Now that most businesses operate online, the competition has increased exponentially in many industries.
It’s becoming harder to increase revenue without employing advanced eCommerce marketing strategies that help you stand out across various marketing channels and search engines. When running paid ads on multiple advertising platforms, it’s getting more expensive to acquire new customers, and successful ads require more planning than ever before.
Although an increase in competition doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It just means you need to work a little harder to get results. The good news is you can start driving more online sales and organic search traffic by using the following 11 simple and effective eCommerce marketing strategies to enhance your eCommerce marketing.
Remarketing, also called retargeting, is a PPC ad strategy and one of the most important eCommerce marketing tactics you can use. This is a successful eCommerce marketing strategy that allows you to reconnect with potential buyers who have already interacted with your brand through various digital advertising initiatives. This paid advertising campaign type can be simple or highly advanced depending on your experience.
Retargeting is when you run PPC ads that specifically target only users who have previously interacted with your brand, either by visiting your website, clicking on your ads, or adding items to their product pages but not completing a purchase. Since 92% of first-time visitors don’t intend to buy, you can influence them into making a purchase by showing them more ads. This keeps them in your digital marketing funnel and increase eCommerce sales; even when you don’t know who they are.
The statistics vary between organizations, but generally speaking, a solid remarketing campaign can boost conversions by around 50%. When people see your ads more than once, your brand becomes familiar, making them more likely to click and convert. To maximize performance, use Google Analytics and other website analytics tools to monitor user behavior, PPC advertising, and adjust your ad spend accordingly.
This tactic reduces your customer acquisition cost and helps grow your customer lifetime value by re-engaging users who already know your brand. Combining remarketing with email marketing follow-ups can further enhance repeat purchases, strengthen your customer loyalty program, and build brand loyalty over time. This is why market research and selecting your target audience—and analyzing customer preferences—are important for online retailers looking to reach prospective customers.
Google Shopping campaigns are are an essential part of any eCommerce marketing plan because they reach consumers right when they’re searching for something specific that you happen to offer. When a user searches for a phrase related to your products on search engines, your ads will show up at the top of the search results. You can include important information in your ads, like product images, prices, special offers, customer ratings, product descriptions, and anything else designed to persuade users to click.
How it works is pretty simple. First, you create a master list of product data in a spreadsheet that identifies your products and all the pertinent information. This gets uploaded to Google’s Merchant Center, which you’ll connect to your Google Ads account. From there, Google’s algorithm automatically matches your product offerings to user queries, helping you generate leads efficiently.
Instead of creating one campaign with one Ad Group that gets divided into product groups, consider running separate Google Shopping campaigns tailored to attributes that are important to your market. For instance, you can run a generic campaign, a brand campaign, and a campaign that runs ads based on brand and size queries.
This way, you’ll reach people searching for generic terms (like “men’s hoodies”), brand-specific terms (like “Nike men’s hoodies”), and size-specific searches (like “Nike men’s hoodies XXL”). This type of structure is superior because you get better control over negative keywords, and increasing your bids will increase sales and yield more targeted impressions and clicks among prospective customers.
Integrating search engine optimization (SEO) and a content marketing program with your Shopping ads enhances your visibility across search engines and improves your organic traffic and organic search traffic. Combine this with a loyalty program to reward loyal customers and encourage repeat purchases after an initial sale.
You’ll have more campaigns to manage, but it’s worth the effort because it will get you more targeted traffic in the long run. If you’re looking for ways to drive traffic to your eCommerce store, you need to run Google Shopping ads. These ads not only help you generate sales but also improve your brand’s visibility across search engines, advertising platforms, and other marketing channels.
One last tip is to use remarketing with your Shopping ads. The average conversion for Google Shopping ads is just under 2%, which doesn’t seem like much. However, these ads work well as the foundation for a powerful retargeting campaign. Leveraging digital marketing techniques like pairing Shopping ads with email marketing and social media posts can increase your repeat conversions, long-term revenue, and customer loyalty while appealing to new audiences.
Did you know that Amazon’s brand ads convert an average of three times higher than Google Shopping Ads? This makes them a powerful component of a winning eCommerce marketing plan for online retailers. The sponsored brand ads, in particular, will promote up to three products at a time and get displayed in search results across the site.
Since they show up when users are looking for something specific, it makes sense that they’d see a high conversion rate and can significantly increase sales for your eCommerce brand. Additionally, incorporating user-generated content such as reviews, testimonials, and influencer marketing into your Amazon strategy can boost credibility and engagement, further improving your sales by encouraging creators to showcase your products through authentic reviews and demonstrations. Featuring your key selling points in the ad creative and product descriptions increases click-through rates and appeals to consumer expectations for high quality content.
