How To Increase Your PPC Conversions

If you oversee paid marketing and you advertise on Google Ads, you will know that conversions are usually one of the key KPIs used to determine how well your campaigns are doing. In this article we will explore the definition of the term “conversion” and different ways to increase conversions through various bidding strategies, account expansion and improvements to websites for improved CRO.

What do we consider a conversion?

In general, there are two type of campaigns: revenue driven and lead generation. Revenue driven campaigns are appropriate for retailers where you can assign a specific monetary value for each conversion. In this case, you are more likely to work with return on ad spend (ROAS) or cost of advertising (COA) goals. Your main objective for this conversion type should be to increase your average order value (AOV) and revenue and ensure that what you spend on advertising is profitable for your business.

If you run a business where it is impossible to instantly define the value of your conversion, then you are most likely to use lead generation campaigns. In general, the main objective of lead generation campaigns is to lead a potential customer to make an inquiry about services that you offer. That is what we call a conversion. Industries that may use lead generation conversions include insurance, finance, B2B services, car dealerships and more. For lead generation campaigns, there is a greater diversity of what we call a conversion, and this can include phone calls, local actions, contact forms, newsletter sign ups, clicks to call, brochure downloads, booking a visit and others.

PPC conversion setup and considerations

Especially for lead generation campaigns, you will want to carefully consider how you ensure that you are working towards increasing the right type of conversion for your business. For example, if you are advertising B2B services, some conversions will be more valuable than others depending on where customers are in their journey. A brochure download could mean that the potential customers are still browsing around different websites and they are in the consideration phase. On the other hand, a contact form could be more valuable as it means that the customer is more serious about finding out more the services you have to offer.

In Google Ads, you can assign certain values for each conversion type. You can also decide whether to include certain actions as conversions or not. This is important because if you do not mark a certain action as a conversion, then Google will not optimise your bid strategy towards this goal. At the same time, you will be able to see a value for actions excluded from being conversion under the column “all conversions”.

How to increase PPC conversions through bid strategies optimization

PPC automation is key, and most advertisers should be using some sort of automated bidding in their portfolio as it is more efficient than manual bidding and uses Google AI powered algorithms to make decisions about bids.

If you run retail campaigns, have driving revenue as your key objective and have performance history in the account, then you should use a ROAS bid strategy based on your profit margin of what percentage you’re able to spend on advertising. If you need some help with finding the right ROAS value that works for you, SilverDisc has a very useful PPC ROI tool to help you do this. As soon as your revenue starts to increase in line with your ROAS target, you should notice an increase in conversions as a side effect.

For lead generation campaigns, different bid strategies will help you increase the number of conversions. The “maximise conversions” bid strategy is perfect if your priority is to get as many conversions as possible and you are relatively flexible about the cost per conversion. If you want to increase conversions but you do not want to go beyond a certain cost per conversion, then a cost per acquisition (CPA) bid strategy may be a good choice for you.

How to increase PPC conversions through account expansion

To get more conversions, it is important to expand your account so that you don’t miss any opportunities.

You should always consider adding new keywords into your account. You can do this through search query reviews and monitoring of what searches are triggering conversions. If you don’t have one already in the account, it is worth creating a dynamic search ads campaign and carefully monitoring keywords and search terms that are coming through, to ensure that you have good coverage for them in your search campaigns.

If you are a retailer and you want to generate more sales, it is important to implement a shopping feed in the merchant centre and ensure that you implement shopping campaigns in the account. Based on our experience, we know that implementing shopping campaigns can increase conversions by over 50%. The new smart shopping campaigns enable you to mix shopping with dynamic remarketing, so you should give it a try.

If your work with a higher budget, you should ensure that you advertise and optimise your campaigns both on Google and Bing. Bing advertising could comfortably increase the number of conversions by an extra 20% with a lower cost per click and, as a consequence, a lower cost per conversion.

How to increase PPC conversions through manual bidding

In limited cases you might use manual bidding. This may be true if your account is very small or if you want total control over your bids. In this case, you should adjust bids manually and ensure that you are not below the first page bid, your campaign is not limited by budget and the keyword quality score is good. You should carefully monitor your search impression share so that you do not fall behind your competitors.

How to increase PPC conversions through improving conversion rate

To increase the number of conversions but also ensure that your conversions are good quality, you should definitely pay attention to the conversion rate metric. The formula for conversion rate is (conversions/clicks)*100. To improve CR you should ensure that clicks coming from your keywords are all relevant and have some conversions recorded in the past. Pausing non-performing keywords can save you money and improve your conversion rate.

You should also monitor your keyword quality score and ensure that keywords you use match with text in your ad copy and landing pages. A better quality score will give you a discount in Google’s auction for bids, while relevant advertising will improve user experience and, as a consequence, will lead to a higher number of conversions.

To improve your conversion rate and maximise your chances of catching new conversions, you should ensure that you use all available ad extensions.

How to increase PPC conversions through website improvements

PPC does not work in a vacuum, so to get more conversions you should ensure that your landing pages are optimised. Make sure that your website works great on mobile and desktop, designs are consistent and website speed is good. Plus, the process of getting to checkout for retail advertisers and the process of making an enquiry for lead generation businesses should be smooth and secure. For customers’ peace of mind, ensure that your SSL certificates are updated and that you have safe and GDPR compliant processes to store data. It is also important to ensure that the content of the landing page matches your keywords and ad copy.

Conclusions

In conclusion, to increase the number of conversions through PPC you need to ensure that your goals are well defined and properly set up in Google Ads. You should make use of automated bid strategies that Google provides, but if you choose to use manual bidding, ensure that you keep optimising your bids. To increase your chances of getting new conversions, you should expand the account where it is possible, optimise your keywords and the landing pages. And if you need any help with your PPC, the SilverDisc team will be happy to help. Get in touch today.