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PPC Agency Blog

This Mini-Guide Will Help You Build Better PPC Campaigns for Your Law Firm
PPC Case Study: Tampa, Florida Apartment Complex
How Successful Fashion and Apparel Brands Win With PPC
The E-Commerce & Retail Guide to Running Profitable Paid Ads
How to Get Coaching Leads Through Cost-Effective PPC Campaigns
How to Build Better PPC Campaigns for Your Law Firm
The Electrician’s Guide to Running PPC Ads That Actually Bring In Paying Customers
High-Performance PPC for Roofing Contractors: A Tactical Guide to Lead Generation
PPC Tips to Help Plumbers Get Real Leads Without Wasting Money on Clicks
Strategies for Maximizing ROI with PPC Management
How to Use Google Ads in a Restricted or Sensitive Category
Google Ads vs. Linkedin Ads: Which is Better for Commercial Targeting?
9 Reasons To Fire Your PPC Agency
How To Start A PPC Agency?
What are the Right PPC KPIs to Track?
How to Write Great PPC Landing Page Headlines
Basic Guide to Retargeting in Google Ads PPC
Display URLs: Optimizing Display URLs for Google Ads & PPC
What Marketers Should Know About Automated Bid Algorithms in PPC
Ultimate Guide to PPC Remarketing: Bring Users Back When They Don’t Convert
Should You Avoid Automated Bidding With Google Ads?
How To Dial In Your Cost-Per-Lead Using PPC?
How to Find the Best Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Services
PPC Management Pricing: What Should I Pay My PPC Agency?
How Much Does it Cost to Sell On Amazon?
10 Most Important PPC Metrics to Track
What Makes a Good Click-Through-Rate in Google Ads PPC?
Implementing Flexible Bid Strategies in PPC
How to Set Up Facebook Retargeting
How to Increase Landing Page Conversions
Understanding Google’s Ad Rank Formula in PPC
How to Improve Facebook Ads Conversions
How to Implement a Successful Video Ad Campaign
Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which is the Better Advertising Medium for Your Business?
Negative Keywords: The How & Why of Negative Keywords List Building in Google Ads
How to Use “Not Provided Keywords” to Maximize Google Ad’s Impact
How to Avoid Choosing the Wrong Ad Rotation Setting
Chiropractor PPC: Google Ads Guide for Chiropractors
PPC Keyword Match Types & Why They Matter
PPC Marketing Management for Law Firms: A Comprehensive Guide
Broad Match: Best Practices for Targeting Broad Match Keywords in PPC
How to Use Shared Campaign Budget in Google Ads
How to Adjust for Seasonality in PPC Advertising
7 Alternative PPC Ad Networks
Improve Your PPC with Conversion Funnels
How to Use Google Keyword Planner
How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization in PPC
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Dynamic Search Ads for Beginners
How to Take Over Management of an Existing Google Ads Account
How & Why To Leverage Amazon Sponsored Brand Video Ads
Dayparting: Setting Up Time Of Day Bid Adjustments In PPC
How to Use Video Ads to Build Trust
How To Warm Up Your Instagram Audience
8 Tools for Analyzing Your Competitors in PPC
How To Create Better Ad Groups In PPC
How to Target Competitors On Facebook With Interest-Based Audiences
Most Common PPC Questions & a Few Answers
8 Best Link Building Tools for SEO
How To Calculate The ROI For PPC & Improve It
Strategies for Increasing Click-Through Rate in PPC
Exact Match Keywords: How to Target Exact Match Keywords in PPC
How to Perform B2B Lead Generation on Linkedin
Google Ads Suspension: ‘How-to’ Guide for Fixing a Suspended Google Ads Account
The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads Quality Score
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eCommerce PPC Strategies for Maximum Sales Growth
What Is ROAS? Complete Guide To Return-On-Ad-Spend For PPC
How to Scale Your PPC Campaigns
9 Pointers For Increasing The CTR For Google Ads
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PPC Automation Tools for Scaling Campaigns
SEO vs. PPC: 21 Best Practices for Organic & Paid Marketing
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Branded Search: Why Branded Searches Give the Best Conversions
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Complete Guide to Local PPC: How to Target for Local Paid Search
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Why You Should Use Dynamic Landing Pages in PPC
How to Improve Google Ads Conversions
How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost
What is Cost Per Click in PPC?
Google Ad Extensions Explained
Understanding Ineligible Clicks in Google Ads
Optimizing “People Also Search For” in PPC
Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization for SEM/PPC Campaigns
How to Perform Keyword Research with Google Ads Keyword Tool
Optimizing PPC Campaigns for SaaS Businesses
8 Landing Page Test Ideas for PPC
9 Excel & Spreadsheet Tips for PPC Managers
How to Beat PPC Seasonality Issues
How to Do Cross Channel Lead Generation With PPC
How to Use Micro Conversions for Lead Generation with PPC

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Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization for SEM/PPC Campaigns

If you’re going to pour thousands of dollars into a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign, you want to know that you’re getting as much return on investment (ROI) as you possibly can.