An influencer marketing campaign can establish trust, generate leads, and create social proof that boosts your credibility. For example, a beauty brand can collaborate with popular TikTok or Instagram influencers to demonstrate their product offerings in video marketing clips — a highly effective TikTok marketing strategy aligned with modern social media trends and industry trends. These collaborations not only reach new audiences but also improve customer retention through authentic, relatable storytelling that cultivates brand loyalty and satisfied customers.
Are you against using pop-up ads to avoid annoying users? This is common among eCommerce marketers, but it’s based on a myth. Pop-ups have a reputation for being off-putting to web users, but that’s not actually deserved.
In spite of this reputation, there are plenty of effective pop-up ad strategies that are proven to generate higher conversion rates, whether it’s sales or email list signups. Pop-ups can be an excellent content marketing tool when used correctly, as they capture leads and encourage immediate action, all while supporting your eCommerce marketing goals and broader digital advertising mix.
You can use pop-ups with your marketing efforts as long as they adhere to Google’s guidelines. For example, a pop-up offering 10% off for first-time buyers can reduce bounce rates and encourage repeat purchases. When paired with search engine optimization SEO and content marketing, these pop-ups can be an effective way to draw people to your product pages and encourage sales on both desktop and mobile devices. Track results via website analytics to measure how specific messages improve the customer experience and inspire prospective customers to convert.
If you’re not cross-selling and upselling, you’re leaving money on the table. These classic marketing tactics are essential for increasing average order value and boosting customer lifetime value while supporting your overarching business goals and business model.
Upselling is when you aim to increase the value of each purchase. Cross-selling is increasing the number of items on the sales ticket. For example, if you run a custom t-shirt eCommerce brand, cross-selling might include offering customers the same designs on a baseball hat, or providing a discount on additional t-shirts. Upselling might involve offering an upgrade to a higher quality, more expensive t-shirt fabric (like organic cotton or hemp), while emphasizing the key selling points in your product descriptions.
These marketing efforts will boost revenue, increase the amount of satisfied customers and loyalty, and support your efforts to build long-term relationships with current customers without raising your customer acquisition cost. With an automated loyalty program, you can reward loyal customers who take advantage of cross-sell offers, turning one-time buyers into long-term advocates. However, the items you cross-sell need to be relevant to customer preferences or they won’t work.
This approach also helps build customer retention while reducing churn, which is a cornerstone of any successful eCommerce marketing strategy. Use Google Analytics, social media analytics, and a clear SEO strategy to identify patterns in buying behavior and craft personalized offers that maximize your average order value.
One of the best examples of cross-selling can be seen in the marketing for Dollar Shave Club. Before a subscription box is mailed out, customers get an email asking if they would like to add any additional products to their order, like aftershave, wet wipes, or hair care products.
Cross-selling and upselling are convenient because they won’t cost you additional eCommerce marketing efforts, yet they can help acquire more prospective customers and boost repeat business affordably. With the right application connected to your shopping-cart system, all you need to do is program the offers once, and they’ll run on their own—helping online retailers achieve better ROI and expanding market share naturally.
You may have heard expert digital marketers say that social media marketing is only good for building brand awareness and isn’t ideal for sales. Well, that’s not entirely true. It depends on the platform and your market. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have proven they can directly increase online sales and help eCommerce sites grow new audiences. For example, Instagram has a built-in shopping feature that makes it easy for people to buy from businesses. All you need is a Facebook product catalog, and you can tag your products in your Instagram posts. Now, when your target customers see your social media posts promoting your products, they can click on your tags to visit your product pages instead of having to search your website for the awesome products they just saw on Instagram.
By connecting your Facebook product catalog, you can tag products in social media posts, helping followers shop instantly. This strategy reduces friction, boosts engagement, and supports your eCommerce marketing plan by turning social engagement into sales.
Video marketing also plays a key role here — for instance, a beauty brand could share short tutorials that highlight products and link directly to shoppable product pages. Combine this with influencer marketing partnerships to expand your reach, cultivate brand loyalty, and increase sales across social platforms. This type of campaign strengthens customer experience, encourages repeat business, and creates satisfied customers who become brand advocates.
You’ve probably visited a website or received an email from a company that was promoting another eCommerce business. This is called cross-promotion, and it’s one of the most effective eCommerce marketing strategies around and another way to strengthen your eCommerce marketing plan.
