Would you like to see more sales and signups from your landing pages? If you’re not happy with your conversion rate, you can certainly improve your results. However, it takes a commitment to a long-term strategy to see significant results that stick.
Creating a high converting landing page requires more than just writing some quick sales copy and publishing it on a webpage. From start to finish, creating a landing page takes research, planning, testing, adjusting, and more testing.
Optimizing a landing page to convert at a high rate requires multiple revisions sandwiched between multiple tests. Landing page optimization is an ongoing process. Even highly optimized landing page can be further improved. Unless you have a 100% conversion rate optimization there’s always room for improvement.
If you’re tired of minimal conversions and you’re wondering what you can do about it, you’re in the right place. This article will explain several ways you can increase your landing page conversion rate.
As a brief summary, to increase your conversions you need to identify opportunities for improvement and then implement the necessary changes. You can identify improvement opportunities by performing tests, which will all be explained below.
Here are X landing page tests you can run – and X changes you can make – to improve your landing page conversion rates.
Optimizing your landing page to increase your conversion rate optimization will rely on testing. Although you should hire a professional marketing agency to set up your tests, here’s a general idea of how it works.
Once creating landing page, that landing page is considered your “control.” Then, you create copies of your control page and change 1 or 2 elements on the page – preferably just one change at a time. Then, you market those pages through ads to the same target demographics and see which pages convert better.
When you identify the highest converting page, that page becomes your “control” and you can tweak additional elements to test those changes. This process is repeated on a regular basis.
Here are 4 landing page elements you’ll want to create variations for when running your tests. Since PPC ads begin the process of conversion, that’s where you’ll want to start optimizing first.
Traffic to your landing page will almost always come from PPC ad campaigns. There are other possible sources, but most people stick with PPC ads. Whether you’re using PPC ads or another ad source, start testing variations of your headlines and copy.
Headlines are the most important part of any ad. An effective headline will capture someone’s attention and influence them to click. The easiest way to capture attention with a headline is to promise to solve a big problem. Granted, your landing page copy will need to make good on that promise if you want conversions.
Your landing page visitors/website visitors will be heavily influenced by whatever they are exposed to right before arriving on your landing page. In other words, your PPC ads aren’t just a way to get clicks – they’re actually the beginning of the process of persuasion.
You can use your PPC ads to create a state of mind that will make visitors more perceptive to your marketing messages on your landing page.
Persuasion expert and author Robert Cialdini explains how this works, in detail, in his book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. However, he gave plenty of useful information in an interview with Forbes.
In the interview, Cialdini explained that researchers generated a higher participation rate from people by asking a question to get people thinking about how they are helpful people. When asking for help with a marketing survey, only 29% would participate. When asking a pre-suasive question, “Do you consider yourself a helpful person?” 77% of people agreed to participate.
If you’re running your own tests outside of a marketing agency, be willing to continually test ad headlines and copy. Improvement is an ongoing process that takes time.
In addition to your ad copy, your ad images (where applicable) have the potential to influence conversions. Before you start randomly testing images, read what other people have discovered to save yourself from having to reinvent the wheel.
For example, most people have learned through trial and error that proper contrast is more important than specific colors. Although, blue tends to be a good choice for a specific color scheme.
Wherever your ads display images, keep your images simple and relevant to your ad. Avoid gradients and complex graphic details that will make your image hard to see.
Your landing page design consists of the following:
There are seemingly endless variations you can create to test landing page elements. Unless you’re running a large budget marketing campaign, it’s important to start with one element at a time. For example, you might create variations of your landing page performance that includes all testimonials at the bottom of the page and another variation that sprinkles testimonials throughout the content.
Just like you’ll test your PPC ad headline and copy, you’ll want to test your landing page headlines and copy. Remember that people tend to scan copy rather than read it from start to finish. Because people scan, powerful, influential headlines will help your conversions.
The most important heading on your entire landing page is the top heading. Work on that heading first and then optimize the remaining headings.
For the most part, the changes you’ll make to your landing page will depend on what you’re testing. However, there are 5 basic changes you can make to your landing page that will optimize your conversions.
