Think Past The Visitor – PPC Management

With PPC management it’s all to easy to get caught up into concentrating solely on the visitor and trying to get them to site. We focus on the keywords, negatives, adcopy, geotargeting, landing page, etc. but once there it’s the mindset in PPC management that it’s the merchant’s problem/chance to convert the user to a paying customer or qualified lead.

PPC has evolved massively over the last decade, but so have companies using it, so it’s now harder than ever to get the full value from AdWords, as a PPC Agency we have to focus on squeezing every ounce of value from each visitor that we can and this means designing landing pages for conversion rather than just looking pretty.

It’s also critical to be thinking about visitors as being on various levels by identifying what stage they are at in the sales cycle, what they are looking to do and finding some way to relate to them that creates a positive impression if they aren’t ready to buy just yet. Ideally either capture  their data via a newsletter sign up, report download or facebook likes etc. so that you can then reach out to them at your will rather then relying on them to come back to you.

Also under utilised are call to action statements and buttons,  and enquiry forms, far too many sites just expect users to click the contact page, hunt for an email or fill in the form there, there’s nothing that boosts conversion like a well designed, compact, enquiry form.

One example of enquiry form which we worked on was a cosmetic surgery clinic specialising in non invasive procedures, their current landing pages explained what they did, had pictures and video on but didn’t really have call to actions that generated much response, we totally redesigned their landing page and placed prominent “Send us your enquiry” forms on the page (in addition to call to action buttons sprinkled through the page). The enquiry forms combined with AdWords optimisation increased the conversion rate by a whopping 2,525 percent.

The landing page that we built was designed to tell a story, build the picture of who the client is, where they’ve appeared in the media, address common questions, who’s used them and what they think of the experience, why you would use them, what they do and how etc. and finally bullet points again as to why to choose them, then prompt to get in touch via the enquiry form.

As a result of this approach and the optimisation of the AdWords account the cost per lead has reduced from a percentage reduction of NINETY SIX percent! from a high hundreds of pounds figure that has now been knocked down to a nice double digit figure.

This enquiry form works far better to “Book your surgery now” as that’s too much of a commitment step for many potential clients, After testing we found that “Arrange your consultation” worked best, it’s the right wording to convey that you are moving toward solving your problem but haven’t committed to spending your money until you are comfortable, after the consultation.

They still need to be sold on the procedure so whilst the landing page does generate firm booking requests where the client gets in touch and wants a procedure ASAP, it’s often the first point of the lead nurturing cycle for many others, it could be weeks or months before they ultimately book in. The important thing is that the landing page generates interaction, details are captured and these can then be followed up on actively, no need to pay for another PPC click to target the same person.

Thinking past just getting people on site is an important aspect of ppc management, any ppc agency that just sends traffic to your site and  doesn’t really offer any advice or direction on converting it is dropping the ball, you just can’t afford to think you have the best website or landing page ever, you must test to optimise past the visitor and turn them into a lead that you can nurture or sale.