Google AdWords is a great channel to get leads for your business. But, a key to your success is the use of data-driven digital marketing and analytics. Therefore, at Convergytics we provide end-to-end, data-driven marketing. That’s how we helped a leading furniture retailer based in US to increase their AdWords ROI 3X. We used extensive tracking of clicks from Google AdWords and detailed drill-down analysis and segmentation of traffic to study the results, and continue to test & learn and optimize the user experience.
1. Target the right keywords
When you choose keywords, think like your prospects, and use keywords that indicate buyer intent. That means keywords people who are shopping or, at least, researching their buying options, would put in. The Keyword Planning tool helps you to find keywords that are relevant, convey buyer intent and have relatively little competition.
If you sell internationally, find the keywords used in those countries. The US, the UK, Australia and others use different vocabularies.
Track your results. Some keywords result in click-thru and sign-ups, but not sales conversions. You need to eliminate them once your data analytics identifies them.
Use negative keywords such as “free,” “bargain” and “sale.” Negative keywords screen out any search queries containing those words. You don’t want customers who are just looking for the lowest prices.
2. Manage your bid strategy to get the right traffic
To earn a healthy ROI from your campaigns, you must focus on conversions, not clicks, impressions and traffic for the sake of traffic.
Use a bid strategy to maximize conversion. Google itself says that’s Enhanced CPC or Target CPA bidding. Set up Conversion Tracking, and test to discover which strategies and keywords bring prospects that turn into sales. Use Google Analytics.
3. Target the right locations
Think strategically about your product or service. If you’re a car dealer in Milwaukee you don’t want to pay for people in New York to see your ad. If you’re selling an information product in English, consider screening out countries where people don’t speak English. You can even go after specific cities (e.g. Target Toronto, but exclude Quebec). If you are into high-end fashion and want to target the urban population, make sure you exclude semi-urban and rural audience. You must continuously track your conversions, and fine-tune based on the data. Drop countries or all locations where prospects don’t convert to save your budget for countries and areas where people buy.
4. Target at the right time (of day) / day (of week)
When do your prospects spend the most time online? Test to discover that. If you sell a B2B product turn off your ads at night and during the weekends. Study and analyze Google Analytics to learn at what times your sites gets the most traffic, and how many convert into sales. That varies a lot depending on your business and your customers and leveraging data and analytics can help ensure every click is more likely to convert into a sale.
5. Use extensions appropriately.
Extensions show extra information about your business. They increase your ad’s visibility. They include: (Call, Site-links, Your location, A structured snippet, Reviews, Call-outs and Apps).
Test your ad’s performance with and without the extensions because Google charges you when somebody clicks on them. Therefore, those clicks are more expensive, but are certainly worth it if they increase your ad’s CTR and result in more sales.
Call dials your business’s telephone number. The Apps extension allows users to download your mobile app. The Location extension is great for local businesses because it displays your full address, telephone and a map marker.
6. Drive traffic to the right landing page.
Send ad traffic to a landing page you’ve aligned with the ad text, never to your home page. Continue the theme of the ad’s text. If your ad to sell cars brags about your deals in used Fords, deals in used Fords should be the main subject of your landing page.
Your ad sets up an expectation in the prospect’s mind about what they’ll find after they click through. Your landing page headline and copy must fulfill that expectation, or you’ll confuse prospects.
Your landing page consists of:
- A relevant headline with Bullet points that talks about the benefits
- An appealing, dramatic image or video that works
- A powerful Call-To-Action to convince visitors to share their details / make the purchase.
Always A/B Test / Split Test your landing pages. Test and try out many headlines, then the bullet points, images and Calls-To-Action.
7. Use the right copy and the best images.
Use direct marketing copy principles. Give them a powerful hook and make a big promise. The headline must attract your prospect’s attention. You don’t have many words to work with, so AdWords ads are a challenge, but convey benefits your target market wants to have. You can’t sell your product from one small ad, so sell the click-through. The same goes for the image. It must catch their eye, and appeal to your target market and make a big promise.
The only way to determine what copy is “right” and what images are “best” is to create a number of variations and then carefully A/B split test them.
Summary:
Don’t expect to make a profit at first. Have a budget ready to test alternatives for a few months. Prepare to test, track, analyze, tweak, refine and re-refine. Use A/B split testing and analyze your results, always seeking to beat the control.
By working with Convergytics’ data-driven digital marketing team and utilizing their Google Adwords Management Services to enhance your ROI, you make AdWords a dependable source of business revenue and growth.
Author Bio:
Randhir Hebbar heads Digital Analytics and BI at Convergytics. Randhir has over 15 years of consulting experience with the likes of Verizon, DSW/Town Shoes, Adidas, Dell, BestBuy, Gap, Nordstrom and Citi. He is a 2012 Franz Edelman Laureate, the winner of Whichtestwon.com awards for Online Cart Optimization and most recently co-founded Convergytics and heads the Digital Analytics Practice there. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can also connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/randhir.