And while there are plenty of ways to optimize the ads themselves, much of the success (or failure) ultimately comes down to the landing page.

A pay-per-click (PPC) ad is incredibly powerful, but it’s also limited in the sense that it can’t “create” a conversion – it can only serve as a catalyst. In other words, the ad itself is responsible for driving targeted traffic to a destination. It’s then the landing page’s responsibility to convert that paid search traffic into an opt-in, sale, or another type of conversion.

Whether you’re building your first landing page/landing pages or you’re looking for ways to improve or Optimize landing pages you’ve already developed, there are some strategic steps you can take to enhance results and generate better ROI. Read on to discover more!

What is a Landing Page Conversion Rate?

For starters, let’s get clear on what exactly a landing page conversions is and why it matters. And the best way to do this is by thinking about it through the lens of your SEM campaign.

When creating a PPC ad campaign, one of the very first requirements is to determine a high-level strategic goal. Usually, your goal will fall into one of three buckets:

  1. Generate brand awareness
  2. Generate a qualified lead
  3. Generate a sale

The goal will determine the offer. And the offer will be presented on the landing page/landing pages as a way of hooking your target audience after they’ve clicked on your PPC ad.

While there are dozens of tips and strategies we could discuss for optimizing PPC ads to ensure they’re driving qualified traffic to your page, that’s a topic for another post. In this article, we’re assuming that you’re driving the right people to the landing page/landing page optimization. Thus the primary challenge is figuring out how to create a landing page/landing pages that presents the right offer to these people and moves them to take action on your high-level strategic goal.

In the simplest terms, your landing page optimization is the percentage of traffic that follows through on your desired action for them – whether that’s filling out an opt-in for a lead magnet, purchasing a product, or registering for a webinar.

To use clean and simple math, let’s say you drive 100 people from a PPC ad to your landing page/landing page optimization, where your goal is to have people give you their email address in exchange for a white paper that you’ve created. If 17 of these visitors fill out the opt-in form, your conversion rates are 17 per cent.

That’s obviously an oversimplified illustration, but it gives you an idea of how this number is calculated. Now the question is, what sort of average conversion rate should you be aiming for?

What is a Good Landing Page Conversion Rates?

What is a Good landing page form

This is a challenging question to answer with a simple number or percentage. And that’s because every business, target audience, SEM campaign, and industry is unique. When you layer them all together, you get infinite possibilities. What’s good for one company in one industry might be a waste of resources for another business in a separate industry. There’s just no way to provide an honest benchmark without (a) giving some companies a false sense of security, and (b) discouraging other companies who are doing fine.

To underscore this point, consider two illustrations:

  1. Amy runs an ecommerce store selling high-end toys. She launches an SEM campaign with the goal of generating sales directly from the landing page/landing pages. After selecting keywords, her campaign begins generating an average CPC of $1.50. Amy’s landing page/landing pages converts at 7 percent, while each sale generates roughly $65 in profit. This means that, for every $150 Amy spends on PPC ads, she’s generating $455 in net profit for her toy business.
  2. Susan has a consulting business where she sells her services for $500 per month (using a subscription model). She also launches an SEM campaign with the goal of generating sales directly from the landing page/landing pages. Her average CPC is $15. However, Susan knows that her customer lifetime value (CLV) is roughly $10,000 (meaning she keeps clients for an average of 20 months). The landing page/landing pages converts at just 1 percent. However, despite the low rate, she earns approximately $10,000 for every $1,500 spent on ads.

The reality is that both of these campaigns are successful, despite the fact that Amy has a 7 percent conversion rate and Susan has a 1 percent conversion rate. In fact, despite having a much lower rate, Susan’s ROI is significantly higher than Amy’s.

While both of these individuals would be happy to generate these results, it just goes to show that the idea of a “good” conversion rate is situational. Every business, product, and industry will have its own thresholds. It’s up to you to determine whether your conversion rate is translating into an ROI that justifies the expense and effort of the SEM campaign.

With all of that being said, we do want to give you some idea of conversion rates across industries. Here are some median values taken from an Unbounce analysis of thousands of landing pages:

  • Higher Education: 2.6%
  • Real Estate: 2.9%
  • Health: 2.9%
  • Home Improvement: 3.3%
  • Legal: 3.3%
  • Business Services: 3.5%
  • Travel: 5%
  • Credit/lending: 5.6%
  • Vocational studies: 6.1%

It’s important to note that these are median rates – meaning they don’t account for the large volume of low-converting pages or the handful of high-converting ones. It’s also worth noting that the goal for all of these pages is targeted, even local lead generation, not direct sales. Still, the data gives you a small snapshot to show how you stack up.

11 Tips to Improve Your Landing Page Conversion Rate for SEM Campaigns

Whether your landing page/landing pages have a low conversion rate or you’re already doing well, there are always improvements that can be made. So let’s dive in together and explore a few of the top tips and techniques you may be able to leverage in an effort to generate better ROI from your SEM campaign:

1. Improve Your Headline

Improve Your Headline

Want to know the truth? On average, just 20 per cent of people will continue to read past the headline on your landing page. That means four out of five people never engage with the rest of your page.