The basic idea is that you find a company to partner with who will promote your products across multiple marketing channels and helps you access new audiences and target customers. For example, if your online business sells coffee, you could partner with a mug company for cross-promotions. This content marketing involves creating mutually beneficial campaigns that appeal to both audiences and align with your shared business goals.
Joint giveaways, co-branded ads, or email marketing campaigns can all generate leads while lowering the money you spend on customer acquisition. Partnerships are especially effective when combined with eCommerce marketing to build trust and awareness. This strategy also enhances brand loyalty, improves customer experience, and positions both partners to expand market share through effective digital advertising and advertising platforms like Google, Facebook, or TikTok.
One digital marketing tactic that gets big results is social proof. Your potential customers need to see proof that you are a trustworthy eCommerce business and that you have great products. Social proof (like reviews and testimonials on your product pages) goes a long way to impress potential customers and influence them to buy from you. Consumers rely heavily on customer feedback, especially when comparing products across search engines and eCommerce sites.
Your leads are most likely on a budget and they don’t want to risk wasting money on something that doesn’t work or meet consumer expectations. They’re going to be selective, so you need extra reinforcement to convince them to make a purchase. Reviews and testimonials are exactly that.
Make sure you display product descriptions, ratings and customer reviews on all of your product and social media pages. At first, it may take you a while to generate a substantial amount of reviews, but after a while, you’ll get them and they will help persuade current customers and new customers alike.
You don’t need to get only positive reviews, either. Having a mix of positive and negative is actually seen as more trustworthy than having a 100% five-star rating. Your products won’t be for everyone, and some reviews under five stars will still be helpful. Knowing what didn’t work for others might help people choose between different items, for example. Even if a review deflects sales from some people, that’s okay, because you can’t please everyone. Encourage users to leave reviews via your loyalty program or email follow-ups.
This strategy enhances organic traffic and organic search traffic, builds credibility for your online business, and helps improve retention through better customer experience and trust — all vital components of a scalable business model.
Referral marketing is another term for word-of-mouth marketing, and it’s one of the most effective methods you can employ. People take the opinions of others very seriously, and that includes friends, family, and online reviews. According to a BrightLocal survey, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations made by friends. This makes referrals a great way to increase sales, improve retention, and expand market share.
So, how do you start referral marketing? How do you get people to post reviews and recommend you to their friends? The short answer is to start incentivizing referrals. The simplest way to do this is through a loyalty program, such as offering a cash bonus to anyone who refers a paying customer to you. Give people referral links, and anyone who makes a purchase from a link will generate a cash reward for the link’s owner. This approach not only helps you acquire new customers but also reward them for spreading the word. Pair referral programs with email marketing campaigns and digital advertising to ensure your message reaches prospective customers and new audiences.
These small yet powerful steps keep your current customers engaged, strengthen customer experience, and naturally reduce churn.
One of the most powerful eCommerce advertising is to target only the people who are proven buyers in your market, either of similar products or similar price points. Defining a target market based on demographics is just the first step. When you target people known to spend money, you’ll increase sales and get even better conversion rates.
There are several ways to do this.
· Define a segment of customers most likely to buy through factors that go beyond demographics. Identify current customers and prospective customers most likely to buy through behavior, lifestyle, or location. For example, say you sell a product that helps baseball players correct their swing. Don’t target all little league parents. Not all parents actively participate in their child’s development. You want to target parents who already invest in their child. This can be as simple as running an ad in a magazine that parents buy for their kids. When their kid sees the product, they’ll ask their parents to buy it for them.
· Analyze your existing buyers. Find out what characteristics make up your most profitable market – the ones who spend the most money – and target those people with paid ads. For instance, maybe your top buyers are a specific gender or have a certain income level. Use website analytics and CRM data to find what characteristics make up your most profitable market. This data improves your SEO strategy, digital advertising, and PPC advertising performance.
· Target buyers of similar products through direct mail. Direct mail remains one of the most effective advertising platforms of all time. If you’re not using it, you’re leaving money on the table. In fact, now that online competition is so fierce and paid ad clicks are getting more expensive by the day, businesses that use direct mail stand out. In fact, direct mail gets response rates 5-9 times higher than any other advertising channel.
Find a company that sells to your ideal audience, but isn’t a direct competitor. Ideally, your price points should also be similar. Contact them and offer to rent or swap mailing lists. Or buy access to lists through a list broker.
