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Understanding your conversion rate will help you assess the overall success of your marketing efforts. Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving the rate at which potential customers complete the objective that you want them to. It could be subscribing to your newsletter, making a purchase, donating to a charity, any action that you want a visitor to your site to complete.
Optimizing your conversion rate is not something that is easily done or something that can be done once or twice. That is why it is best to find a CRO service that can help you with the process every time you need them. In this post, we’ll explain the important points about your conversion rate as well as how to find the best conversion rate optimization service for your needs.
Most marketers are aware of what a conversion rate is, but may not have a tight grasp on just how much it can impact business performance, the cost of customer acquisition, and other aspects that are difficult to gauge by just looking at an ad campaign’s results.
Having a surface-level understanding of conversion rates is fine if you just want to plod along in your marketing, but if you’re shooting for real success, then knowing more about how your conversion rate impacts your business will help greatly when it’s time to find an optimization service.
That’s the first mistake a marketer is likely to make, if people aren’t converting, there must be something wrong with the ad campaign or the way you’re marketing the business.
While the type of ads you run, their placement, and frequency all matter in terms of people seeing the ads and knowing about your business, there’s a lot more to your conversion rate than that.
A conversion rate optimization service will have the tools to analyze all the aspects of your business to pinpoint key issues affecting your conversion.
We’ll break down some of the other issues that affect conversion so that you know more about what to look for.
As we said, there’s more than one reason why your conversions may be underperforming. Part of the process of converting is making it easy for the process to happen.
Sure, the first step in conversion is getting them to your site, but whether or not they follow through with what you want them to do is due in large part to how easy it is to get around your site and complete whatever process you have for them is.
Poor website design can mean a number of things. The first thing to consider is: Is your website optimized for the device they’re using? This plays a lot into SEO in general but the user experience is crucial to conversion.
A good CRO service will test your site fully and understand where potential leads are being turned off. The list of things that the best Conversion Rate Optimization Service will explore and test is nearly limitless.
One thing to note is that the majority of traffic now comes from users on their mobile devices. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, you may be driving away a good portion of your traffic before they even attempt to convert.
Factors like image size, loading times, navigation, and ease of access all affect mobile optimization.
The CRO Service you choose will know best practices for optimizing for mobile so that traffic from mobile devices has an easy time accessing your site.
Another factor that often goes overlooked once a user actually clicks on an ad is the landing page. User experience begins at this point. Sure the ad drew them in, but the landing page is what keeps them interested in what you have to say, sell, or do.
The best conversion rate optimization services will test multiple variables to see what works and doesn’t on a given page, changing text and other elements around to see what converts more.
Whether or not you’re using dynamic landing pages, optimizing the page to convert is not the same as optimizing specifically for SEO. The most well-designed pages may not convert well due to certain elements. It’s important to have a conversion rate optimization service audit your landing pages to see what is and isn’t working.
You’ll want to have your CRO service on standby each time you change out ad campaigns and landing pages. Successful businesses maintain regular audits to ensure their conversion rates remain high.
As ad campaigns change and new content is added, you should be routinely checking to see if your conversion rate is up to snuff. That’s why doing it yourself would be time-consuming and extremely costly.
The best CRO services will offer web analytics to tell you how your site is performing and how to improve SERP ranking to drive traffic. Traffic volume helps with possible conversion and combined with conversion optimization will lead to much better customer acquisition rates and lower costs.
eCommerce sites can have a particularly tough time drawing in conversions if their site isn’t optimized for easy use. Having a poorly organized site, difficult to navigate menus, gaudy graphics and images, and other problems can severely affect your conversion rate.
This is not only damaging for an eCommerce site, it can literally end your business by having you spend exorbitant amounts on ads only for potential customers to window shop or get disgusted and leave.
Imagine for a minute having a brick-and-mortar store that pays its employees all day to have no one come in and actually buys anything, this is essentially what happens with the marketing budget of an eCommerce site that doesn’t convert.
