For all of the time and effort you pour into your advertising campaigns, poor results are frustrating and costly to the bottom line. But there is good news: With a few simple tweaks to your approach, you can improve your conversion rate and see immediate results.
Here are some helpful tips:
1. Improve Your Targeting.
Though not everyone would agree, many experts believe that targeting is the most important element of good advertising. That’s because it’s nearly impossible to generate clicks and conversions without serving ads to the right individuals. But if you don’t have a targeting strategy, you’re compromising the integrity of your campaign from the very start.
“In digital advertising, there are several ways of picking where your ads go,” LumenAd notes. “Contextual targeting is the strategy of placing ads based on the content it will appear within (i.e., context). If you’ve ever searched for something in Google and seen an ad at the top of the results, you’ve seen contextual targeting.”
Other types of targeting include behavioral (segmenting based on web browsing behavior, purchase history, etc.), search retargeting (based on keyword search behavior), site retargeting (showing display ads to people who have previously visited your site), and predictive (a combination of behavioral targeting and AI/machine learning).
2. Lead With Value.
Time is not working to your advantage. Attention spans are shorter than ever, and internet users have been trained to quickly avert their eyes when something doesn’t entice them. This is why it’s so important that you lead with value.
In a Google AdWords ad, this means delivering your value statement in the headline of the ad, rather than the subheading. The value statement matters more than the name of your product or the brand.
3. Enhance Your CTAs.
Your ad isn’t the final destination for customers. Ideally, you want a user to click on an ad so that they can move on to a landing page, product page, opt-in form, etc. But to get them to do this, you need to enhance your CTAs. Some examples of good CTAs include: subscribe, try for free, get started, learn more, and join us.
The key with CTAs is to use strong words that motivate people to follow through. Rather than ask people to Buy Now, you could try something like Join Free for a Month! Notice how much more inviting the latter option is?
4. Minimize Friction.
Sometimes it’s not the ad that’s the problem. It often has to do with the sales funnel that occurs after a prospect clicks on your ad. If there’s friction here, people will hesitate to move through the funnel.
Friction is best described as any variable, trend, or element that slows down the progression of your sales cycle. It’s often found in the smallest details.
“One common point of friction relates to web page length — in other words, the amount of content and information to share with your website visitors,” Lars Lofgren writes for Quick Sprout. “Friction happens when you share too much. Friction happens when you share too little. You need to find a happy medium to effectively communicate with your users.”
Other common points of friction include cognitive dissonance, lack of trust, lack of security, inconsistency, and slow page loading speeds.
5. Go Visual When Possible.
While it’s not always possible to include visuals in your ads, you should leverage images, graphics, and video whenever you can.
Research shows that visual information is processed significantly faster than text-based content. Even if it’s a simple logo or the strategic use of color in your typography, every little visual element you can add increases the overall interest in the ad. The key is to keep it simple and stay consistent.
Ready, Set, Convert.
There’s a reason why advertising experts are few and far between. This is a tough field with immense challenges and complexities that must be approached in the proper fashion. If you miss the mark, you’ll waste time and financial resources. It’s also possible that you could negatively impact your brand image and hurt your relationship with both existing and potential customers.
Take the time to address your approach to online advertising so that you can enjoy improved conversion rates and greater overall success.