Don’t forget, you can also send personalized direct mail pieces to your existing customers through direct mail. Bounce-back letters and coupons work exceptionally well. Targeting existing customers is a small, yet powerful (and cheap) way to boost sales.
· Steal the crowd from other people’s events. Leveraging other people’s crowds is easy and ethical. You don’t need to steal business from competitors. You just need to market your business where your target market hangs out.
Align your outreach with relevant industry trends to reach new audiences. For example, say you’ve just come up with a revolutionary gadget that makes it easy for people to fasten any kind of clasp on a tennis bracelet without help. You can sell directly to consumers, but if you can get your gadget into a jewelry store, you’ll make more sales. In this case, you can attend a convention for the jewelry industry and network with people on the inside. Meanwhile, have your assistant put a flyer or pamphlet on the windshield of every car in the parking lot. Your only advertising expense will be your admission ticket and the cost of printed materials.
When you put your message in front of people who already buy, you shortcut the entire sales process. They’re already in the habit of spending and their credit cards are warm. Your only job is to give them the next obvious thing to buy. So don’t waste more of your ad budget on cold traffic. Start putting your offers in front of people with warm wallets.
Books make amazing lead magnets because they establish credibility, trust, and education with your market all while generating leads that are more likely to buy and increasing online sales. To take advantage of this powerful strategy, write a book that solves a key problem in your niche. It doesn’t need to be long; it just needs to contain high quality content that resonates with your target customers and strengthens your eCommerce brand.
Next, create a dedicated book funnel and run ads offering the book for free when people cover the cost of shipping. Run an advertising campaign that drives traffic to your book’s sales page and retarget those who visit, but don’t buy. Once customers buy the book, upsell them to your main offer or subscription — dramatically improving your average order value. This is how you build a list of serious buyers, not people seeking freebies.
However, it’s important to spend the money up front to self-publish directly rather than using Amazon KDP. Amazon has specific rules that make it difficult to use a book as a lead magnet. For example, all offers need to be disclosed in the table of contents and external links (even in print) are heavily regulated. Even with printed books you can’t include a QR code or link that asks people to sign up for your email list.
If you want a successful eCommerce marketing plan, you need the right tools and the expertise to turn leads into sales. We can help you with this. Whether you need high-converting paid advertising campaigns, Facebook and Google ad management, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and eCommerce advertising that drive traffic and increase eCommerce sales for your brand, we have you covered.
We work with social media and eCommerce websites like Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and LinkedIn ads, plus we offer display ads and retargeting management. We can create, manage, or improve any paid ad campaigns you need.
We manage Google Shopping campaigns, influencer marketing, video marketing, and more to help many eCommerce businesses thrive. Whether you need better landing pages, organic traffic, or comprehensive campaign management, we can help you generate leads and reward loyal customers with scalable results.
Contact us today to learn more about our PPC ad management services and get a free proposal for your business.
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The keyword jockey era is officially over. For years, PPC agencies were basically just click machines. You gave them a budget, they bid on keywords, and you got traffic. But that model is fading out. Platforms like Google Ads now handle bidding automatically, and anyone can buy clicks. What separates winners from losers today isn’t the company that spends more – it’s the ones who turn clicks into paying customers.
PPC ads are still a legitimate way to generate cheap traffic but the end goal is ultimately conversions. Until recently, many PPC agencies have only focused on generating traffic without focusing on customizing strategies to produce profitable outcomes. This requires more than just selecting keywords. It requires testing ad creatives, fine-tuning landing pages, and ruthlessly optimizing funnels.
If you’re working with a PPC agency that only talks about CPC while ignoring conversion rates and lifetime customer value (LTV), it’s time to upgrade to an agency that focuses on results measurable in dollars.
Ad platforms like Google Ads and Meta have made manual bidding almost obsolete. Their algorithms now choose how to get you the best conversion value, not just the cheapest click. That means the old “bid manager” agency model is toast.
Smart Bidding and bundled campaign types (like Performance Max) push optimization toward conversion value rather than just clicks. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s an invitation to apply your marketing budget to the things humans do best: messaging, creative strategy, and conversion rate optimization).
The algorithms do the heavy lifting now. Google’s Performance Max and Smart Bidding automatically find high-converting audiences. The system handles keyword strategy better than humans ever could. And it makes sense that these companies would invest the time and money into perfecting their systems because the better results you get, the more likely you are to keep running ads.
