Improving your profits on Pay Per Click
If you’re running a PPC campaign, you’ll know that it can be expensive - after all, you are paying each time somebody clicks through to your website. So you need to be sure that that every click counts and you are not wasting money on visitors who are unlikely to convert into business. As for click costs, it could well be that your competitors are achieving better ad positions and a better conversion rate than you – even though they are paying less per click!
Armorica is one of the UK’s leading on-line cookware shops and last year they enlisted the help of WRD to help improve their Google Adwords ROI. They have been delighted with the results.
It’s not that Armorica weren’t getting any traffic from PPC – on the contrary – the previous PPC managers were doing a great job of spending a substantial click budget! Our aim was to ensure that those clicks converted to business. By adding identifiers to each of the adverts and analysing the website statistics, we were quickly able to establish which ads were converting to sales and direct the budget accordingly.
When embarking on a PPC campaign, it is important to remember that not all products or services will be suitable for advertising on this medium. If you have products with a low ticket price or a low profit margin, the click costs may make PPC prohibitive. Also, you will need to do some research and review your pricing. Online customers tend to be more price conscious and will spend some time shopping for the lowest prices. If your PPC competitors are advertising the same goods at a lower price than you, you are unlikely to be successful. In the case of Armorica, we focused our campaigns on keenly priced products with high profit margins.
We went on to review the keywords that were being used to trigger ads to focus on the most effective terms. Although generalist terms can generate a lot of clicks, as a rule they are less successful when it comes to conversions. More specific search terms are more effective at generating sales as the customer is nearer to the ‘buying decision’. If you have a limited budget, it is far more cost-effective to focus on these niche terms.
Next, we reviewed the adverts themselves. It is important to create compelling adverts that potential customers will want to click on. The position of your advert is dependant on two factors; the amount you bid and the quality of the advert. Ad quality is measured by your adverts’ Click Through Rate. By achieving a higher Click Through Rate, you can afford to lower your bids and still retain or even improve your ad’s position. We reworded many of Armorica’s adverts, highlighting any applicable offers or discounts. By grouping keywords into smaller categories, we were able to create more focused adverts and improve Click Through Rates.
By making these and many other adjustments to the campaign, we have been able to increase the ROI by over 30% to date. By constantly monitoring the performance of each advert and each keyword, along with the website statistics, we have been able to ensure that Armorica’s click budget is being focused on the products that are most likely to convert into real business.