If you want to generate a better landing page/landing page optimization, it starts with getting more people to read past the headline. And you do this by writing better headlines that speak directly to visitors and motivate them to learn more.

Here are some helpful tips for better headlines:

  • Keep it simple. Sometimes the simplest headlines perform the best. Short, tight, and concise are fine, so long as there’s clarity. If you’re choosing between two headlines that are roughly equal, opt for the one that’s simpler. The less you require the brain to work, the better.
  • Pain or pleasure. Customers are either running from pain or running toward pleasure. (Always, without exception!) And sometimes they’re doing both. Thus your headline should speak directly to that pain and/or pleasure.
  • Ask a question. Questions can be highly-effective in landing pages/landing page headlines. They stoke the flames of curiosity and, if the question is relevant, force the visitor to read on and find the answer.
  • Jazz it up. While you should never mislead a visitor or say something untrue, there’s nothing wrong with a little embellishment or jazzy language to bring an idea to life. As sleazy as the publication may be, the National Enquirer is fantastic at writing headlines. Study them to get a feel for words that sell.
  • Use numbers. When the human brain sees a number, it stops in its tracks and takes notice. Using numbers in your headlines can help you break a visitor’s flow and force them to pay attention.

There are world-class copywriters who have spent decades studying headline writing and still haven’t mastered it yet. So don’t assume that you’re going to craft killer headlines overnight. However, the more you learn, the better you’ll get. Start with these tips and test what works.

2. Pay Attention to the Fold

The average human attention span is about on part with a goldfish. If you want to engage landing pages/landing page visitors and turn them into customers, you have to grab them right away. This can be done by focusing the majority of your efforts on above-the-fold content and design.

Above-the-fold content, which is anything a visitor sees on their screen without having to scroll, is prime real estate. Avoid overcrowding, but be sure to include a clear value proposition and call-to-action (CTA).

3. Add Social Proofs

As humans, we have a certain “herd mentality” about us. When we see other people who we deem to be like us performing certain actions, we have a natural tendency to do the same. Following the actions of the masses is a way of lowering risk and reducing decision fatigue. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we think, “If they’re doing it, it must be right/good/smart for me to do it, too.”

We’re not going to get into a philosophical discussion of whether basing your decisions on the actions of the masses is a good or bad thing. Instead, we’re just telling you that’s how the world works. And if you want to boost your landing page conversion rates/landing page optimization, you can use it to your advantage.

The best way to tap into this herd mentality is to utilize social proofs, which is basically anything that signals to a prospective customer that other people are gaining value from your products or services.

Examples of social proofs include testimonials and reviews, ratings, data and statistics, endorsements, case studies, etc. By adding these landing page elements to your landing page/landing page optimization, you establish proof and trust.

Social proofs could also mean managing your company’s reputation online–even using pay per click directly.

For best results, pepper social proof throughout your landing page. Another best practice is to include social proof right before or alongside a CTA.

4. Simplify Conversion Steps

Nothing kills landing page optimization/landing page conversion quite like friction. More specifically, you’re doing yourself a disservice if your opt-in forms or checkout processes contain multiple steps.

Simplifying the steps it takes to follow through on a conversion, like getting a lead magnet or buying a product, creates significant lift.

If it’s an email opt-in, only ask for the bare minimum. Name, email, and phone are the absolute maximum – though phone numbers will hurt your opt-ins rather significantly. (Only include if necessary.) If you get away with just their first name and email – or only the email address – it’s better.

When it comes to an actual transaction, one-step or two-step checkout is important. Anything requiring three or more steps to completion will lead to a massive spike in shopping cart abandonment.

5. Optimize Your CTA Copy

optimizing landing pages CTA Copy

The CTA is where the rubber meets the road. Every landing page should have exactly one CTA. It can be inserted multiple times throughout the landing page/page – and even worded slightly different – but there’s never more than one CTA.

Looking for a few ideas for high-converting CTA copy? Here are some options that work really well:

  • Get started
  • Sign up free
  • Create account
  • View demo OR book demo
  • Contact sales
  • Learn more
  • Join free
  • Shop now
  • Explore
  • Discover
  • Get X% off
  • Add to bag OR add to cart
  • Etc.

The key to CTA copy (and really any element of your landing page) is to split test and find out what works best. Over time, optimizing for CTA copy can take a landing page/page and turn it into a great page.

6. Strip it Down

Distractions have to go. Any element that doesn’t directly add value to the user and push them closer to the point of conversion is unnecessary and must be eliminated.

A landing page is not a work of art. It’s not designed to be a piece that you place in a web design portfolio and wow people with. A landing page’s sole focus is driving increase conversions. Run everything through this filter.

7. Try Real Pictures

Try Real Pictures

Stock photos serve a purpose. They’re free, accessible, and can serve as compelling visual assets in certain areas of a marketing campaign (like blogging). However, stay far away from generic stock images on landing pages.