Just like with other sites, the best CRO service can pinpoint your weaknesses and devise ways to keep customers on the page and shopping. They can test all the images, graphics, product listings, payment setup, and more to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Now that we’ve finished diving into all the conversion rate problems with your site, we can delve into how a conversion rate optimization service can save your advertising campaign and how they can multiply those ad dollars through higher customer acquisition rates and lower costs.
Just like with your website, many factors can affect your conversion rate when it comes to your ad campaign. Figuring out just what the problem is from raw data can be a frustrating mess, even for the best marketing consultant. That’s why you need someone with the tools and the strategies to figure out the problem and propose workable solutions to help you fix it.
Your CRO service should know the ins and outs of all the different types of campaigns to help you figure out whether your ads just need some work, or it’s time to reevaluate your entire strategy.
We’ll break down some of the elements so that you understand what your CRO service should be looking at and how it helps your business.
Whether you’re using automation or AI to buy ad space or you’re doing it yourself, the targeting strategies you use can affect your conversion rates. Having too high of an expected ROAS or CTR can make your ad spending ineffective at best and extremely costly at worst.
Expecting a 20x multiplier on every ad dollar spent when you don’t have the market share to get it will quickly see you throwing your marketing money away. The same is true for an absurdly high click-thru rate.
Another thing to consider in regard to targeting is the audience you are targeting. Ad space targeting is one consideration, but whom you go after is another. Web analytics helps you determine the demographics of your likely customer and can help you shift your market focus to perform better in terms of conversion.
An effective CRO service will have the means to address your targeting strategies on both fronts and help you reevaluate and retarget as needed. This is something that can change from campaign to campaign, so you’ll want your CRO service to perform an audit every so often to ensure conversion stays up.
There are many types of advertising on the web, but paid search marketing is the most widely used and recognized. Knowing how best to utilize this method and getting the right conversion can be difficult even for an experienced marketer.
Paid search marketing is the optimal way to market your product or service as users will have already gotten some idea of what they want when they see your ad in the SERP. The problem with these is often lack of oversight.
Setting up a PPC campaign that relies on paid search marketing and not optimizing it, or optimizing PPC once and leaving it will result in lost potential. Managing your paid search marketing on a regular basis requires regular audits and changes, often weekly.
This ensures that your conversion rates are always as high as they could be. The best CRO service will be able to manage your paid search marketing and keep it up to date and converting over the long term.
The best CRO services will actually actively monitor your paid search campaign and make changes as needed rather than waiting until your conversion drops and your money is wasted. Investing in the right CRO service can save your ad dollars and make you money.
There’s a lot of potential conversions from social media marketing campaigns. Ads that run on sites like Facebook can reach many more potential leads than other methods and as such can be a great source of revenue for businesses
The problem is that managing social media ad campaigns can be complex. For one, your targeting strategy for your specific market has to be tailored in the right way to reach the 1 billion users on the platform.
This means understanding how the platform integrates ads and shows them to users based on key metrics. Even an experienced marketer would have trouble analyzing all of that data alone. That’s where a conversion rate optimization service has the ability to help you manage your campaign. The best ones will have tools and software to analyze your ad metrics and target your specific audience better so that more of the right kinds of leads see your ads.
LinkedIn is a resource that is often mismanaged due to the sheer time it takes to target and market effectively. Generating leads on LinkedIn can be time-consuming, to say the least, and even a team of marketers doesn’t have all the hands necessary to manage posting, messaging, follow-ups, and lead generation.
The problem with LinkedIn ads management for many marketers is not the volume of potential targets, but the caliber. Much of the marketing done on LinkedIn is direct to business executives and professionals. B2B marketing is very much message based. How you would talk to the average consumer is not the same way you would speak directly to a business.
Messaging is much more key in this space than on other platforms. The added reach of being able to reach other businesses directly is worth the effort if it matches your market space, but the proper help is needed to do it right.
The best conversion rate optimization services have tools and automation to help you market effectively and convert on LinkedIn without hours of cold leads and wasted effort. The right CRO service will help you identify and communicate with leads that will actually close rather than typical mass marketing efforts.