Distractions make it hard for visitors to know what to do next. Should they play the video or click on a link you provided in your sales copy? Or should they keep reading your sales page?
It’s important to create your landing page to be free from distractions. You’ll probably want to create a custom page template to start with a blank slate. It seems natural to create your landing page from an existing web page as a template. However, doing that will create multiple distractions for your visitors.
Landing pages need to be free from distractions. Distractions divert visitor attention away from your sales copy and can kill your conversion rate.
What counts as a distraction? Technically, anything that stops a visitor from reading your copy or pulls them away from the page is a distraction. Elements like:
Any and all links you insert into your sales copy on your landing page should place whatever item you’re selling into your visitor’s shopping cart. Aside from links in the footer, any other links will hurt your conversions.
Avoid linking to content in your landing page sales copy. You don’t want visitors to land on your sales page, click a link, and start wandering around your website or someone else’s website. You want visitors to stay on your sales page until they make a purchase.
Every link you publish on a sales page is one more opportunity for visitors to bounce without making a purchase. Don’t give visitors a reason to wander away from your sales page.
Navigation menus are the worst distraction for visitors on a sales page. If a visitor sees a navigation menu, they might start exploring your site instead of reading your sales copy.
You’ve probably seen landing pages with navigation, and there are exceptions. For example, navigation is okay if your landing page is a self-contained mini-website designed to provide visitors with important information. In that context, navigation is helpful.
On dynamic landing pages designed to generate sales or signups, a navigation menu will be a distraction and kill your conversions.
If you use your main web pages as a template for your landing page, make sure to eliminate the sidebar. Sidebar content will distract visitors and if it’s clickable, they’ll end up bouncing.
No matter what the content, sidebars don’t belong on landing pages – not even if the content is related to your product. If you have so much information that you want to present it to visitors in a sidebar, your landing page is already too complicated.
With few exceptions, landing page should be straightforward, simple, and clean. No navigation, no non-sale-related links, and no sidebar content.
Do you know the difference between a content writer and a copywriter?
If you’ve hired a content writer to write your landing page sales copy, you’ve hired a professional in the wrong industry. You need a copywriter, not a content writer. While both types of writers can be highly skilled, they’re entirely different professions.
Get your landing page copy written by a professional copywriter. It’s important to find a copywriter and not a blogger or content writer. Although content writers and bloggers can be phenomenal writers, high-level writing skills can actually prevent someone from writing effective sales copy.
Effective sales copy requires speaking directly to a well-defined target market using persuasive copywriting techniques that often defy grammar, punctuation, and other writing ‘rules.’
Say you’re an SEO firm selling an SEO Mastery Course that teaches entrepreneurs how to get high-level results. Your sales copy will directly influence your conversion rate and it won’t be based on perfect grammar.
You could have a landing page with well-written copy, perfect grammar and punctuation, and your conversions might still be low. Why? Good sales copy isn’t defined by the same standards as a good blog article. In fact, effective sales copy often uses incomplete sentences, incorrect punctuation, and a conversational tone that would make any English teacher whip out a red pen.
The point with sales copy isn’t to write perfect copy – it’s to persuade the reader to take a specific action. That often requires breaking the rules of grammar, punctuation, and style.
“Our SEO Mastery Course will show you how to get big results. Our expert SEO professionals will teach you how to increase your ranking in the search engines using several powerful techniques not available to the public.”
“If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve learned a little SEO, but it’s not enough. You want agency-level results without the price tag. You don’t mind doing the work – if only you knew the secrets.
Imagine learning 2 closely-guarded SEO techniques that will make leads pour in faster than you can follow-up with. Imagine generating instant sales from leads who have no prior contact with your brand. Marketing pros do it all the time and you can, too.
When you take our SEO Mastery Course, you’ll learn some of the top SEO secrets marketing gurus keep from even their top students. When you implement these strategies, you’ll get breakthrough results you never thought possible.”
Both versions of copy are well-written, but the copywriter’s version is specifically written to persuade the reader to buy the SEO Mastery Course.
The biggest difference is in the style and tone. Content writers are trained to create informative, factual, well-researched copy. Copywriters create persuasive copy using specific techniques to influence the reader.