Consider this case study, in which a truck driving company was selling lessons online. The goal of the landing page was to get more website opt-ins. By simply changing the cover photo from a stock image of a truck driver to a photo image of a real student, they were able to increase conversions by 161 per cent. Real pictures also work well in your PPC retargeting campaigns.

There’s something about seeing a real face and a genuine image that builds trust and makes a landing page/page more relatable. When possible, look for opportunities to humanize with actual images!

8. Use Directional Cues

Anything you can do to draw a visitor’s eye to the CTA is a good thing. And sometimes you have to be overt about it.

Directional cues, like arrows, are excellent for showing people where to look. However, you can also use more subtle cues, like a picture of a person looking to the right (when the opt-in is to the right). The human brain picks up on little details such as this.

9. Use Visual Data Reports

The first version of your landing page won’t be the last. Expect it to go through multiple iterations before you hit your stride. Reach the “best” iteration faster by using different tracking tools to see what’s working on your page.

There are plenty of neat landing page optimization tools/tools available as add-ons to a landing page. Heat maps, for example, show you where people are looking and spending most of their time on a page. Scroll maps let you know how far people are scrolling down a page. Confetti reports can even show you where individual clicks are occurring.

10. Try Scarcity Techniques

The fear of missing out, search engine optimization or FOMO, is one of the driving factors behind why people make purchase decisions. Thus any time you can leverage scarcity in your copywriting and CTAs, you should do it.

Phrases like limited time, limited quantities, today-only, and ending soon are all effective. Countdown timers also work well, particularly for webinars, events, and sales.

11. Use an Exit-Intent Popup

Use an Exit-Intent Popup

As annoying as they may be, there’s one simple reason why so many marketers continue to use exit-intent popups: They work!

Exit-intent popups, which are the screen overlays that emerge when a user’s pointer leaves the screen and appears to be ready to close out the page, are great for capturing leads that would otherwise be lost. Test them out on your landing page and see what you think.

PPC.co Can Help

A perfectly optimized landing page can’t do anything on its own. In order to generate a positive ROI, you need traffic. More specifically, you need to drive targeted, cost-effective traffic to the page. And at PPC.co, we can help.

Through a combination of time-tested techniques and the latest industry best practices, our team of experienced PPC experts provides tailored strategies designed to help businesses across a variety of niches generate massive value from their SEM campaigns.

From search to social landing page/page, our comprehensive Google Ads PPC management services have everything you need to win. Contact us today to learn how we can help you!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
How to Perform Keyword Research with Google Ads Keyword Tool

Keyword research is crucial to online marketing success, because keywords still govern the way people find information online. Keywords help us accurately find the information that we are looking for among the flood of information on the Web.

As such, proper keyword research with quality keyword research software allows you to understand what set of keywords consumers are using to find what they need. It also allows you to select proper keywords for an SEO campaign based off key metrics such as search volume, competition, and seasonal demand.

But with all the research tools available out there, which one should you use?

Here’s a hint: Marketers are vying for a prime spot on Google. Doesn’t it make sense to use a keyword tool owned by Google?

Google’s own Google Ads Keyword Tool is one of the best keyword research tools available. This is largely due to the fact that most other keyword research tools pull data directly from Google’s tool via API. While 3rd party tools often do a better job of displaying Google’s data and combining that data with other data to present proprietary or unique insights, they are broken as often as Google changes its keyword tool (which, lately, has been daily).

Since most 3rd party tools draw on data from Google’s keyword tool, my experience with them has been one of unreliability. Furthermore, the proprietary data insights that are often provided by 3rd party keyword research tools are often misleading, inaccurate, or downright useless.

Add in the fact that Google’s keyword tool is free, and you have a compelling case. Let’s take a close look at this awesome keyword research tool.

The Google Ads interface

In recent years, Google Adwords Keyword Tool’s interface has gone through several transformations, but the latest has resulted in a cleaner and simpler-to-use interface.

On the main interface is the word or phrase box, where you type the keywords you’re researching. Right below it are Website and Category.

Right below the main box on the interface is the Advanced Options and Filters feature, which lets you more specifically target your research to certain countries, languages, and devices from which traffic is coming.

On the left are several features that let you customize your research further by selecting the match types of the keywords you’re looking for, whether broad or exact.

Step by step: zeroing in on the right keywords

For the sake of illustration, I’ll walk you through the steps on how to do research for keywords based on Exact Match, which I recommend using for SEO campaigns.

Let’s say you’re gunning for “LinkedIn Marketing”.

1. Type “LinkedIn Marketing” on the Word or phrase box.

2. You can leave out category for the keywords we’re using here, but for accuracy, I recommend you choose the most appropriate category for the keywords you’re researching.

3. Click on the Advanced Options and Filters feature.

  • Choose the country you’re targeting
  • Select the language
  • Select the device you wish to know where traffic is coming from
  • Be sure to include information such as Local Monthly Searches, Competition and Global Monthly Searches

4. On the left hand side of the page you’ll see Match Types

  • Select “Broad” if you wish to see how “LinkedIn Marketing” is broadly used on searches
  • Select “Exact” if you wish to see the numbers for “LinkedIn Marketing” using exactly those terms

Now it’s time to move on to the next phase of the research – gleaning information from the results.