With the backend tech handling bidding, your agency’s edge comes from improving elements outside of the algorithm, like your ads and landing pages. The best PPC agencies no longer promise a lower CPC – they promise results.
That’s the key shift here. Automation didn’t eliminate the need for human marketers, no matter what the fear headlines say. It just readjusted the roles between humans and machines.
The agencies that survive this shift will be the ones who stop fighting automation and start building it into their workflows. Rather than wasting time micromanaging bids, cutting-edge agencies are using those hours to test headlines, improve page experience, and analyze conversion data to find out what’s really working.
Automation can never tell you why people click, bounce, or buy. That’s where humans are and always will be needed. When you understand your customer’s motivation better than the competition, you can write better ad copy and design better landing pages.
At the end of the day, automation leveled the playing field for media buying. What was once a technical advantage is now table stakes. Anyone can run their own ads. The agencies leading this new PPC era are competing on conversions, not the simple ability to run ads.
In the old days, you could buy the right keyword and call it a day. That isn’t how it works anymore. Two ads that target the same keyword can perform completely differently based on how they look, sound, and feel. Your ad creatives drive results when they’re optimized and waste your ad spend when they’re not.
Although all elements are important, the majority of an ad’s performance comes from creative quality, not targeting or bids. The best bidding strategy and perfect keyword targeting won’t get people to click on an ad that isn’t enticing.
The best PPC agencies continually test images, headlines, and even video styles to find out what converts best. That’s where the most notable performance gains come from. At the end of the day, keywords get you visibility but good creatives get you customers.
This shift continues to be confirmed over and over. Reports have confirmed that creative quality accounts for 49%-70% of an ad’s success, which outweighs media placement or targeting. In other words, creative isn’t just part of the equation. It’s the final factor.
The top performing brands run hundreds of ad variants every month. They’re not guessing. They’re structuring creative experiments and the winning ads are often the ones that break traditional marketing rules. These are the ads that use raw, authentic imagery, short unpolished videos, or headlines that sound like something a real customer would say. Regardless of what you think should work, constant testing uncovers what actually triggers action.
When your landing page converts better, every click becomes more valuable. Improving your conversion rate by even a few percentage points can provide better results than just a few months of ad optimization. And where landing page optimization is concerned, it’s not always about optimizing the offer (although that’s crucial). Sometimes small things make a massive, measurable difference.
For example, page load time is critical. Walmart found that for every 1-second improvement in load time, conversions increased by around 2%. And that’s not an anomaly. Plenty of businesses achieve similar increases (and even higher) just by optimizing the time it takes their landing pages to load.
Other small adjustments can have a profound impact, like adding social proof near your CTA, reducing the number of form fields, and clarifying your headlines.
When optimizing a landing page, design and clarity matter just as much as speed. Visitors make up their minds within seconds. If your pages are currently cluttered, switching to clean visuals, a clear CTA, and a simple layout can generate more conversions from existing traffic without spending another dollar on ads.
That’s the secret to all of this. Conversion rate optimization multiplies every dollar you already spend. If your ad campaign is driving 1,000 clicks and your conversion rate doubles from 2% to 4%, you’ve just cut your cost per acquisition in half without spending more money. This improvement comes from the one thing an algorithm can’t fix for you: the user experience after the click.
Good conversion rate optimization requires understanding the psychology behind what makes your audience hesitate and then eliminating that hesitation one element at a time. Landing page testing is similar to ad creative testing where it’s an ongoing process, not a one-time project. When you can create a seamless path from ad to action, that’s when your ad spend will perform better and it gets easier to scale.
Clicks and your CPC stats won’t tell you if you’re actually making money unless you’re also measuring profits from conversions. The best PPC agencies focus on metrics that get results measurable in dollars, like profit per visitor and customer lifetime value. Today, you won’t win the PPC game by getting cheaper clicks. You need to turn customers into repeat buyers.
This is the truth many marketers don’t get. Traffic isn’t a KPI if it doesn’t pay off in measurable dollars somewhere down the line. A campaign can drive thousands of clicks with a great CTR and still lose money if those visitors don’t convert or come back. That’s why the best PPC agencies today don’t brag about being able to get cheap traffic. They’re advertising meaningful results.
But sometimes results can’t be measured by what clicks led to a purchase. For example, a $10 click that becomes a loyal customer who spends $1,000 over time is far better than a $1 click that buys a $25 product. That’s why it’s crucial to account for profit-based metrics like customer lifetime value (LTV), return on ad spend (ROAS), and profit per visitor.