The best solution is to hire one of the A-listers like David Deutsch or John Carlton. However, you may not have a 5-figure budget.
If you’re on a budget, work with a marketing agency to get access to copywriters. If that’s out of your budget, start poking around online to find copywriters for hire.
When you find a possible copywriter, ask to see a portfolio, and if possible, e the stats for how well their copy performs. Good copywriters get paid royalties for their work. They should be able to provide statistics on how well their copy has performed for past clients. If a copywriter doesn’t know how well their copy performs, keep looking for someone who can provide you with that information.
Good typography is critical for conversions. Although, with typography, less is more. You don’t want visitors to notice your typography – you want all typography to blend into the experience of reading your sales page or watching your video.
Simplify your typography as much as possible. Use a web-safe font face, preferably Arial or Times New Roman. Don’t use background colors other than white or off-white with black or dark gray main text. It’s okay to use colors in your copy and as headings. However, avoid the high-contrast color schemes that use black or dark backgrounds with light text.
If you really want to dive into the art of persuasion using typography, read up on the 2012 experiment run by Errol Morris published in the New York Times. In the experiment, 40,000 readers read a passage from a book and were asked if they agreed with the passage by stating ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The experiment utilized 6 different typefaces and determined that:
Typography can be a tedious element to optimize, but if you have the time and dedication it’s worth the effort.
Simplifying your landing page design and colors, and reducing the number of elements used will support an increase in landing page’s conversion rates / page speed/page load time. Ideally, your landing pages should be as plain as possible – almost boring in terms of design. Plain or ugly landing pages convert better than fancy landing pages.
Why do ugly sites convert more than fancy sites? Technically, it’s because plain and ugly sites contain little to no distractions and just offer the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the content. In other words, a website’s value is more accessible on an ugly site than a fancy site. There’s no eye candy, which is perfect for conversions.
When you create plain or ‘ugly’ landing pages, you’re stripping away all the bells and whistles and presenting pure content. It’s a natural way to prevent yourself from creating unnecessary barriers to the sale.
Another element that might seem strange is using large ‘buy’ buttons. At first, it might seem cheesy and spammy to use huge ‘buy’ buttons that take up most of the viewport. However, just like the ugly site phenomenon, large ‘buy’ buttons increase conversions.
If you’re not sure about using large ‘buy’ buttons, you can always split test your buttons against your highest converting page.
Optimizing your marketing strategy is the final component required to increase your landing page conversion rate. Here are 4 changes you can make to your marketing strategy to get better results.
How well do you know your market? How long has it been since you researched your market? Have you researched your market or are you guessing?
Finding your target market is a lot like generating a keyword list for SEO; both require extensive research and your opinion might not be accurate. For example, many business owners make the mistake of thinking they are their own target audience market. So, they craft marketing messages that appeal to them. In reality, their main market is usually an entirely different demographic.
No matter what your product is, only research can pinpoint your target market. Even when your market seems obvious, you can always go deeper. For example, if you sell socks, your obvious market is everyone. However, you won’t sell many socks marketing to everyone with a general message. Even when you sell a product as universal as socks, you still need to define a smaller group of people so you can craft specific, targeted messages to the group.
Market research will open the door for you to discover more about your market than you can gather from your own thoughts. With in-depth market research, you can discover multiple sub-niches that are also individual markets you can target with even more detailed and tailored marketing messages.
Most products and services have more than one target market. However, some markets are more profitable than others. Still, if you can target multiple niche segments of your market, you’ll increase conversions.
Specific marketing messages tailored for your market segments will increase conversions. Here’s how that works. Say you’re selling frozen black bean burritos. You can market your burritos to people who love black bean burritos and you’ll generate decent conversions.
You can also market your frozen black bean. burritos to people who don’t have time to cook and you’ll probably get more sales – even from people who aren’t too thrilled about black beans. Why? When marketing to that segment, the product is convenience. When marketing to burrito lovers, the product is the black bean burrito.
This is where having a professional copywriter will help you the most. They’ll know exactly how to write unique sales copy that reaches multiple market segments.
You’ll get landing page conversion rate when your marketing message is effective. To be effective, your marketing message needs to be targeted. Sales and conversions will increase as your marketing message more specifically targets your market. However, it’s important that you direct your marketing message to a specific target au market rather than creating a general marketing message.