The Keyword Ideas section shows the main keywords, i.e. “LinkedIn Marketing” and the list of variations for the keywords, the Competition and the numbers for Local and Global Monthly Searches.

The list of Keywords column shows results for the main keywords and its variations. In the case of Exact Match, the column shows the exact set of words or phrases consumers use to learn about “LinkedIn Marketing”.

The Competition column shows how competition looks whether it’s Low, Medium or High. Aim for keywords with Low competition. Keywords with low competition will have a better chance of hitting the first page of Google’s search results.

But don’t discount keywords with Medium to High competition; you can target them for your long-term campaigns.

The Local Monthly Searches column shows the average number of searches for the keywords in a specific country or region in a typical month. Global Monthly Searches, on the other hand, shows the average number of people worldwide looking for information on “LinkedIn Marketing”.

For easy reference, you can download the results in spreadsheet format by hitting the Download button right above the Keyword Ideas section.

Combine insights from Google’s Keyword Tool with data from an SEO competition comparison tool such as my personal favorite, Market Samurai (that’s an affiliate link – thank you for clicking, if you do!). If you or your clients’ website metrics stack up to the competition, then go for it.

Conclusion

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is an excellent keyword research tool. While it doesn’t give you exact numbers (not that any tool can), it’ll provide you with a good idea of which keywords to use as well as which ones to avoid. It’s clean, simple, and reliable, and when combined with insights from an SEO competition analysis tool, it gets the job done efficiently and effectively.

To find out more about keyword research and how to select the right keywords for your business’ PPC or SEO campaign, contact us!

‍

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
Optimizing PPC Campaigns for SaaS Businesses

The software as a service (SaaS) field has been growing consistently for more than a decade. By the end of 2023, it’s projected to be a $195.21 billion industry.

Every year, we see a rollout of hundreds of new SaaS businesses (and innovative tools they offer). Many of those tools grow at insane rates, attracting thousands (or even millions) of users in their first few months of operation.

How do they do it?

Obviously, most SaaS companies use a combination of marketing, advertising, and sales strategies to see those kinds of results. But one of the most promising channels is pay per click (PPC) advertising, primarily via Google Ads.

How do you optimize SaaS PPC campaigns effectively? Identifying and understanding your target audience is crucial. Without proper targeting and strategic planning, many SaaS PPC campaigns fail, leading to wasted resources. By leveraging well-crafted paid ads, SaaS businesses can connect with users who are actively searching for solutions, driving conversions and achieving substantial growth.

PPC Campaign Optimization: The Basics

PHP Campaign Optimization

Before we can begin optimizing a PPC campaign for a SaaS business, we need to know what “optimization” truly entails.

Optimizing a PPC campaign simply means making it more effective, but how do we do that?

We’ll cover some of the specific tactics that can help us achieve this goal in the sections that follow, but ultimately, we are working in service of the following goals:

Target more valuable people. First, we want our advertising campaign to target more valuable people. If you target the most general possible audience, you could conceivably reach 8 billion people, but the vast majority of those people won’t be interested in using your products. It’s typically much more effective to target a smaller number of people, if those people are perfectly suited to your product. Reducing our focus on poor targets and increasing our focus on good targets should improve our overall results tremendously.

  • Increase impressions and clicks. Once our audience targeting is on point, we can increase impressions and clicks. Obviously, PPC ad performance is somewhat limited by what you’re willing to spend. Even so, if we optimize for a higher clickthrough rate (CTR), we can improve our quality score and eventually get better results.
  • Reduce costs. Optimization is often a question of efficiency. Assuming your results remain the same or increase, any cost reduction you employ is a net benefit. That higher cost efficiency can take an existing campaign and help it yield better results or allow you to spend less on a campaign that’s already working extremely well. Either way, your company benefits.
  • Scale. Once you have better PPC ad optimization in place, you can work on scaling that campaign. Assuming you can remain consistent in terms of ad quality, audience targeting, CPC, and other factors, increasing your budget should allow you to reach more people, increase conversions, and rapidly grow your business.

Establish a Baseline

Before we get too deep into PPC optimization tactics, we need to establish a baseline.

Take a moment to consider:

  • Your ad budget. How much are you willing to spend on advertising? The more you spend, the more reach you can get – and the more competitive you can afford to be. That said, you can see amazing results even with a lean budget. What’s important is that you know what you’re working with initially.
  • Total clicks needed. Next, think about how many clicks you’ll need to generate to hit your sales targets. This can be difficult to estimate, depending on how long you’ve been working on this campaign. If you want to win 100 new customers this month, and your conversion rate for a specific landing page is 2 percent on average, you’ll need to generate 5,000 visitors for that landing page to reach your goal.
  • Target CPC. With these metrics, you can estimate your target cost per click (CPC). If your budget is $15,000 and you need to generate 5,000, your target CPC will be $3. With information, you can start effectively planning target keywords – or you may be motivated to tinker with the other variables in this equation.

