Ads that don’t convert into revenue can be one of the most frustrating situations to deal with in marketing. This is money that you’re spending, and it’s bringing in clicks and traffic. But leads and purchases? Not so much.
While it’s tempting to broaden your targeting to bring in even more traffic and brute force some conversions, this can actually prove counterproductive. As marketers will often find in these cases, what’s stopping conversions isn’t so much a lack of traffic, but an expectation gap — a disconnect between what you’re advertising and what your product actually offers.
Analyzing your drop-off patterns will give you a hint as to where you need to make changes. Creating a seamless user journey from ad to product or sign-up page will help users feel more confident in your offer and drive more purchases.
Understanding Paid Ad Conversions
The first thing you should have clarity on is which kind of conversion you’re going for. In other words, what’s your ultimate goal? Here are some of the typical conversions marketers aim for:
- Product purchase
- Scheduling a consultation
- Invite to call
- Email sign-up
- App install
- Free product trial
For D2C businesses, such as apparel or home decor brands, the goal is simple: drive product sales. You want your user to complete a purchase.
For B2B businesses, it can sometimes be a bit more complex. Usually, you’re aiming for a lead that a salesperson can follow up on. This lead can be captured via a sign-up form, an invite to call, or something else.
Whatever your goal is, your advertising campaign should be built around that. Trying to offer more than one type of call-to-action can easily lead to poor performance. This means retaining the same CTA throughout the ad funnel, including your ad spot, landing page, and product page.
Matching Expectations to Reality
One of the biggest hurdles to conversion is a discrepancy between the messaging on the ad and the product page.
Often, you’ll find a substantial volume of traffic viewing your ad and clicking on it, but leaving before taking that final step. This is because what users see on your landing page isn’t what they expected when they clicked on your ad. This causes friction and will typically lead to a drop-off.
Even if you have a ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Learn More’ option on your landing page, users aren’t likely to use it to clarify their doubts. As soon as they sensed a contradiction in your offer, the trust was lost, and in a crowded market, this can be hard to recover from.
Here are a few examples of how a disconnect can surface:
- Your ad offers information on a product or a topic, and your landing page is pushing a hard sale
- Your ad offers a discount or promotion, and there is no evidence of that on the product page
- Your ad invites users to a free product trial, and your landing page only has a ‘Buy Now’ CTA
How to Fix It
As conversion blocks go, this isn’t hard to fix.
- Achieve internal clarity on exactly what you want to happen when a user lands on your page.
- If there is more than one type of action you’d like users to take, or variations of the same product on offer, segment your campaigns by user intent.
- Implement uniform messaging across your campaign with high-performance creatives. If your ad makes an offer, ensure the same offer is displayed prominently on your landing page and vice versa.
Other Reasons Why Your Ads May Not Be Converting
While message mismatch is a big one, there may be other reasons your ads may not be successful. Here are some tips to improve your paid ads.
- Your Audience Targeting Is Off
If your purchases aren’t racking up even with steady traffic and message alignment, you may need to have another look at the audiences you’re targeting.
Perhaps your visitors are interested in your product, but they simply don’t have the purchasing power. In this case, you may need to narrow down on a specific demographic niche, say via age bracket or location.
- Your Keywords Need a Closer Look
If your surveys and focus groups tell you that your intended audience is exactly the right fit for your product, perhaps your keyword strategy is off. Ensure that you’re using intent-based keywords to bring in audiences that are ready to make a purchase. If your product is somewhat technical and needs a learning curve to understand, consider alternative keywords that focus on pain-point resolution rather than product description.
- You Need to Level Up Your Offer
Sometimes, you’ve created the perfect campaign with apt targeting, uniform messaging, and excellent creatives, and still do not see conversions. This might be because your offer simply isn’t good enough. Consider having a re-look at your USPs or somehow incentivizing your users.
- Your Landing Page Needs Work
If your drop-offs are happening on your landing page, it might not necessarily be a messaging issue. Maybe your page layout is a bit confusing or cluttered and needs simplification. Ensure you’ve added some trust icons to your page, and basic issues such as load time and CTA visibility are sorted out.
Optimizing conversion rates can be quite a nuanced process, but not necessarily hard. Ensure you’re working with good data with analytics and ad pixels embedded on your site. Then follow the customer journey to analyze behavior at every step. Your data will tell you where and how to make improvements.
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