Your Adwords campaign was supposed to deliver great results at low cost… But it didn’t really work out that way, did it? In this article you’ll find 8 solid actionable tips to increase your Adwords CTR and ROI. A good Google Adwords campaign really is worthwhile.
1. Increase your Adwords CTR by being relevant
As all seasoned pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers can tell you: relevancy is paramount for getting a healthy click-through-rate (CTR). You’ve probably been told this before. You might still be wondering HOW to be relevant. You could even be confused by exactly how relevant we want you to be.
Group your keywords per theme, use 10 to 15 keywords at most for one adgroup. Don’t make assumptions. Somone looking for a notebook is not someone looking for a laptop. A good Adgroup might contain ‘red t-shirt’, ‘tshirt red’, ‘red tshirt’ and ‘ordering red t-shirts’. This same group should never contain ‘t-shirt’ or ‘clothing’.
Pretend you’re wanting to order a t-shirt online. Your favorite color is red, you love collars and you’re a size M. Which ad would you click?
I would click c, it show me exactly what I'm looking for. It's clearly the most relevant Ad.
2. Pick your Adwords battles
Return on investment is what makes or breaks your Adwords campaign. The point shouldn’t be ranking #1 on a keyword (unless you’re working on branding, YUCK). Honestly, most of the time I don’t really want that number 1 position.
Cost per conversion formula cpc * ( 100 / conversion rate ) = cost / conversion
The amount of money you have to spend per conversion is simply: CPC * conversion percentage. I pay $ 0.45 per click for ‘red t-shirts’ on position #1. My conversion percentage on ‘red t-shirts’ is 0.43%. This means I need 232 clicks to sell a t-shirt (a red one, yea). At $ 0.45 CPC this is a whooping $ 104,65 per conversion. On position #7 my CPC is just $ 0.07, or $ 16,24 per conversion. I don’t want to be number one.
If I happen to have a 3.12% conversion rate on ‘neon green sneakers’ I’ll take the number one position there, if you don’t mind.
3. Communicate your USP’s
Why should I buy my sexy red collared t-shirt from you and not from competitor X?
Ad a offers me no USP, Ad b offers me one, Ad c has two. Why would I buy at competitor a?
Tell me what you do better than the other 9 advertisers on the page. Are you cheaper? Tell me the price. Are you quicker? Tell me how quick. People don’t like decisions, anything that makes them easier is welcome. Tell me why to buy from you and I just might.
4. Have great landingpages
After a customer clicks on your ad, what happens next? A great landingpage matches expectations. If I click on the now famous ‘red t-shirt’-ad I expect to land on the red t-shirt with a fancy collar procut page. Not on your clothing store homepage. Drop me where I find what I expect to find.
An extension of that: if you mention ‘free shipping’ in your ad it should also be clearly visible on your landingpage. The same can be said for all your USP’s. Match my expectations or I will BOUNCE. Bouncers cost money but don’t do anything (pardon the pun). Also bounces reduce your conversion percentage which influences your Quality Score and increases your CPC in the long run. Bad.
Which conversion path do you think more people will finish?
5. Make converting easy
Want to raise your conversion percentage? Easy. Make it simple to convert. Make it easy and painless to buy from you. This one goes hand in hand with having great landingpages: if you drop me on a product page I’m closer to an actual conversion than I am on your homepage.
Well there you have it. 5 simple tips on getting a solid CTR and ROI from your adwords campaign. None of this should be hard to implement, it’s all straightforward and manageable stuff. Do it. I think especially tip 2 is one every ppc marketeer should take to heart. You simply shouldn’t want to take position #1 for each keyword. Don’t be afraid to bid low and get some actual value for money.
If you’re selling anything through a webshop and aren’t using Google Adwords yet: you’re doing it wrong.
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