Additionally, if you’ve practiced PPC advertising for this business already, gather up your existing data and perform an overall assessment. Have you been hitting your targets? In which areas does your campaign underperform or seem weak? Are there specific metrics that need to be improved?

Know Your Customers

Know Your Customers

One of the most reliable ways to improve your PPC ad campaign results in the SaaS industry is to better understand your target customers. With better market research and customer knowledge, you can target more appropriate keywords, improve your messaging strategy, and eventually make your efforts more cost efficient.

  • Target demographics. You can start by evaluating your target demographics and making sure you’re targeting them with your chosen keywords and campaign settings. If you’re only trying to appeal to customers in Florida, there’s no reason to target people in California.
  • The sales funnel. Understand where your best prospects fit into your sales funnel. Are these bottom-funnel buyers who are ready to make a purchase? Or top-funnel buyers who need time to get acquainted with the problem your product is trying to solve? There are no right or wrong answers here, but these differentiated targeting options require different approaches.
  • Behavioral patterns, values, etc. Finally, work to understand how your target customers think, act, and engage with online ads. You can use this information to craft more effective advertisements – and increase your conversion rates too. For example, if you know your target demographics typically make logical decisions, rather than emotional ones, you can make more straightforward, logical pitches in your ads.

Increase Your CTR

The higher your quality score is, the better. Without getting into the mechanics of this dynamic, higher quality scores are associated with higher ad rankings and lower costs.

One of the best ways to improve your quality score is to increase your clickthrough rate (CTR) for individual ads. Incidentally, these strategies tend to also be effective for making a better impression with new leads and prospects.

Start with these tactics:

  • Write compelling headlines. The headline is usually the first part of your ad that people see and read, so it’s responsible for forming first impressions and motivating actions. These headlines need to be as compelling as possible, offering accurate information and prompting users to take notice. Listing the benefits of your SaaS product or teasing prospects with a tempting offer could be exactly what you need. Make sure you experiment to figure out which types of headlines work best for your target demographics.
  • Differentiate from other advertisers. Next, make it a point to differentiate your ads from those of other advertisers. The SaaS industry is rife with competitors, so the last thing you want is for your ads to be functionally identical to ads that your prospects and leads have seen thousands of times. There’s nothing wrong with learning from the successes of others, but you need to be proactive in making sure your ad copy is truly unique.
  • Cater to your target demographics. From headlines to meta descriptions, all of your work needs to be focused on catering to your target demographics. Try to see this ad through the lens of your primary customers and use customer personas as tools for this evaluation. How would this group of people respond to this phrasing? Is there a stronger, more persuasive position that you could adopt? Oftentimes, there’s room for further optimization.
  • Use stronger visuals. Increasingly, PPC advertisers are leaning on visuals to make a bigger impact. Unsurprisingly, people are drawn to visuals more than written words, so if you choose an appropriate and interesting image or video to associate with your advertisement, it’s going to make a bigger impact.
  • Strategically optimize your meta descriptions. Don’t forget about the meta descriptions of your ads. The headlines typically get all the attention, but if your meta descriptions are misleading, bland, or poorly worded, they’re going to turn people away. Depending on your intentions and the nature of your audience, it might pay to optimize your meta descriptions with specific details about your product, lists of benefits for signing up, or even something humorous designed to make your ad stand out.

Create New Ads and Rotate

Many new PPC advertisers make the mistake of thinking that optimization is a one-way street – a clear and specifically directed path to one destination. Once you get to that destination, you can run the perfect ad over and over again and continue to see great results.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

If you want your PPC ad campaign to remain relevant, you need to consistently create new ads and rotate them in. No matter how effective your previous advertising has been, it’s going to decline in effectiveness if you keep spamming the same people with it repetitively.

Cycling in new advertisements is a way to keep your ads looking fresh, a way to reach new types of people, and a way to effectively experiment and learn about potential new tactics. Never let your PPC ad campaign sit untouched for too long.

Use Negative Keywords and Audience Exclusions

Negative Keywords in PPC Campaign

If you want to improve your targeting further, consider using both negative keywords and audience exclusions. Both of these features are designed to reduce the likelihood of targeting irrelevant people.

When it comes to negative keywords, include any keywords that might interfere with your goal. For example, if you’re trying to advertise your paid software, you might include the word “free” as a negative keyword. After all, people searching for a free solution to their problem probably aren’t going to be willing to pay for yours.

Audience exclusions are very similar, but it might take some finesse to figure out which types of audience members are best to exclude.

Be Wary of Your Top Competitors

In any marketing or advertising environment, it’s important to be aware of your top competitors, so that you can effectively plan for them and differentiate yourself from them. On the simplest level, this can help you craft more unique, compelling advertisements that differentiate your brand from the other SaaS companies on your level.

You can also use this information to target people more strategically. For example, you can target people in a different phase of the sales funnel. It’s common for SaaS businesses to target people at the bottom of the funnel, since they’re much more likely to make a purchase. But if most of your competitors are targeting these demographics, your costs are going to increase. While it might mean targeting less immediately valuable customers, you can save a lot of money and make your advertising more effective by targeting people at the higher levels of the sales funnel.

