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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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.
If you’re running paid ads to promote your web hosting services, your landing pages are the core of your funnel. You can run a killer campaign with the perfect keywords and nail your targeting, but if your landing pages aren’t optimized to convert, you’re wasting money.
Your pay-per-click (PPC) ads need to capture attention immediately or you won’t get clicks. But web hosting is a highly competitive market and your landing pages need to be top-notch to turn those clicks into paying customers. To accomplish this, each page has to prove your value in seconds, overcome objections before they’re raised, and guide visitors toward signing up.
PPC strategies for generating web hosting leads apply whether you’re running your own company or building a business as a reseller. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the critical elements that make the difference between someone who buys and someone who clicks out of curiosity and bounces.
Generating leads from PPC ads starts with understanding user intent. For example, someone who clicks an ad for “best web hosting for small business” isn’t looking for the same thing as someone searching for “cheap web hosting.” They might both end up buying the same plan, but you have to sell your services differently to each group. Each lead needs to think, “this hosting plan is for me” when reading your ads and landing page. As such, you need to alter the language to speak directly to each group’s pain points, desires, and fears.
It’s worth pursuing multiple markets, but each requires a unique strategy. Success requires segmenting your traffic by creating separate landing pages for each group and then crafting ads and offers specifically tailored to those groups based on their intent. For example, you want to run separate ads with corresponding landing pages for each of the following keyword groups:
· “Reliable small business web hosting” – these leads are small business owners looking for a web host that has decent uptime and won’t go offline for a few hours every month.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on reliability, uptime, and access to tools like email, page builders, security, and customer support.
· “WordPress hosting” – these leads aren’t tech savvy and want hosting that offers one-click WordPress installations. However, they aren’t necessarily looking for the quick installer that comes with cPanel. That’s far too complex for this group. They want a fully managed WordPress hosting account with a user interface that makes managing every WordPress installation a breeze.
To capture this group, your ad and landing page copy should focus on simple installation, easy migration, templates, automated backups, managed maintenance, and accessible support.
· “Cheap web hosting” – these leads are looking to save money and will likely sacrifice features for the right price.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on your prices, discounts, and deals first, followed by elements like reliability and features.
· “Reliable web hosting” – these leads prioritize reliability over everything else.
Your ad and landing page copy should focus on your uptime guarantee, security, accessible support, and anything else that tells leads your servers aren’t going to crash or get hacked every week.
These are just a handful of examples of what search phrases can tell you about a user’s intent. To maximize leads, it’s crucial to segment your market based on intent to reach each group with customized marketing messages.
As with any market, before you type a single word, analyze your competition to know what you’re up against. Your competitors are bidding on the same keywords, targeting the same customers, and many are throwing down some serious cash. If your landing pages aren’t top-notch, you’re not going to make it.
Here’s how to research web hosting competitors:
· Dissect their traffic sources. Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find out where they’re getting traffic. If you’re not using these platforms yet, it’s time to start.
· Copy their offers (but not specifically). Analyze their headlines, subheadings, CTAs, and packages/plans. Use this information as inspiration to build your landing pages and offers, but don’t copy anything word-for-word. Then, see what you can improve.
If your goal is to create better offers, keep in mind that hosting companies offer mid-tier plans that don’t make financial sense as part of a marketing strategy to get people to buy a more expensive plan. If you don’t use this strategy, it could result in fewer sales.
· Look for their hooks. What emotional buttons are they pushing? Security? Speed? Price? Support? Take their hooks and craft even better ones. For example, if their hook is “Hosting for $2.95/month,” take that up a notch to “Hosting that won’t crash - $2.95/month.”
· Read all their reviews. Take a deep dive into what people are saying about your competitors on sites like Reddit and Trustpilot. Negative customer reviews will tell you exactly where your competitors are failing, and those are the pain points you can solve (and advertise). For example, if a one of your competitors has an awful support ticket system, make it clear that you have superior-level support. For example, “No more ticket system nightmares – talk to a real human 24/7.”
Researching your competitors is the best way to avoid having to reinvent the wheel each time you need to build a landing page. It will give you the foundation needed to meet and exceed your competitors’ offers.
Your landing page headline is your first impression. If it doesn’t capture attention and resonate immediately, the rest of your content won’t matter. According to research from the Nielsen Norman Group, 79% of users only scan web page content and don’t read word-by-word. To capture attention, your content has to include scannable text, and that’s where your headlines shine.
When users scan web pages, they scroll while taking in headlines and subheadings in addition to bolded text and bulleted lists. But if your headings aren’t convincing, they won’t scan the rest of your content.
No matter what market you’re going for, craft your headlines to be value-and-benefit-driven. For example:
· “Lightning-fast hosting for growing businesses” is more effective than “Shared hosting plans.”
· “Get your website live in [time frame] – no tech skills needed” is more effective than “Build your website with us”
· “Affordable hosting that scales with your business” is more effective than “Business hosting plans.”
These are general guidelines – you’ll need to split test specific headlines to see what works best.
Landing pages generate more conversions when they load fast and aren’t cluttered with distractions and opportunities for people to click away from the page. Strip your landing pages down to simplicity. Remove sidebars, footers, links, and anything else that will allow users to escape from the conversion path. Most importantly, eliminate the main navigation menu to keep people on the page.
