I Love It When I Increase Paid Search or Organic Conversions

October 24th, 2008

by Laura Thieme
October 24, 2008

The best part of my day is when I review trend reports, using Bizwatch 2.0, our new paid search and organic trending tool, and I can see I’ve helped my client to increase conversions and/or conversion rate, and possibly even lower conversion cost (even better).

Today, one of my clients asked on our weekly phone call, if a high click-thru rate but much lower conversion rate was okay on a particular Google Ad Group. In the past two weeks, twice, I’ve seen two separate cases where CTR (click-thru rate) was very high (nearing 10%) and conversions rates were either non-existent or less than 2% (average).

So, to answer the question, should you be concerned about low conversions if you have click-thru rates of nearly 10%, there are some things I am going to want to know before I answer the question.

As in all research, the answer depends on your situation, which is more than I know in the beginning of the conversation, guaranteed. I pull up the Ad campaign into Bizwatch and review now 10 months of data for the client. I review the trend reports for all the major paid search KPIs (key performance indicators). I review the ad campaign as a whole, the ad groups, and suspect keywords that have high CTR but low CVR (conversion rate to lead or sale).

High CTR but low CVR could be a number of things:

Great ad copy that encourages people to click, along with great average position of 3 or better (1-3) for an extended period of time (months hopefully)

The ad copy is competitive and encourages people to click on your ad

You are then rewarded as a campaign, potentially for a good quality score, if your keywords within the ad group all perform similarly

So what’s causing you to have a poor CVR, if so many people are interested in your product or service?

Click fraud, maybe - always a possibility

Maybe your landing page sucks - sorry - but it could be true

Maybe your conversion is a phone number and you’re not tracking that accurately or at all

Maybe your online conversions are not being tracked at all, or accurately either

Maybe you stopped marketing when you designed your landing page, or you confused the offer in your checkout process

Maybe you are simply too close to the problem - and you need an outside opinion, someone who is looking at the data analytically over time, using trend analysis

Be willing to be competitive in your ad copy to increase CTR, but only if you’re willing to pay for leads or sales - and thus, your landing page must be just as competitive in content, offer, process, etc.

It’s always easier on the outside to review and analyze this - than it is to be on the inside of the problem.

Call Bizresearch at 614-846-7560 or email me using contact form to learn more about how we can help you increase conversions, and/or conversion rate, and if we’re lucky lower that conversion cost, which is indeed possible with a good working client relationship who is willing to try new things on their site and in their online marketing campaign.

Posted in Paid Search Tools. No Comments »

 

Looking for Bizwatch 2.0 Product Beta Testers - Paid Search Application & Organic

October 10th, 2008

by Laura Thieme
October 10, 2008

I am looking for some smart beta testers on a paid search and organic search marketing application that we’ve just launched. Clients are already on the application, but I’d like some fresh perspective.

Here’s what we need, if you want to do this:

An NDA in place, which I will send to you electronically
Your Google Adwords Client ID Number, so our account can send you an invite
Accept the Google Adwords Client Center invitation, so we can pull your data in API format

You will in turn, have access to our paid search reporting platform. If you also provide up to 20 keyword phrases, we can review the data for organic as well. But that is not necessary, it’s just up to you if want to see ranking reports, competitor reports, and who has the most organic marketshare for these keyword phrases in Google, Yahoo and MSN.

I’d be interested in your feedback - and we will send you a nice gift in the mail as another way of saying thanks, provided we have your snail mail address.

Posted in Paid Search Tools. No Comments »