The best way to gather all the information and metrics to see how your advertising is doing is by auditing your Google Ads account. The sheer volume of data can be a bit much to sift through, from your projected budget waste to your mobile strategy, CTR, and other factors.
The best way to handle an audit of your Google Ads account is by relying on an experienced CRO service. The best ones will look over every metric of your account and work to optimize the performance of the whole thing. Ideally, this is the place you start if you plan on overhauling your marketing efforts with a CRO service.
The best CRO services will perform a full audit of your Google Ads account and work forwards to develop a marketing strategy. Beginning your conversion rate optimization with a Google Ads audit can help to prioritize the areas that need the most attention.
These are most of the key areas of marketing that can benefit from a CRO service as well as what to look for when trying to find the best CRO service for you. If even one of these areas of your marketing strategy needs attention, consult a conversion rate optimization service to make sure you capitalize on all the business that could be coming your way.
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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the lifeblood of modern digital marketing, a finely tuned machine designed to separate serious advertisers from those who enjoy setting their money on fire. At its core, PPC is about buying attention—whether it’s from Google Ads, Facebook (or should we say Meta?) Ads, LinkedIn’s overpriced clicks, or whatever ad network is currently promising “unprecedented results.” The trick, of course, is making sure that the attention you’re paying for actually turns into conversions, and not just a collection of clicks that lead nowhere.
This guide is for marketers who already know the basics and are ready to squeeze every last drop of ROI from their PPC campaigns. If you’re looking for a “Beginner’s Guide to Google Ads,” this isn’t it. But if you’re tired of watching your ad spend disappear into the void and want to start running PPC like a ruthless efficiency machine, read on.
There’s nothing quite as tragic as a PPC campaign with no clear objective. Running ads without goals is like throwing darts blindfolded—sure, you might hit the board occasionally, but mostly you’re just making a mess. Before you even think about setting up a campaign, define what success looks like. Are you driving leads? Pushing e-commerce sales? Increasing brand awareness (ugh, we’ll get to why that’s usually a waste of money later)? If your goal is just “more clicks,” congratulations—you’ve just fallen for the ultimate PPC scam: paying for traffic that doesn’t convert.
Every campaign should have a quantifiable, measurable outcome tied to business KPIs. That means actual revenue, leads that don’t ghost you, or at the very least, cost per acquisition (CPA) that doesn’t make your CFO break out in hives.
Google Ads is the undisputed king of PPC, but let’s not pretend it’s the only game in town. Depending on your audience and objectives, Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) can still be a goldmine—if you’re willing to put up with Meta’s ever-changing rules and the occasional algorithmic meltdown. LinkedIn Ads? Great if you enjoy paying $12 per click for someone who will never fill out your lead form.
And then there’s the rising trend of alternative ad platforms. TikTok Ads are fantastic if you’re targeting Gen Z and have the budget to experiment. Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) may be the underdog, but they offer cheaper CPCs and a surprising number of high-intent users. If you’re in e-commerce, don’t ignore Amazon Ads—they print money for sellers who get their targeting right.
Google would love for you to just use broad match keywords and let their algorithm “figure things out.” Spoiler alert: this is a terrible idea. Broad match means your ad could show up for searches so unrelated to your business that it’s practically performance art.
Instead, focus on high-intent keywords—the ones that indicate users are actually ready to buy. Long-tail keywords often convert better because they signal more specific intent. The goal is not just to drive traffic, but to attract users who already have their wallets half-open.
Want to know what works? Look at your competitors. Tools like SEMrush, SpyFu, and Google’s Auction Insights let you see what keywords they’re bidding on, which ones they’re ranking for, and—most importantly—where they’re burning money so you don’t have to.
If a competitor is bidding on specific high-intent keywords, that’s your signal to investigate. Either they’re seeing a positive ROI, or they’re making an expensive mistake that you can learn from. Either way, it’s free intelligence.
