4 Easy Ways to Improve Your PPC Conversion Rate

When it comes to improving your PPC conversion rate, it’s easy to get focused on optimizing your landing pages.

After all, you’ve worked hard to get traffic to your page, so the problem must be with your page, right?

Well, maybe. In many cases, the real problem is your traffic and—no matter how good your landing page is—the wrong traffic simply doesn’t convert.

Fortunately, with a few simple tweaks to your ads, you can increase your conversion rates by 3x, 5x or even 10x. And that’s without even touching your landing page.

So, what are these magic ad changes? Pull up a chair and I’ll tell you.

1. Switch to Call-Only Campaigns

Now, if calls aren’t the lead type you’re looking for, you can skip this section. However, if like most advertisers, calls = dollars for your business, this is a must use strategy.

When you think about the standard Adwords lead flow, there are many steps involved: the searcher has to see an ad, click on an ad, visit your landing page and then take an action before becoming a lead.

However, by enabling click-to-call extensions in a call-only campaign, you drastically reduce the number of steps from impression to conversion.

Less steps = less friction = more calls = more dollars in your pocket.

There’s no secret formula to this equation, we’re just talking simple, straightforward lead capture economics.

Pro tip: Don’t even display your landing page URL in the ad. Instead, select “Just the phone number.” Remember, you’re trying to reduce the number of available choices.

In addition to using call-only campaigns for paid search advertising, you can also them with Facebook ads.

Either way, your conversion rates will thank you, and your advertising budget will thank you.

However, if calls aren’t your thing….

2) Try New Ad Formats

Online advertising is in a constant state of evolution and the biggest advertising channels are always coming out with new ad formats for you to try.

For example, Twitter’s lead generation cards now allow your audience to submit a pre-populated form. With one simple click, people who like what they see in your ads can send their info to your CRM database or lead spreadsheet.

Similarly, Facebook’s lead ads allow users to submit a pre-populated form without ever leaving Facebook.

Just like call-only ads, these options help you to eliminate entire portions of the traditional lead funnel experience. The fewer steps, the better.

So, if you want to improve your conversion rate without touching a landing page, try a landing page-free ad format!

3) Use Pro Ad Features

There are also a variety of expert level ad features built into these advertising channels that you can use to help you convert more leads.

Here are a few to consider:

Shopping Ads

Shopping Ads are great for selling products and there are even new options available for industry specific ad types (for Automotive, Hotels, Local Services and even Mortgages).

Shopping Ads give you the ability to include image carousels, pricing info, local inventory integrations, single-click directions or bookings and a range of other features in your ads that can dramatically improve your conversion rates.

If Shopping Ads apply to the type of products/services that you sell, then you can’t afford to not use them.

Ad Customizers

Ad Customizers are small tweaks you can make to your ads that set them apart from the competition.

For example, you can use countdowns (ie, “Only 3 Days Left at 25% Off!”) to create urgency for your products and get things moving for ads with stagnant conversion rates.

Similar Audiences

One simple way to increase conversion rates is to simply improve the quality of the visitors arriving on your site.

The right kind of traffic is much more interested in converting, so the more high-quality traffic you can put on your site, the better your conversion rate will be.

AdWords, Facebook and Twitter each have features which allow you to upload customer lists (email addresses and phone numbers) and then use the data in those lists to find more individuals that behave like your customers online.

In other words, these Similar Lists make AdWords, Facebook and Twitter do the heavy lifting for you!

Using Similar Audiences will help you target people that are much more likely to convert.

4) Use Remarketing

Statistically, 70% of people who put items in an online shopping cart will abandon. 1 in 5 calls to a business are abandoned and 96% of web visitors typically leave a landing page without converting.

These stats aren’t particularly comforting, but they explain why remarketing is so important.

With remarketing, you ensure that your potential customer base encounters your brand across the web. These ads serve as reminders that can ‘warm’ these leads up for later conversion.

Market research shows that the more times that a user sees an ad the more conversion rates increase. So get your remarketing lists started!

Conclusion

Improving your conversion rate isn’t just limited to optimizing your landing pages. True conversion rate optimization starts with optimizing your advertising.

Don’t wallow in a bad campaign—get creative, get out of your comfort zone and get more conversions!

By the way, if you’d like me to take a look at your current advertising efforts and give you some ideas on ways you can improve your conversion rates, let me know here or in the comments. I’d love to help!

What are some of your favorite ways to improve your conversion rates? Do you prefer to focus on traffic or your landing page?