Increase Your Remarketing Budget

Some of your most valuable prospects are going to be people who are already familiar with your brand and interested in your product. That’s why it usually pays to increase your remarketing budget, even at the expense of the rest of your PPC advertising campaign.

If you want to make your remarketing ads even more effective, segment your audience and use your ad copy to persuade them specifically. This is your chance to alleviate fears, address potential concerns, and speak to previous behavior you’ve seen from these users.

As you get more experience in remarketing, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rates steadily.

Experiment, Measure, and Improve

Finally, make a commitment to experiment, measure your results, and keep improving. There’s no surefire formula for the perfect PPC advertisement, and even if there was, it would quickly be rendered obsolete by changing audience attitudes, new market dynamics like emerging competitors, or new targeting or exclusion options available to you.

To be successful as a SaaS PPC advertiser, you need to keep moving constantly. The more you learn, and the more you optimize, the better results you’ll see.

Are you trying to scale up your SaaS business with the help of PPC advertising?

Do you need help optimizing or improving the effectiveness of your existing PPC ad campaign?

PPC.co can help. From conception to execution, and from experiments to solidified tactics, we’ll help you form and follow the best possible PPC path for your business.

Contact us today for a free proposal!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
8 Landing Page Test Ideas for PPC

No matter how long you’ve been running your PPC ads, you can always increase conversions just a little bit more. Sometimes that will involve tweaking your copy, your images, and the placement of page elements, and other times that will involve adjusting your target audience. When your goal is to increase your PPC conversions, you need to focus on landing page optimization and run a comprehensive landing page testing process.

To start getting better results, here are 8 PPC landing page tests you can run. Incorporating split testing into your strategy can help you compare different versions of your page to determine which one performs better. By testing landing pages systematically, you’ll identify changes that can drive significant improvements in your campaign’s overall performance.

1. Use dynamic landing pages

Making Your Dynamic Landing Page Make Sense

Dynamic landing pages are essentially PPC landing pages that automatically change their content based on user input, like keywords, location, and more. This makes it easy to create a personalized experience for your visitors without having to create hundreds of PPC landing pages that perfectly match all possible combinations of your dynamic keywords.

When you start testing your PPC ad landing pages with dynamic landing pages, you’ll be able to tell which pages are converting better based on dynamic keywords being generated from your Google Ads. This will give you better insight into the efficacy of your ads and will help you learn more about your target market.

2. Reduce the number of options you provide

The JAM Study

How many options do you give your visitors on your own landing pages? Do you have one product they can buy with a single click, or do your customers have to make a selection from a variety of options and variants?

At first glance, you might think giving your customers more options will generate more sales, but that’s not what the data says. In fact, if you’re not generating the sales you want, offering too many options could be what’s standing in the way. Landing page conversion rates often drop when too many choices are presented.

More options result in fewer sales

You’ve likely heard of “analysis paralysis” – the inability to make a decision when you’re presented with an overload of information. This occurs when someone is afraid of making the wrong decision and foregoing the ideal solution. When it comes to generating sales, giving prospects too many choices can result in analysis paralysis, and will actually cause more people to walk away than buy from you.

This phenomenon was demonstrated in 2000 in what has been dubbed “The Jam Experiment.” In this experiment, shoppers at Draeger’s Supermarket were given the opportunity to sample different flavors of Wilkin & Sons jams during two different sampling sessions hosted on different days. During the first session, shoppers were given 24 flavors to choose from, and during the second session, they were given just 6 flavors to choose from. The display with 24 flavors attracted more attention but resulted in one-tenth fewer sales. In other words, more people bought jam when they had fewer choices.

If this is what happened with something as simple as jam, imagine how an abundance of choices could be impacting your ability to sell important, high-ticket products and services.

Limited options generate more sales, satisfaction, and loyalty

Have you ever wondered why the fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger does so well without selling franchises or going public? Sure, they have amazing service and their food is good, but you can say that about a lot of businesses. From a marketing perspective, In-N-Out derives their success from having a simple menu consisting of burgers, fries, and drinks. However, unlike other burger joints you’ll only find three burgers on the menu: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a double cheeseburger.

While it’s true that a short menu tends to lower the spend per sales ticket, it increases the speed of service, which increases customer satisfaction and generates loyalty. After all, many people admit to driving for hours just to visit a newly opened In-N-Out Burger. Some have even waited in line for twelve hours to buy their food.

The lesson here is that people don’t want too many choices, and you’ll generate more sales by limiting the number of choices you offer to boost your lead generation efforts.

3. Make your CTA match visitor expectations

Optimize Your CTA Copy

Your call-to-action (CTA) is more important than you might realize. Not only does your CTA entice people to click, but it can also influence whether or not visitors follow through with filling out your web forms.

For example, Culligan, a company that sells water filtration devices, experimented with their CTA by testing two variations. The first said “Get a Quote” and the second said “Get Pricing.” While both of these phrases mean the same thing, the results demonstrated the importance of matching visitor expectations. The page that used “Get a Quote” as the CTA saw 104% more form submissions. Why?