PPC success is ultimately measured by how efficiently you can turn paid traffic into long-term profits. That means understanding the customer journey past the initial click. You need to know what they’ll buy next, how often they’ll come back, and what will keep them loyal. Building strategies that account for this increase the value of every customer acquired.
The most amazing ad in the world that generates a 100% click through rate (CTR) can’t save a weak landing page. This applies to sales pages, squeeze pages, blog posts, home pages, and product pages. Wherever visitors are taken after they click on your ad needs to be just as good as your ad to convert.
On platforms like Amazon and Shopify, your product page is everything. It’s not enough to list your product at a good price. You need high-quality, detailed photos to increase buyer confidence. And it helps to use photos of real products, not mockups. Customers can tell the difference and computer-generated mockups (including AI models) reduce confidence and are a red flag for drop shipping. If you are drop shipping, it’s worth getting professional photos taken of everything you sell.
It costs more today to acquire a new customer than ever before. Even if your CPC drops one month, your overall ad costs will continue to rise long-term. The only way to win here is to make every click more profitable, and that boils down to conversion rate optimization. You can’t outspend your competitors forever. You need to out-convert them.
Digital advertising costs have been rising for years. The average customer acquisition cost (CAC) for online retailers is now between $68-$78, which is double what it was in 2013. Every year, it gets more expensive to get your ads in front of your customers. Algorithms are saturated, CPMs fluctuate unpredictably, and privacy updates (thanks, Apple) make it harder to target audiences efficiently. You can no longer buy your way to visibility.
A strong conversion strategy converts more existing traffic without needing to increase ad spend. This is exactly why the most effective PPC agencies focus on the entire funnel, not just the top.
Agencies that optimize per channel (like one for search, social, display, etc.) miss how those channels work together. Most conversions come from multiple touchpoints, but many teams only credit the final click. That can cause misguided budgets and stifle growth. Brands that use cross-channel attribution or marketing mix models see much better optimization. You need a PPC agency that will optimize for whatever will grow your business, not just what looks good on any given platform.
The agencies that win today are replacing the model that sells traffic with one that sells results. They don’t focus on vanity metrics, but rather, contribution margin, customer lifetime value, etc. They’ll help you with more than just ads. They’ll fix your sales page content, pricing issues, and even your page layouts because they know ads perform best with great landing pages. The new PPC agencies are full funnel growth partners, not just media buyers.
The future of PPC marketing is no longer about who can spend the most or manually tweak their bids the fastest. It’s about whoever can understand the customer journey and turn traffic into profit. The next generation of PPC agencies don’t sell clicks. That’s the old model. Instead, they sell you outcomes. And that’s exactly what every brand needs to thrive.
The age of “set it and forget it” PPC is over. Automation has leveled the playing field and brands chasing cheap clicks will be left behind. Winners understand that profit comes from performance beyond the ad and requires a landing page that builds trust and converts.
If your agency or in-house team is still talking about CPCs rather than profit, it’s time to upgrade your strategy. At PPC.co, we build campaigns engineered for outcomes over clicks. We optimize for conversions, revenue, and long-term customer value, and turn your ad spend into measurable business growth. Reach out today to learn how our team can transform your PPC performance into real profit.
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can generate a steady stream of guests for anyone in the hospitality industry, whether you run a hotel, motel, hostel, vacation rental, or an Airbnb. In terms of marketing strategies, PPC ads convert 50% better than SEO and it’s easier to measure than results from organic search.
But a successful ad campaign isn’t just a matter of getting ads in front of people who are looking to book right now. You can also use PPC ads to find people who are just starting to think about their getaway and those who are comparing options. An effective strategy will reach a variety of people to get bookings now, fill future pipelines, and get repeat guests.
If you’re in the hospitality industry, here’s how paid advertising can help you drive more revenue.
To run a successful PPC campaign you need to understand the guest journey. Different people are doing different things at different times. For example, some people are researching destinations and others are comparing lodging, all while another group of people are ready to book. If you serve all these people the same ads, you won’t get the best results.
1. Define your funnel stages
There are four main stages to a hospitality funnel: awareness, consideration, conversion, and loyalty. Reaching leads at each stage requires different messaging and targeting. That’s where audience segmentation comes in.
2. Segment your audience by intent
Since each lead needs to be given a different message, it’s crucial to segment them by intent first. For example, the dreamers are people who search for “things to do in X city,” “best beach getaway,” and “romantic weekend destinations.”
The comparers search for “hotel vs. motel in X city,” “4-star stays in X city,” and “Airbnb vs. boutique hotel.”