The world’s top A-list copywriters get results because they write sales copy that targets specific markets. They’ve perfected their craft over many years and often earn tens of thousands of dollars – plus royalties – for writing just a few paragraphs.
For example, the late copywriting master Dan Kennedy was routinely hired by large corporations to see if his copy could outperform the company’s control piece. When Kennedy was allowed to run with his ideas, his copy outperformed the company’s control by a landslide.
However, Kennedy ran into the same problem with nearly every company that contracted him. He would go into a marketing meeting and people would toss out random advertising ideas based on the product’s features. If the company was selling a perfume, they’d toss out creative ideas for a product name, what colors to use, how to package the product, and what kind of music to put in the ad.
Nobody in the marketing meetings would talk about the target market.
In these meetings, Kennedy would redirect the conversation and get people talking about the target rather than the product.
Thinking of the target is the only way you’ll develop effective marketing messages. Effective copy speaks directly to the target rather than about the product.
The difference between copy that speaks to a target and copy that talks about the product is a small, yet critical distinction. Here’s a simple example:
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The difference between these two marketing messages is huge. The first message that simply discusses the product’s features is not a targeted message and won’t be that effective. There will always be some people who will buy items without targeted messaging, but it’s a small number.
The second message speaks directly to a target market consisting of busy people who don’t have time to make coffee in the morning, but can’t function without their coffee. This isn’t the most specific target possible, but it’s targeted enough to give you an idea of what specific targeting looks like.
Once your landing pages contain professionally-written, targeted sales copy, there’s one more step to ensure success. Your traffic source needs to be highly targeted as well.
It’s easy to manipulate people into clicking on PPC ads. However, that tactic will only decrease your landing page conversion rates.
Your PPC ads create an expectation for what the content will be your landing page. When people click on your advertisement, they expect the target page to be relevant to the ad. If the content doesn’t deliver on the promise in your ad, or if the content was hyped up in the ad, your visitors will bounce.
Additionally, if you’re running PPC ads to random demographics, you’re wasting your marketing budget. There are people who click on ads that look casually interesting even if they’re not part of that market.
The solution is to first work on defining your target market’s demographics. Then, optimize your PPC ads to be displayed for your target market. Ultimately, you’ll increase your landing page conversion rates when you target the right people with relevant and influential messages.
Although there are separate components, it’s all one continuous experience, from your PPC ad to your landing page.
You can’t increase landing page conversion rate by only optimizing your landing page. Increasing conversions is a trifecta that includes optimizing your landing page, your PPC ads, and your target demographics.
The tips and strategies outlined in this article will help you optimize your PPC ads and landing pages to generate higher conversion rates. However, your ability to get conversions will always hinge on how well you know – and target – your market.
Don’t skip market research, and don’t confuse market research with checking out keywords using Google Analytics. Market research is a fundamental aspect of marketing that has been somewhat lost in the DIY marketing revolution of the last decade or so.
It’s understandable if you’re on a tight budget and you can’t afford to pay a research firm for information on your target market. However, not having access to that information will hold you back. However, there are things you can do on your own to discover more about your market.
Are your conversions lacking? Does DIY marketing sound too exhausting? Get more conversions effortlessly by partnering with PPC.co. We’ll help you create a powerful PPC ad campaign that reaches your most profitable target market and we’ll create landing pages with professionally-written copy that sells.
Contact us today and tell us what you need. We’ll help you creating landing pages or high converting landing pages & get the landing page conversions you deserve.
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Launching an online course is easy once you’ve created your content. Filling your virtual classroom with motivated, paying learners is a little more challenging. Advertising strategies aren’t intuitive no matter how user-friendly a platform might be, and trying to guess at how to market your courses online can feel like you’re shouting into the void. But with a little knowledge and some expert PPC ad strategies, you can get your courses in front of people who are hungry to learn what you teach.
With precise targeting, a professional strategy, budget control, and regular tracking, a PPC ad campaign can transform your course into a thriving program. The key is knowing how to structure your ad campaigns for both clicks and hot leads that convert.