Great PPC ads aren’t just about catchy headlines—they’re about aligning with search intent, making a compelling offer, and convincing users that clicking your ad is the smartest decision they’ll make today. A well-optimized ad uses clear, persuasive language with a direct CTA, because vague CTAs like “Learn More” are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
A/B testing is non-negotiable. Your gut instinct is probably wrong, so test different headlines, CTAs, and descriptions to see what actually drives conversions. If you’re not actively testing, you’re just guessing.
You have about three seconds to convince visitors that they made the right choice clicking your ad. If your landing page loads slowly, looks like it was designed in 2008, or makes users hunt for the CTA, they’re gone.
Your landing page should have a singular focus: conversion. That means no distractions, no unnecessary links, and definitely no autoplay videos that scare people away. A strong landing page aligns perfectly with the ad copy, ensuring a seamless experience from click to conversion.
Nothing kills conversion rates faster than misleading ad-to-landing page alignment. If your ad promises “50% off running shoes” and your landing page is a generic homepage with no mention of that discount, expect a bounce rate that makes your campaign ROI cry. Every landing page should reinforce the ad message, use clear headlines, and make it painfully easy for users to complete the desired action. If a user has to think, they’re already gone.
If you’re still using manual CPC bidding across all campaigns, congratulations—you’re officially working harder, not smarter. Google’s automated bidding strategies have their place, but blindly trusting the algorithm is like handing your credit card to a stranger and hoping for the best.
Smart bidding, when done correctly, can optimize conversions and lower CPA, but it requires constant monitoring. Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and Maximize Conversions can be effective, but only if you have historical data to feed the algorithm. If you’re running a new campaign, manual bidding still gives you more control.
Running PPC without proper tracking is like driving blindfolded and hoping you’ll reach your destination. You need to track not just clicks, but actual conversions, customer lifetime value (CLV), and return on ad spend (ROAS). Google Ads’ built-in tracking is decent, but combining it with Google Analytics, heatmaps, and call tracking will give you a full picture of what’s working.
Scaling PPC isn’t as simple as increasing your budget and watching conversions skyrocket. If you scale too fast, you’ll tank your ROI. The right approach is incremental scaling—gradually increasing spend while monitoring CPA and conversion rates. If your CPA starts climbing faster than your revenue, it’s time to reassess. And if your PPC manager insists that “everything is going great” while your ROAS tells a different story? It might be time for a new PPC manager.
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Most marketers love Google Ads.
We're no exception.
But we totally understand that businesses in certain industries sometimes have a deep resentment of Google Ads and their restrictive policies.
Google's policies for advertising are generally intuitive and straightforward, but for certain regulated and sensitive categories, the standards are much higher and less clear. Pharmaceutical companies, gambling websites, political campaigns, and other industries often struggle to get their ads approved consistently.
In fact, if you don't know what you're getting into, trying to advertise as a business in one of these categories can be a recipe for disaster.
How are you supposed to use Google Ads effectively if you belong to one of these regulated or sensitive categories?
Sensitive and regulated categories in PPC advertising face a number of challenges, including:
· Stricter guidelines. Most PPC advertisers are familiar and comfortable with basic Google Ads guidelines. But if you belong to a regulated or sensitive category, you'll have far more guidelines and more nuanced guidelines to deal with.
· Higher scrutiny. Google pays much closer attention to ads in regulated and sensitive categories, meaning you face closer scrutiny when your ads start circulating. Reports will be investigated quicker and much more strictly, and even minor violations can work against you.
· More ad disapprovals. Similarly, ads are much more likely to get disapproved in these categories. You'll face an uphill battle as you try to get your ads circulating.
· The risk of suspensions. Businesses in these categories also face the risk of frequent, ongoing suspensions. This trend is also worsening; in fact, in 2023, Google Ads suspended more than 12.7 million advertiser accounts – doubling their actions over the previous year.
This makes it much more difficult to advertise effectively and secure a positive return on investment (ROI). Additionally, failing to adhere to Google’s advertising policies can hurt your company's reputation and compromise your long-term potential for success.