The bookers search for a specific brand + location + dates.
Each audience segment should be served different ad copy, different offers, and of course – different landing pages.
3. Measure results according to stage
Finally, you need to measure results in several ways, like impressions, click-throughs, content engagement, and email signups. This will give you the bigger picture regarding how your ads are working (or not). For example, to measure the conversion stage, look at bookings, CPA, and revenue per booking. For the loyalty stage, look for repeat stays or referral leads.
Once you know how you’ll segment your audience and track the results, you can allocate your budget smartly. Otherwise, you risk overspending on high-intent leads and ignoring the long-term value of leads in earlier stages of the journey.
If you only bid on keyword phrases like “hotel room booking tonight,” you’ll miss all the people researching and thinking about their vacation. These people can convert, too, even if it doesn’t happen in the moment. They’re worth pursuing. You can capture their email, get them to like your social media pages, and you can also use remarketing to serve them additional ads.
The following are the general types of keywords you want to focus on:
· Broad/discovery keywords. These keywords will reach people in the awareness stage. Phrases like, “Best beaches in [location],” “Top things to do in [location],” and “Travel inspiration [country].” When you use broad modifiers (like “top,” “best,” “where to stay”) you’ll attract people in the research stage.
· Middle-funnel comparative keywords. These are phrases like, “Boutique hotel vs. Airbnb in [location],” “Hotel deals vs. motel,” and “Hotel amenities comparison.” With phrases like these, people are narrowing down their choices. The right PPC campaign can help them pick your business.
· Branded and high-intent booking keywords. These keywords reach people further down the funnel. Phrases like, “[Your hotel name] rooms,” “Hotel in [location] near [landmark],” and “cheap hotel [location][dates].” These phrases typically provide the highest conversion rates but can be competitive, so they may cost more.
· Negative keywords. To prevent wasted ad spend on irrelevant clicks, you can add certain keywords to your negative keyword list. This ensures your ads won’t show up when people search for these terms. Common negative keywords used in the hospitality industry include, “Free stay” and “Jobs at [hotel].”
Since most hotels and motels stick with keywords that target people ready to book, you can expand your reach by running ads for people in other stages. Just make sure you have a system in place to nurture your leads so they don’t go cold.
What you say matters just as much as when you say it. Copy that works for someone researching won’t work for someone ready to book with you. Every part of your ad needs to match intent, including the imagery, tone, copy, and offers. Here’s how to reach each stage:
· Awareness stage ads. At this stage, people will respond to emotional and inspirational copy. Phrases like, “Discover tranquil stays in the mountains,” or “Unwind by the sea.” Use imagery to provoke desire. Beautiful views and relaxing room setups work like a charm.
· Consideration stage ads. These people need more information, so hit ‘em with your amenities (Wi-Fi, breakfast), comparisons, reviews, ratings, and testimonials. Show them visuals of your accommodations and the local area.
· Booking/conversion stage ads. Urgency works best here. Phrases that get people to click to book now, like “Limited rooms available,” and “Book now and save.”
· Loyalty stage ads. Guests who have stayed with you before, even just once, are more cost-effective to convert again compared to chasing down new customers. Create some ads for these people by highlighting perks, upgrades, and exclusive deals they can’t get through other places. For example, you can use lines like:
“Book direct for free late checkout,” “Exclusive returning guest discount,” or “VIP upgrade on your next stay.” It also helps to use personalized copy like, “Welcome back to [your hotel name].” along with imagery of your best amenities.
Loyalty ads drive repeat bookings and increase lifetime value by bringing people back.
· Remarketing and nurturing prospects who got away. In addition to targeting people in all funnel stages, you want to bring people back who clicked but never booked or signed up for your email list. Run retargeting ads to show them what they looked at and offer them incentives or discounts. This is a great time to leverage social proof.
By matching your ad content to meet potential leads where they are in their journey, your ads will be more relevant and you’ll get more conversions.
Having a great ad doesn’t necessarily mean it will drive conversions. If your landing page is confusing or the booking process is clunky, you’ll lose people. That’s why landing page optimization is often where people see the biggest gains.
As a foundation, create a specific landing page for each target audience. You need a dedicated landing page for ads that target each funnel stage. Landing pages should be simple and clear and should be free from all distractions (like links and menus) that invite a user to click away. You want one offer and one call to action.