Unlike search engine optimization (SEO), which can take months to gain even a little traction, PPC provides you with immediate visibility right where your target users are hanging out. SEO is important but it’s a long-term game that should be executed alongside PPC ads for the best results. While you’re waiting, PPC generates immediate clicks and drives traffic to your website on the spot.
The best part is that when done right, PPC ads offer a high ROI compared to many other advertising methods. According to the data, businesses earn an average of $2 for every $1 they spend on Google Ads, making PPC a powerful resource for course providers. Here’s everything you need to know about mastering PPC to generate hot leads for your online courses.
1. Understand the learner’s journey
If you want your PPC ads to generate leads ready to buy and not just curious clicks, you need to align your ad strategy with how learners make decisions. Signing up for an online course is not an impulse purchase. It’s a journey that usually starts with curiosity and then moves to research and comparison. When successful, that journey ends with enrollment.
A one-size-fits-all ad won’t work because a student who is just browsing isn’t ready for the same pitch as someone about to hand over their credit card. Understanding the different parts of the funnel, and tailoring your ad campaigns to match each stage, is what will make your course successful. A typical buyer’s journey for learners involves the following stages:
At this stage, your potential students are still exploring broad ideas related to the courses you’re offering. They may not know exactly which course or platform is right for them, but they’re actively looking for options. You’ll need to use a certain type of keyword phrase to capture their attention.
Searches like “learn coding online,” “how to get TEFL certified,” and “language courses for beginners” will work well at this stage. PPC ads in this phase shouldn’t hard-sell enrollment, but rather, focus on positioning your course as credible and informative.
Think free guides, introductory webinars, and blog posts that answer frequently asked questions about your topic. By nurturing your leads’ interests and providing value right off the bat, you’ll have an easier time becoming a trusted brand that people keep in mind as they move deeper into the journey.
During the consideration state prospects know what they want but they’re comparing their options. They’ve narrowed down their choices and are considering factors like price, flexibility, depth, instructor quality, platform, and accreditation. Ideal search terms in this phase are related to specific things that your prospects value or want to achieve like “affordable Python bootcamp,” “online MBA with scholarships,” or “best UX design course with certification.”
Your PPC ads should also highlight unique selling points for your course like “self-paced learning,” “industry-recognized certificate,” or “job placement success.” It’s at this stage where comparison charts, testimonials, and detailed course previews are highly effective. The goal is to show your prospects why your program beats the competition.
At this point, hesitation is minimal. Prospects are ready to sign up but might need one last push. This is where urgency, social proof, and simplicity make all the difference. Ads should feature strong calls to action like “Enroll Today,” limited-time incentives like “Save 20% - Ends Sunday.” This is the perfect time to showcase real student success stories. Landing pages for ads in the decision stage should remove all friction. Avoid long forms and distracting links. Just provide a clear and simple path to enrollment.
Keep in mind that most of your ideal market will encounter your brand multiple times along their journey across different devices and platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Mapping your PPC ad campaigns to these three stages ensures you’re showing up with the right message at the right time. When done correctly, focusing on all three stages with separate messages will turn casual searchers into qualified leads ready to buy your course.
The backbone of every PPC campaign is your keyword selection. You can write the most convincing ad copy in the world, but if you’re bidding on the wrong phrases you’ll either waste your budget or attract people who have no intention of enrolling.
Your goal isn’t just to drive traffic to your site. You need to drive qualified traffic – people who are serious about learning what you teach and are ready to invest in themselves. This requires targeting a mix of high-intent keywords, longtail phrases, and negative keywords.
Broad keywords like “data science” and “coding” cast a net that’s too wide. You’ll get clicks but most will be from people who are just curious or looking for free resources. To reach people who are committed, you need to target high-intent keywords that show purchase intent. Phrases like “enroll in our data science course” and “online JavaScript certification with ongoing support” will attract users who are actively seeking instruction.
You’ll pay more for high-intent keywords but they deliver more value and higher conversion rates, and that will increase your ROI when you choose the right ones.
Longtail keywords are used to target a smaller pool of people and that’s a good thing. Since these keywords are more focused, the traffic they generate is more valuable. Instead of competing for saturated, general terms like “learn graphic design online,” you target specific phrases like “best graphic design program for working professionals with evening classes.” The people searching with this level of specificity already know what they want, which means they’re more likely to convert.