The most important thing you can do to improve your results in a regulated or sensitive category is to plan for a sustainable, long-term strategy. Every year, thousands of business owners in these categories attempt to fool Google, find clever ways around its policies, and devise techniques that allow them to cheat the system.
These approaches can usually work temporarily. You can cheat your way into the listings and generate some traffic to your landing page.
But inevitably, these techniques fail, and they can ultimately get you blacklisted.
You're much better off taking the slow, steady approach, following the rules even if it means compromising your advertising effectiveness in the short term. Think about the long-term consequences and possibilities of each decision you make.
There is some good news here.
Google isn’t shy about publishing its advertising policies.
If you're willing to do the reading and research, you can thoroughly understand what Google expects from regulated and sensitive categories like yours – and you can easily adhere to the guidelines.
Well, maybe not “easily,” but reliably.
Generally, Google splits content into two types:
· Restricted content. Restricted content is sensitive content that is subject to more regulations. You must precisely comply with requirements for copy, images, website content, and more if you want to remain in circulation.
· Prohibited content. Prohibited content is totally disallowed. You cannot include it without facing significant consequences.
Unfortunately, we can't give you a big list of all the rules you need to follow, as the rules are different for various industries. Some of the most popular industries and categories that face steeper restrictions include:
· Pharmaceuticals and healthcare products
· Weapons and explosives
· Financial services (including cryptocurrencies)
· Gambling/games of chance
· Alcohol, tobacco, and similar products
· Political ads
· Adult content and services
While there are certainly commonalities between regulations across these categories, each category has its own unique blend of restrictions and rules to learn. For example, pharmaceutical businesses require formal certification from Google and are only allowed in some countries. In the financial services industry, you'll likely need a specific license, and you'll need to provide adequate disclosures for your products and services.
The more intimately you know these rules and regulations and how they apply to your industry, the more likely you'll be able to advertise successfully. Don't advertise until you're sure you understand all applicable Google Ads policies.
One other important note here: you need to stay updated.
Google isn't stagnant, and its advertising policies are constantly in flux. Accordingly, you need to stay abreast of recent changes and update your ad approaches in line with them.
The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to Google Ads policy updates, but you should also regularly engage in Google Ads forums. If you're lucky enough to have a representative, maintain open and transparent communication with them and stay in touch regularly; they can be a massive benefit for businesses in regulated and sensitive categories.
The more research you do, the better. You need to thoroughly understand your advertising landscape before you try to thread this needle.
· Google Ads policies. Obviously, read and understand Google Ads policies as they relate to your industry. We mostly covered this in the previous section, but it's part of the research you need to do.
· Licensing and certification requirements. Even if it's not specifically required by Google, it's a good idea to get any appropriate licenses or certifications. It's a mark of authority and trustworthiness that might save you if any of your ads are reviewed for potential policy violations.
· Laws and regulations. Similarly, violating any laws and regulations in the country where you're advertising could be grounds for ad removal or account suspension, even if those violations aren't specifically listed in Google Ads policies. Always ensure legal compliance before advertising with Google.
· Competitor advertising. It's also a good idea to research your competitors. It's very likely that businesses similar to yours, in the same category, are already advertising successfully. Look at what they're doing. How are they phrasing things? Which disclosures are they including? Do you notice anything missing? You can learn a lot simply by studying previously successful ads.
· Market research. The success of your Google Ads largely depends on your ability to successfully target and appeal to your demographics. If you're properly informative and persuasive, with relevant messaging to the people you're reaching, you're much less likely to face reports, removals, and suspensions. Accordingly, you need to do a deep dive into market research so you better understand your target demographics and can appeal to them with relevant content. If you don't have buyer personas, develop them. If you don't know what your target audience is struggling with or what they want to, pause your ads until you figure it out. There are no shortcuts here, so do a deep dive into your market research if you want a reasonable chance to succeed.
When creating and preparing new ads, make sure everything is compliant, including your copy, your images, and any of your website content.
Remember that the rules and restrictions vary by industry, but these are some general rules that can help you get started:
· Stick to the facts. Don't exaggerate. Don't embellish. Certainly don't lie. It's important to stick to the facts as closely as possible, even if it makes your ad a bit stoic or “boring.” Purely factual advertising rarely gets removed.
