind that having a macro conversion goal does not mean you should focus on it alone. While it is essential to give your best effort to that, you also need to create other opportunities for conversion, where the micro-conversions come in. With the right strategy and implementation, you can help turn these micro conversions into macro conversions.
CRO’s Role in Creating Google Ads Campaigns
How your Google ads campaigns or PPC performs depends mainly on your conversion rate optimization. CRO can help improve your PPC’s performance by complementing it. When there is an increase in conversion, your PPC spending could lower. With this fact, you know that you are spending your budget efficiently while getting more conversions in the process. When your CRO efforts bring more positive results, you can earn a better Google Ads Quality Score.
A high-quality score in Google ads means your ad and your landing page are helpful to people searching for the keyword you used. That is compared to other advertisers targeting the same keywords. Because of this, your ads will keep on getting better spots on Google, revealing themselves to more people. Your ad ends up with more clicks while spending less on the cost, making the whole campaign more beneficial to you.
One of the most effective ways to have productive CRO efforts is to create a landing page that works. The landing page is where the people curious about your ad would be after clicking on your ad. It is responsible for leading these potential customers to a particular product, service, or offer from your site. In short, it should be effective enough to encourage more people to take action.
On Making Excellent Landing Pages
There will be no conversion if your landing page is not convincing enough. When making a landing page, put yourself in the position of the searchers. They specifically typed the keyword or did their search, hoping to get a relevant answer.
When they click on your ad, they expect to see what the ad promises. Otherwise, they have no choice but to look for other more relevant keywords and ads. It would be a lost opportunity for an ad you paid for, and the searchers could even develop a negative impression about your brand.
If this continues to happen, it could also give your brand a negative Google Ads Quality Score. Here are the consequences of receiving a low score in this category:
- Your rank would decrease
- Your cost per click will increase
- Getting good spots in Google’s ad sale process would be more challenging for your brand
If you do not wish to experience any of those outcomes, your best resort is to ensure you have a hardworking landing page in the first place.
How to Make a Good Landing Page Happen
Here are some tips from a PPC agency that you can implement when making your landing page:
- Use the right copy for your headline. Your page title or headline is the first thing that the site visitors see when they click on your landing page. This element should immediately contain the right words they expect to see on the page. It should include the keyword or at least use a highly relevant title to the keyword or their searched topic. Doing this would be the first step in ensuring that they stay and not click away from the page.
- Make sure that the rest of the copy is relevant. The body of the page should contain all the necessary information that the viewers expect to learn from your page—at least the basic information or where they could know more.
The text should be relevant and straightforward. Use clear and concise language appropriate to your audience. As much as possible, this part should also contain the keywords associated with your ad. Lastly, everything should appear digestible for the reader’s eyes. These factors would encourage them to continue reading through your page.
- Add a convincing CTA. If you want to get something in return, you need to ask for it. That is where the CTA or call to action comes into play. Whether you want them to sign up on your newsletter, download an ebook, like your social pages, or any other activities, your instructions should be direct, easy, and eye-catching.
- A CTA that is not easily visible would not give you favourable results. Make sure that it stands out. Also, consider adding hyperlinks in the text or image to make the process simpler for your readers. In one click, they immediately get to where they need to be, and you ensure that they finish their next step.
- Make the design engaging. Overall, your landing page should be friendly to the visitors’ eyes. They must be clean, organized, and can easily direct where the readers’ eyes should be. Choose your images wisely and make sure they are not too distracting. Instead, only include visual elements that could help you amplify your message.
- Test and revise as necessary. There is no perfect landing, especially since the algorithm and people’s preferences also change each time. The best you can do is perform tests and continue making improvements until you see which layout works best for your landing page. One proven method is the A/B or split testing, which allows you to see how two ads perform and which is more effective.
Conclusion
Pay per click is an effective tool that can boost your digital marketing performance. To make it more effective, you can encounter other tools that could complement its functionality. CRO is one of the means you can use to maximize your digital marketing spending. Besides lowering your customer acquisition costs, you can also increase your revenue, acquire more customers, and improve your business in the process.
New Digital Marketing Agency is a PPC agency in Toronto that can help you with your website conversion optimization. Allow us to turn that high traffic into actual clients. Contact us today and let us help you expand your business reach and growth.