If you skip targeting longtail keywords you’re leaving money on the table. Data shows that 70% of all online searches involve longtail phrases – it’s just how people naturally search when they know what they want.
Your negative keyword list is how you’ll preserve your budget and prevent wasting money on irrelevant clicks. Without a list of words you don’t want your ads to show up for, you’ll end up paying for clicks that never convert.
Build a negative keyword list of words that indicate someone is looking for something free or irrelevant to your course. For example, words like “free,” “PDF,” “torrent,” and “Reddit” are usually used in searches when someone is looking for shortcuts and freebies. Adding these and similar words to your negative keyword list will filter out tire-kickers and boost ROI by preserving your ad budget for relevant prospects.
Once you have the right keywords that generate impressions, your ad copy has to do the work to get clicks. Your ads need to grab people right away to prevent them from scrolling and possibly clicking on another course provider’s ad. For e-learning, your ads need to inspire people. Instead of talking about your course you want to highlight what your course will do for the learner. This is accomplished with benefit-driven messaging, emotional triggers, and strong calls-to-action (CTAs).
· Benefit-driven messaging. Most course providers list features like “40 hours of video content” and “downloadable PDFs,” but these details aren’t going to capture attention at first glance. In fact, telling learners they’re going to need to sit through 40 hours of content right off the bat might be a deterrent.
Instead, your ads should highlight tangible outcomes like “land high-paying clients with our program,” or “start a new career as a web developer in just 12 weeks.” Benefits speak directly to a person’s goals and aspirations, which is far more compelling than a list of specs.
· Emotional triggers. Emotional triggers are the heart of every marketing strategy, including PPC ads. People make emotional buying decisions and buy courses because they’re chasing a dream, avoiding a fear, or seeking transformation.
Great ad copy taps into these emotions and creates a sense of urgency. For instance, “Don’t miss the enrollment deadline” plays into the fear of missing out, while “Join 10,000 successful graduates” leverages social proof. The right emotional triggers will give people a good reason to act now rather than bookmarking your page and forgetting about it.
· Clear CTAs. Irresistible ad copy includes a direct, compelling call-to-action that tells the prospect what to do next. Generic instructions don’t cut it. “Learn more,” “Click here,” and similar phrases don’t communicate urgency or value. Choose CTAs that direct prospects to sign up for your course. For example, “Start your free trial” and “Reserve your seat today” work well.
In a crowded marketplace where hundreds of course creators are competing for the same attention, clarity and emotion will generate better results. Lead with benefits and tap into people’s emotions and your ad copy will generate serious leads.
Generating clicks from your ads is only the first half of the equation. Once a prospect clicks your landing page needs to convert them to a paying customer or your ad spend goes to waste. Your landing page is like the final pitch where prospective students choose whether to enroll in your course or move on. If your landing pages create any confusion, friction, or distrust, your prospects will lean toward other course creators. On the other hand, an optimized landing page can become a conversion generating machine.
Your landing pages should be simple and clean without too much information. The page content should be specifically designed to direct people to sign up for your course. You want to eliminate navigation menus and sidebars to prevent people from clicking away from the page and getting distracted. Each landing page should have one end goal, either to get sign-ups/purchases or apply for acceptance if required. Too many options will create cognitive overload and reduce the chance of any action.
It’s crucial to include trust elements on your landing pages. When people are thinking about investing their time and money in an online course, they’re naturally going to be skeptical. This is where trust signals can help. Testimonials, instructor bios, refund guarantees, and case studies will help build your course credibility. The goal here is to reassure people that your program is legitimate and worth their investment.
Clicks are important but they’re somewhat of a vanity metric when measured on their own. The only time clicks matter is when you’re looking at your conversion rate. If you generate 100 clicks and get 40 people to enroll that’s much better than generating 1,000 clicks and only getting one person to enroll in your course.
The metrics that matter most are your conversion rate, your cost per lead (CPL), and lifetime customer value (LTV). For instance, you’ll want to track completed signups, demo requests, and enrollments rather than overall clicks.