· Avoid prohibited or sensitive terms. Review prohibited and sensitive terms that apply to your industry, and avoid those terms like the plague. Consider creating a list of alternatives that you can rely on instead.
· Be transparent. Be absolutely transparent with your target audience, even if you're forced to reveal things that weaken the appeal of your products and services. Offer disclosures when required, and potentially when not required if they can boost your credibility.
· Adopt a serious, professional tone. Don't play with fire. Your best course of action is to adopt a serious, professional tone across your ads. It's much less likely to be reported, and it will seem more authoritative and trustworthy.
· Eliminate sensationalism. In line with this, eliminate all forms of sensationalism. Graphic or revealing content, exaggerated claims, and other techniques designed to evoke strong emotions are probably going to work against you.
· Focus on using images for context. If you're going to include images, make sure they provide meaningful context. Advertisers sometimes select images based on how easily they grab attention or how exciting they are, but this is a surefire way to fail if you belong to a sensitive or restricted category.
· Include warnings if necessary. If there are any warnings that are relevant to your products and services, include them. More information is typically better in matters like these.
· Leverage the power of AB testing. The more relevant and effective your ads are, the more likely they are to succeed. Leverage the power of AB testing to learn more about what your audience wants to see and how to give it to them.
Don't forget about your landing pages.
These are important to Google as well.
If your landing pages deviate from Google Ads guidelines, or if they contradict what's in your ads, it could work against you.
These are some tips to get you started:
· Keep it relevant. Always make sure your landing page is completely relevant and in line with whatever is included in your ad. If users click your ad and find something unexpected, unpleasant, or otherwise jarring, Google might take action.
· Issue disclaimers and warnings. This is an opportunity to double down on disclaimers, warnings, and important disclosures. Err on the side of caution and make these prominent to show that you're in full compliance with both Google Ads policies and laws in your area.
· Make your business information accessible. Make your business information transparent and accessible. Offer your brand name and business location information, and give visitors some way to contact you, preferably via phone and email. It's a sign of trustworthiness and it can proactively resolve potential disputes.
· Be straightforward and transparent. Everything on your landing page needs to be straightforward and transparent. Follow the same rules you did for your ads, and avoid exaggerations and sensationalism.
· Double check Google Ads requirements. Always double-check Google Ads requirements when constructing your landing page. You should fulfill or comply with each item on your landing page to be safe.
You've already done significant market research, so make sure you apply it correctly. Target your audience very specifically so that your messages are only shown to people for whom they are relevant. If someone outside the scope of your target demographics sees your ads, they'll be much more likely to issue reports – and your ads will be much more likely to be removed. It's especially important to target people in the right geographic area.
There are some Black Hat techniques designed to circumvent Google Ads rules and regulations, or otherwise give you an unfair advantage in a sensitive or restricted category. These techniques typically violate Google policies and are largely considered unethical by the advertising community.
One of the most prominent examples is cloaking. Using one of several techniques, cloaking can allow you to advertise to audiences with content different from what you showed Google for approval. It's obvious why this is potentially beneficial, but it's also obvious why this is unethical.
As you might imagine, these techniques can work temporarily. They can give you a significant short-term advantage, allowing you a better strategic position and potentially more ad opportunities. However, if you use them, you could get your account suspended, or even permanently blacklisted. Even if you evade that, you could ruin your company's reputation and jeopardize your long-term results.
Do not follow these strategies. If a PPC agency recommends any such strategies to you, fire them.
They simply aren't worth it.
Navigating the world of Google Ads isn't easy.
In fact, it's stressful and incredibly difficult if your business happens to belong to one of these sensitive or restricted categories.
The good news is it's much easier to be successful when you work with a PPC advertising agency that has experience creating and managing ads for a business like yours. We're deeply acquainted with all the rules and restrictions you need to worry about, and we know how to make target demographics like yours convert.
If you’re ready to get started with a free consultation, contact us today!
