Marketers are spending a lot on paid search: more than $55 billion was spent on paid search in 2014 and that number is expected to rise to more than $71 billion by 2016 (TechCrunch).
Since marketers are investing an incredible amount of money each year into paid search, it’s important that they implement every best practice possible to improve paid search conversion rates. Improving conversion rates helps marketers optimize paid search budgets to generate leads and keep cost per lead (CPL) within an acceptable range.
The best practices listed below for conversion rate optimization apply to any and every marketer: whether you are new to paid search or have been doing it for years, and whether you spend $100 a week or $100,000 a week. Skim through the list and take note of best practices you haven’t already implemented.
- Do your keyword research
You may think you know the terms consumers are using to search for your business, but in many cases the terms you use to describe your offering are different than the terms people actually search for. This disconnect makes it impossible to run a successful paid search campaign.By simply running your own keyword searches on Google you can come up with the right phrases to use in your campaigns while also checking out the keywords your competition are bidding on. The keyword tool is another way to come up with new keyword ideas and also to see the number of monthly searches specific keywords receive on Google. - Let your products and services inform campaign structure
Build campaigns out based on the hierarchy of your website. Whether your business is e-commerce, SaaS, or any other industry, choose the cornerstone pages you have on your website and use those to build out your top campaigns. Your cornerstone pages are the pages on your site that you have set up to rank highest in organic search. After you’ve set up your campaigns, breakdown each campaign with more specific ad groups – this can be based on subsets of the product or perhaps different industries that this product can target. Keep keyword lists to less than 20 per ad group. - Include keywords in ad copy
The keywords you bid on should also be in the headline or body of the ad copy you write. Users are more likely to click on an ad that contains the exact keyword they searched for – and those keywords also appear bolded in the ad copy in search results. - Unify ad and landing page content
Once a user clicks on your ad, you want to make sure that the keyword they searched for is not only in your ad copy, but is also on the landing page they arrive on. Keep it simple for searchers: they are looking for something specific and including the keywords they use from start to finish in their search process helps keep them engaged. - Limit exit paths on landing pages
Make it easy for users to convert once they hit your landing page – links to your blog, social media sites, and other content should be limited wherever possible. Give them only one action to complete once they’ve landed on your website and make it clear what that action is. Graphical arrows pointing at conversion buttons help. Prominent and clickable phone numbers make it easy for smartphone users to complete the desired action or get immediate assistance by connecting in a call instantly with your business. - Set bid adjustments
You may find that depending on the device a user comes from, they are more likely to convert. Perhaps mobile users are converting 10x more than desktop users – great. In this case you would set increased bid adjustments for users searching on mobile and you could even decrease bids on desktop to reduce costs. To see which devices convert best, select your campaign, ad group, or keyword then segment by device. - Create filters to weed out bad keywords
It’s important to weed out keywords that are driving up cost and not generating conversion rates. To figure out which keywords need to go, set up a filter that shows you keywords that have less than a certain number of conversions (you decide how many makes sense) and have spent more than your target cost per conversion. Using that filter, you can pause keywords that have spent more than your target and haven’t returned enough conversions. Here you can also experiment with match types – consider using exact match or phrase match keywords rather than broad match in lieu of killing a keyword all together. - Add new keywords with the search queries report
Take a look at your search queries report in the AdWords interface to see if there are phrases or exact match keywords that you aren’t already bidding on that you should be. You can also use this tool to pare down broad and phrase match keywords and add more exact match keywords. - Track calls from your campaigns
Now that mobile search traffic has surpassed desktop, calls are the new clicks. It’s necessary for marketers to track all of the calls their paid search campaigns generate. If you are only tracking form submissions, your paid search conversion rates are likely skewed. By adding call analytics into the mix you’ll have a more realistic idea of where you stand – and probably a higher conversion rate just by including calls without any other optimizations. You’ll also be able to optimize campaigns based on the type of conversion they generate most – calls or form fills – to ensure you are spending budget appropriately. - Include call conversions in the AdWords interface
Now that you’re tracking calls as conversions you will want to be able to see them side by side with your web conversions. AdWords recently introduced the ability to add custom columns and call only campaigns and with call tracking software it’s easy to import phone call conversions and call analytics from Google Analytics into your AdWords account. - Use ad scheduling
You don’t want to blindly run campaigns 24 hours a day. Once you have enough data, you’ll find that some days of the week and certain hours of the day convert at higher rates than others. By running your campaigns during the hours and days that you know convert most, you’ll optimize your spend while limiting the number of clicks and impressions that don’t lead to conversions. - Test performance with conversion optimizer
Conversion optimizer can be a great way to automatically bid higher on clicks from users that AdWords knows are more likely to convert. Be careful with this system – in my personal experience I’ve seen that it is something to try out but not to run with blindly. I’ve seen conversions disappear entirely while using this system. Campaigns must also meet a minimum number of conversions in the past 30 days to be eligible to run conversion optimizer. - Optimize for conversions, not CTR
While a high CTR makes it look like your campaigns are performing well, it can be a misleading metric. High CTR and low conversion rate may be an indication that your landing pages need optimization. This is where you’ll want to begin A/B testing your landing pages and ensuring that your ad and landing page copy are unified. - Monitor paid search performance in Google Analytics
While the AdWords interface is helpful, there are more ways to slice and dice data in the Google Analytics interface. You can see paid search traffic and conversions (including call analytics) alongside organic and direct traffic. The other visitor metrics provided in analytics such as page views, time on site, and bounce rate can be used to glean insight about the quality of the traffic being driven to your website by these campaigns. - Enable multi-touch attribution
If you are only tracking last touch attribution it may be that some of your conversions originated from a paid search click but were attributed to a different touch point. For example a visitor could come from paid search, leave your site, and return days or even weeks later organically already knowing who you are and convert. This visitor would then be tagged as organic despite the initial visit from paid search.
To learn more best practices for paid search conversion rate optimization, download the eBook: Marketer’s Guide to Call Tracking Software for Google SEO and PPC.