Cost per lead is a simple measurement that can tell you how efficient your campaign is. For instance, if you’re paying $50 per lead but your average enrollment fee is $500, your margins are good. If your CPL is too close to your revenue then your course might be priced too low or you need to adjust your targeted keywords.
For e-learning, many students invest in more than one course or renew their subscription, which increases their lifetime value to your business. Tracking LTV will help you determine how much you can afford to spend acquiring each new student. For example, if your LTV average is $1,500, it makes sense to spend $200 to acquire each lead. This long-term view helps you maintain profitability and allows you to outbid your competitors who aren’t willing to spend much.
PPC ads require fine-tuning and you can’t just “set it and forget it.” What works today might underperform tomorrow or not perform at all on other platforms. Even small changes can make a huge difference in conversions and that’s why it’s important to test variations. For example, Dell is just one example of a company that saw a 300% increase in conversions from A/B testing.
By running experiments to test different elements you can identify what resonates most with your target audience and optimize your ads based on those results. The most important elements to test are your headlines, CTAs, and images.
· Testing headlines. Your ad headline is usually the first thing a prospect sees. Testing different headlines can help identify which promises resonate most. For example, “Land your dream job” might appeal to people looking for a new career, while “Get certified in 12 weeks” might hook people in a hurry. If you get more conversions from the former, your main audience is likely people looking for a new career, and you can tailor your ads to that group.
· Testing CTAs. A strong CTA can generate more clicks, but what works will depend on your audience. For example, “Get started today” might work for some courses while “Reserve your spot” works better for others. Avoid vague CTAs like “Learn more” that don’t instruct people to take action.
· Testing visuals. Images can put people off or draw them closer. Visuals are processed faster than text and are perceived in a split-second. A single image can make or break an ad. For instance, sometimes a photo of an instructor works well, but other times it’s better to use abstract graphics.
Split testing isn’t optional when you’re running PPC ads. It’s the only way to know which elements make your ads more effective.
At the end of the day, PPC is a great way to build a pipeline of motivated students who want to enroll in your courses. By aligning your campaign with the learner’s journey and optimizing your ads and landing pages for conversions, you can turn your PPC campaign into a reliable growth engine. As the e-learning market becomes more competitive, ads that hit hard are a must.
If you’re ready to stop wasting ad spend and start filling your online classrooms with qualified leads, it’s time to bring in PPC experts. At PPC.co, we specialize in turning clicks into enrollments through high-converting campaigns that deliver qualified leads for online course creators . Contact our team today and let’s build campaigns that fill your classroom.
Pay-per-click (PPC) remains one of the fastest paths to pipeline, but the economics vary widely by industry and are shifting as AI reshapes the SERP. CPCs are up versus prior years, conversion rates have improved in many categories, and lead quality is increasingly a function of how well advertisers feed first-party data into bidding models.
The table below summarizes 2025 search-PPC benchmarks by sector—CPC, conversion rate (CVR), and cost per lead (CPL)—so you can compare what “good” looks like in your niche and calibrate ROI assumptions.
Use these numbers as directional guardrails, then layer in your own close rates and LTV to get to the only metric that matters: profitable growth.
In short, AI is changing the way PPC campaign management is occurring, and it's happening FAST.
ROI ≈ (Close-Rate × Avg Customer LTV ÷ CPL) − 1
Example (legal): if close-rate 12% and LTV $6,000 on CPL $132 → ROI ≈ (0.12×6000 / 132) −1 ≈ 4.45x (345% net). Improve any one input (faster intake bumps close-rate; better routing lowers CPL) and ROI jumps. Benchmarks for CPL/CVR above provide solid starting points. LocaliQ
PPC will keep paying when two things are true:
(1) you can convert and qualify leads quickly, and
(2) your bidding models are trained on the outcomes that actually make you money.
As AI compresses differences in targeting, the edge shifts to first-party data, creative velocity, and value-based bidding.
Treat the benchmarks above as starting points, then rebuild your ROI math from the ground up: ROI ≈ (Close Rate × LTV ÷ CPL).
Contact us today for your customized PPC audit to see how we can improve your search engine marketing ad spend.