As previously discussed, most people scan content and don’t read it word-for-word, which means your landing pages need to give users something to focus on as they scroll and scan. This can be accomplished with meaningful headlines and subheadings, bolding important words, breaking up text into smaller paragraphs, using bulleted and numbered lists, and containing features and benefits inside visual comparison boxes.
One important feature of a successful landing page is that it provides limited options. If you give people too many choices they’ll struggle to make a selection. Whatever you’re offering, make it simple and limited. For example, say you have 20 different hosting plans spread out across shared hosting, dedicated servers, and VPS plans. Instead of listing all 20 plans on one page, list the three categories and link them to separate pages that detail all the relevant plans. When you create your PPC ads, run specific ads for each category of hosting rather than a generic ad for better results.
It’s not your amazing services that sell – it’s the packaging. In this case, it’s how you present your offer. Mediocre web hosting wrapped in a great offer will beat great web hosting wrapped in a boring offer every time.
Web hosting offers tend to do well with limited time offers that create a sense of urgency for the user to act now. Deals that end at midnight or offers only available to the first 50 signups can increase conversions. Just make sure you actually end those offers when claimed, and limit signups as advertised to avoid being fined by the FTC.
If you don’t know how to craft a compelling offer, look at what your competitors are offering and make sure your offer can compete. However, don’t just focus on price and disk space – that’s an old tactic that worked in the past, but today, people want more than generous resources. In fact, the average web hosting client won’t necessarily know or care about how much RAM or processing power your servers have.
Today’s web hosting clients want the following:
· A plan they can use without technical knowledge
· Managed WordPress hosting with automatic installation
· The ability to scale
· Ecommerce options
· High uptime
· Free SSL certificate
· A free domain name for at least the first year
· Site migration services
· AI-powered web building tools
· The option for custom design services
· Automated malware protection
· Automated backups
· A money-back guarantee
With so many unknown and scammy web hosts out there, social proof will go a long way in helping you generate leads. What others say about your business matters more than what you say about yourself. In fact, according to statistics published by Brightlocal, around 87% of people use Google to find reviews before making a purchase.
When people are researching your company, they’ll use customer reviews to determine whether or not you can be trusted. However, you can leverage social proof more powerfully by embedding testimonials right in your landing pages. Instead of bouncing to go look you up on Google right away, many users will read and/or watch your embedded reviews first.
If you’re not one of the top, well-known web hosting companies, you need social proof to gain momentum and trust in the market. Instead of posting images of 5-star reviews, highlight reviews from real people using a name and photo whenever possible. If you don’t have a system yet, you can start collecting video testimonials from sites like Storyprompt and embed them on your website.
Even though you’re selling web hosting services, users need to be told what to do for the next step. That’s where your CTA comes in. Your call-to-action (CTA) needs to be direct, bold, and specific to the targeted user. According to Hubspot data, aligned CTAs convert 202% better than basic ones.
Effective web hosting CTAs are action-oriented, like “Get started,” “Choose plan,” or “Claim your offer now.” For optimal conversions, create a custom action-oriented CTA for each segment you’re targeting.
Since people scroll through content scanning headlines and words here and there, it’s crucial to repeat your CTA throughout your text in a way that makes sense based on the content. For example, place a CTA at the end of each main section, like your pricing plan comparison charts, features overview, and testimonials section.
Mobile optimization doesn’t simply mean creating pages that can be viewed and interacted with on mobile. It requires a strategy for crafting pages that support how mobile users naturally read, scroll, and click. Effective mobile-friendly pages are plain, use limited or no images, don’t use sidebars, and have a sticky menu with a “buy” button so the user doesn’t need to scroll to the top of the page to make a purchase.
Friction makes users bounce fast. Eliminate any kind of on-page barrier that makes it hard or frustrating to get information or sign up for your services. For example, simplify your web forms and only ask for what you need at each stage. The first stage should ask for the basics, like name, email, and domain name. In the next step, ask for billing information. While users will eventually need to fill in all the information, it helps to break it down into stages. In fact, data published by Unbounce highlights a company that increased conversions by 120% just by reducing a form from 11 fields to four.
Another way to eliminate mental friction is to offer a free trial. In terms of web hosting, you can offer a heavy discount for the first month or a no questions asked 30-day money back guarantee.
Finally, include a FAQ section that addresses common questions and concerns transparently. If you can address objections and concerns that are at the top of people’s minds, they’ll be more likely to sign up.
If you’re ready to turn clicks into customers it’s time to hire a professional PPC company. At the end of the day, even the sharpest PPC strategy won’t deliver results if your landing pages don’t pull their weight. Web hosting is one of the most competitive industries around, and that means your pages can’t be average. They need to be fast, persuasive, and laser-focused on turning visitors into paying web hosting clients.
That’s where expert help makes the difference. At PPC.co, we specialize in building and managing high-converting PPC campaigns paired with landing pages crafted to maximize leads. Don’t let your ad budget leak away on clicks that never convert – contact us today and we’ll craft a tailored PPC strategy that maximizes every dollar.