Social proof is critical in the hospitality industry. Show guest reviews from Tripadvisor, Google, Trustpilot, etc. It also helps to show photos of real guests enjoying their stay (with their permission). Showcasing reviews will reduce anxiety and hesitation, especially for people comparing you with other options.
If your landing pages show pricing, make sure you’re up front about all fees. Be clear about what’s included, like tax, breakfast, and service fees. People hate hidden fees. If a guest’s experience doesn’t match the impression they get from the page where they booked, they’ll probably leave a bad review.
Talk to your website developer and have them trigger a follow-up email that goes out to people who start filling out a booking form but stop. The email should show them what they left behind and you can sweeten the deal by offering a small discount or other incentive.
Having a smooth flow after a person clicks on your ad can help you convert far more prospects. Everything you can do to reduce friction and increase trust compounds.
To get conversions, your bidding strategy and budget need to align with a variety of factors, including funnel stage and seasonality.
· Increase bids for high-intent keywords, use moderate bids for middle-funnel ads, and go lower for awareness and discovery.
· Watch for online travel agents (OTAs) and large hotel chains that bid on your property’s name or similar keywords. If they undercut you in rate or bid too aggressively, you could end up with arbitrarily inflated costs per click. Research data shows this can cost around 47% more per click.
· Adjust your bids and budget during travel seasons, events, and holidays. During off-peak seasons you may want to stick with pushing awareness.
· Allocate your budget proportionately across all funnel stages.
· Use Google’s automated bidding tool for the conversion stage, but use manual methods for the consideration and awareness stage.
The right bidding strategy will ensure you don’t overspend for low-intent clicks or underinvest in more profitable funnel stages.
PPC is more than search. When you use different channels and ad formats you’ll reach people in a variety of places.
· Search ads (Google, Bing). Search ads capture high-intent demand users. They’re great for the conversion and compare phases and can make use of extensions like call, location, and reviews.
· Display and discovery/native ads. Display ads are excellent for the awareness stage. They reach people browsing travel blogs and using apps. With these ads, visuals are everything.
· Social media ads. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are great for the awareness and consideration stages. They’re especially powerful for remarketing.
· Video ads. Short-form videos can stir emotion, show off ambiance, and be used to create a mini virtual tour. These ads are great for top and middle funnel prospects.
· Email ads. If you’re using email marketing, offer loyalty deals and off-peak discounts.
Paid search on social media converts better in hospitality than it does in other industries.
Location matters in hospitality. Geotargeting can significantly improve your conversions and reduce wasted ad spend. You can use radius bids and location extensions to target people looking for accommodations within a certain radius.
It pays to bid higher for people in feeder markets and origin cities during the holidays. You can also target departure cities for Arbnbs if that’s relevant to you.
In your ad copy, include local cues like “Only 30 mins from downtown,” and “15 minutes from airport. If you know your audience well, include the origin city (“Fly in from Seattle & Stay with us just outside Olympia”).
When offered by the ad platform, use local extensions to note your address, phone number, and any other elements offered. This will generate more bookings from mobile users.
Most people who click your ads or visit your website won’t book right away. Retargeting will help convert these “warm but not ready” leads into guests eventually.
When you target people who visited your site without converting, show them ads with refreshed offers like a free breakfast or an upgraded view. Visual reminders will help bring them back.
Show the specific rooms and properties to the prospect so the ad feels personalized. Use tools like Google dynamic remarketing and Facebook Product Ads.
For guests who did convert, show them additional special offers and upgrades. Keeping them in your funnel will make future conversions easier.
It’s crucial to know when to pull back, push forward, test more, or scale.
· Define clear ROI goals. Know your target Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and guest Lifetime Value (LTV). If your ad spend yields bookings but loses money, it’s not working.
· Perform weekly and monthly audits. Refine keywords, ad creatives, and keep testing.
· Scale what works. Once you have a campaign producing consistent returns, increase the budget there while watching for diminishing returns.
· Adjust your offers and pricing. If conversion rates drop or your CPCs rise, start offering special packages like early-bird deals and loyalty perks.
The average travel and hospitality conversion rate for search is 3.55% so if you’re under that, there’s room for improvement. If you’re over that, scale carefully.
If you’re ready to transform your PPC campaign into a reliable machine that fills your rooms and builds a solid pipeline for the future, we can help. At PPC.co, we specialize in creating full funnel PPC strategies for hotels, motels, and Airbnbs that convert into bookings, repeat guests, and long-term loyalty. Contact us today and let’s craft a PPC strategy that drives bookings and turns first-time guests into lifelong customers.