It’s because “Get a Quote” implies that the visitor will be asked to fill out a form with their information so they can talk to a service rep and get a personalized quote. “Get Pricing” implies that by clicking, the user will be taken to a page listing all the prices for various services. When asked to fill out a form, many users who expected immediate pricing ended up bouncing.

Check your CTA copy and really think about what you’re telling the user with your choice of words. There is a reason some CTAs convert better than others, and it’s not always because the copy is more persuasive – sometimes it’s because certain CTAs create a disconnect between the user’s expectations and reality. Make sure your CTAs create an accurate picture of what users can expect after they click.

4. Advertise according to current events

What’s going on in the world that people are going to know about? Incorporate some current events into your PPC search ads to capture attention and see if you can get conversions. If you can come up with a clever search ad that is related to current events, like sports matches or upcoming national holidays, you’ll probably win some people over just by being clever.

Experiment with ads that play off of local events, local culture, holidays, and more. If you don’t have any ideas, consult with a professional PPC marketing agency because creating Google Ads like this is exactly what they do for their clients.

5. Eliminate difficult page elements

Your PPC landing pages should be extremely simple and users should intuitively know how to navigate, read, and understand what you want them to do next. If you have any page elements that get in the way of this process, you’ll want to eliminate them no matter what. For example, you could have the most beautiful slider at the top of your page that showcases brilliant photos of your products, but sliders have been shown to create resistance for visitors and they are a hindrance to conversions.

The problem with sliders is easy to see. The images change faster than visitors can take in the information they’re trying to read. Even if your slider doesn’t change that quickly, people are so used to nuisance sliders that they’ll just automatically start scrolling down the page when they see a slider.

Other page elements that can be difficult include pop-ups that open in a new window (these are largely forbidden by PPC platforms), pop-ups that aren’t easy to close, and videos without controls that prevent the user from pausing the video.

Check in with your landing pages to see if you have any elements that might be distracting or annoying to visitors and if anything looks like it might be in the way of getting conversions, make a new page and remove the element and test them both to see which page converts better.

6. Spend some quality time developing your pop-ups

11 Best practices for pop-up advertising

Pop-ups are okay to use on landing pages with PPC ads as long as they are overlays and not new windows/tabs. Whether you already have pop-ups, or you’re just about to add some to your landing pages, make sure you spend a significant amount of time creating your campaigns.

Pop-ups are worth continually refining until they are pixel-perfect in terms of landing page design and size. You’ll also want to work on simplifying the copy. For example, avoid having paragraphs worth of text on a pop-up – most people won’t read that much copy. Use a short, powerful headline with a subheading, but limit the copy to a few lines.

Concerning the information, you ask for in your pop-ups, consider asking only for a first name and email address. If having a subscriber’s last name will help you in the future, then ask for a last name. However, if you’re only going to communicate with people online through email, a first name is all you need, and you’ll get more signups by asking only for a first name. However, some marketers have found that they get even better results by not asking for a name at all, and only asking for an email address. If a name is needed, they can use progressive profiling to get it later.

Which method is right for you? The only way to know is to run some experiments to test all of your options. However, if you’re not going to use progressive profiling, be sure to ask for at least a first name so you can get the higher open rates from sending out emails with personalized subject lines.

7. Shorten you landing page content

Many years ago, long form sales pages dominated the internet because everything was so new. Some speculate that long content made the business look more like an authority, especially when the content was full of good information. However, that was a time when people were primarily viewing websites from desktop computers. Today, most people are on mobile devices when viewing web pages, and long content is hard to read on mobile devices.

Sometimes long form sales pages are effective today, but not always. The only way to know how your content will perform in long vs. short forms is by testing it out yourself. However, remember that the key to generating conversions by shortening your content is to put your signup form or buy button front-and-center for your visitors. Go with a minimalist design to eliminate visual clutter and focus visitor attention on your signup form.

You can create landing pages that have a condensed version of your content on top with the extended version down below. Experiment with all of these options to see what works best for you.

8. Create targeted landing pages

If your product or service is used by people in different industries, then you need landing pages designed specifically to reach those individual markets. For example, you might run the same PPC ad for a variety of audiences, and that can work. However, you need individual, customized landing pages for each of your target audiences.

Elements to customize on each landing page include:

  • Headlines
  • Subheadings
  • Your CTA
  • The language used to sell the product or service
  • Your style, be it casual, professional, formal, etc.

According to Unbounce, the highest converting landing pages have several key elements: compelling headings, a single and focused CTA, a clear value proposition, clear features and benefits, and testimonials or social proof. These elements should be present on all of your landing pages, but the content should change based on the target audience. You can also use a landing page builder to quickly create multiple pages for A/B testing purposes and multiple PPC landing page examples.

Never stop testing

These are just a few ideas for what elements you can test to increase your PPC ad conversions in various search engines. As long as your conversion rates are below 100%, there is room for improvement. Never stop testing your Google Ads and landing pages; there’s always something you can adjust to squeeze out some more conversions.

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