Why is my Adwords conversion so bad?

[Jez123]

My adwords ad(s) do not convert well at all. I have tried all sorts of things and am now running just one ad in one niche and for approx £1500 spend I have only 7 confirmed conversions (that's just with the current ad I should say, overall spend is way higher)? That's around £200 per conversion!

My web site itself converts exceptionally well with organic traffic. Never better in fact. So why are the ads so poor? I am even running a 15% discount offer in the ad at the moment and even that has only attracted 3 conversions (these are easy to track). As far as I can tell adwords is unsustainable. I only keep the campaign going as I am paranoid that my organic rankings are somehow connected to it!

Am I doing it wrong is is adwords a pile?

[LauraM001]

Are you saying you are only running one physical ad?

Are the keywords you are targeting with Adwords very different or similar to the ones that drive organic traffic and convert?

What sort of cost per click are you getting?

From my own experience I've seen Adwords being really effective for some businesses as far as being the main driver of conversions and for others it just doesn't seem worth it.

[Jez123]

Hi LauraM001

To answer your questions.

Yes

Yes, similar - the same.

Average CPC £0.36

I would love for it to be more effective. I feel like I really need to diversify from organic but I just cannot get anything substantial going at all.

[LauraM001]

Hmmm, so the CPC is decent enough. Are you using broad match keywords?

My thinking is that, obviously it's a little strange that the paid traffic is converting at such a drastically low level compared to organic traffic, so perhaps not all the paid traffic totally relevant?

It might be an idea to look at your landing page too, unless you know already that it's one that converts well?

[Jez123]

LauraM001, I have tried to weed out the rubbish clicks, banned mobile devices as they don't seem to convert at all.

No, not using broad match as far as I know.

The landing page converts very well.

[buckworks]

tried to weed out the rubbish clicks

Please tell us more about that. What have you done besides blocking mobile users?

[spadilla]

Also, your expectations are set via your ad. So, if a person clicks on your page in an organic serp and converts are you setting expectations correctly in your ad text? In other words if your meta description shows an informational page and people are converting after reading few some qualifying material and your ad says "download free guide" and when they get there the page isn't matching what they hope, they will bounce. That's just one other thing you might consider alongside the other points referenced already.

[minnapple]

Are you running text based ads or product based shopping ads from a merchant account?

[samwest]

Having the same poor ROI with Adwords. It's like throwing money away.

[Jez123]

Text based minnapple

Also, your expectations are set via your ad. So, if a person clicks on your page in an organic serp and converts are you setting expectations correctly in your ad text? In other words if your meta description shows an informational page and people are converting after reading few some qualifying material and your ad says "download free guide" and when they get there the page isn't matching what they hope, they will bounce. That's just one other thing you might consider alongside the other points referenced already.

It's all based around the organic search as this converts so well. It's not promising blue widgets and only delivery turquoise ones if that's what you mean.

[instand1]

My guess: you are using broad match keywords.
Try out [keyword] +keyword and "keyword" instead of keyword without qualifiers.

[samwest]

I spent $90 on 800 clicks and got zero conversions. I could have just rolled up the 90 bucks and smoked it. Probably would have gotten less of a headache too.

[jitu2600]

As per my understanding you should target Google search network only and tried to refine your keywords relevant to the landing pages.

[ogletree]

One thing you might look into is if you are looking at your statistics correctly. One problem is that Google does not show us what organic keywords people are typing in. You need to remove branded terms. If your PPC is mostly non branded terms and your comparing organic conversions to PPC conversions your data is data is skewed.

When you compare statistics it is very important to make sure your making a fair comparison.

Does your website rank for the same terms for SEO & PPC?

Also some people search from more than one device. You might be paying for clicks that convert but the person found you with ppc on one device and converted on another device.

A good stat to look at is how much have overall sales improved. PPC can have an affect on all conversions sources. Also you can run lag time report to see how long it takes people to make a conversion.

[MadAdWordsMan]

I would be curious to get an update on how you are doing with your account. :)

[Jez123]

I haven't done anything with it as yet. I have had a few more conversions with people using the discount voucher code (which I thought would slay it) but it's still very slow. Whereas organic has been crazily busy. Hence why no time to dedicate to the adwords really. I still don't get it. It's the same page for the same KW's but adwords clicks do not convert well. I just think the public are wary of them.

[Nutterum]

Something I think was missed thus far is the behaviour of the targeted audience. For example many smaller travel agencies do not use Google Ads, not because the prices are huge (well for some key destinations they are but overall not as much) but because people that do not know the brand will not convert through ads, especially direct hotel bookings. Most people place trust in big companies only because they know that they have the safety of not blowing their money. And that thinking spills even on to contact forms etc.

From my experience, never use the same landing page for organic and ads because the thinking of the users that _KNOW_ they are clicking on paid SERP links is different than the ones clicking on your top ranking organic search.

[Jez123]

I see. Well, that seems like the most likely answer so far Nutterum. How should adwords landing pages differ from organic SERPs landing pages?

[Nutterum]

Well depends on what you want the visitors to do. But a few points that worked for me in the past.

1) TRUST - client testimonials, or brand icons should be above the fold
2) Your Promise + Customer Hot line - again related to trust but more over something for the people to ring and you can convert over the phone (if applicable to your business)
3) Be Honest. Depending on how small or large your business/product/product group is you can try with - you are here because you clicked on Adwords . For this reason we offer x,y,z to YOU as a bonus. You will be surprised how many people might like the straight arrow approach.
4) Again depending on service/product/niche you are in - customer journey can be the single most important factor. If you sell high quality, but pricier sinks for example, dont go with BEST PRICES SINKS as you you leave the wrong impression. Instead try Best Value Sinks or Best Value Luxury Sinks. - YES your initial CTR might fall but in the end if you convert more - should I say more?

Those are just 101 things regarding customer behaviour, if you need more in depth analysis you can consult a PPC team (go for marketing studio and not the big agencies - pro tip from experience :) )

<snip>

[edited by: buckworks at 5:55 pm (utc) on Oct 29, 2014]
[edit reason] No solicitations, please. [/edit]

[webdevfv]

"I am even running a 15% discount offer in the ad at the moment"

Don't offer stuff in ads unless you are unique or have very low prices. You'll get tons more clicks but the savvy price hunters will have clicked everywhere and unless you are lowest price you will not get the sale.

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You must put go through all the queries people have typed over the period and then add all the useless stuff / stuff you don't sell or brands you don't ever intend to into your negative keywords.

if you're selling new tennis shoes add general words like second hand, secondhand, used, old, antique, rubbish, reviews, cheap, poor, to your negative keywords - there's loads of these that will eat your budget over time

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I find broadmatch modifier using say 3 keywords can help pinpoint customers better than phrase or exact match (which have now changed to include plurals and variants)

i.e. +buy +white +tennis +shoes
+purchase +white +tennis +shoes
+shop +white +tennis +shoes

and then focus on brands - think about what you'd type in if you were looking for this thing
+buy +nike +tennis +shoes


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Your ad copy is important - try a few different things and after a period, perhaps a fortnight or month (depending on how many impressions it gets for statistical significance) drop the one that is performing poorly in terms of conversions. add a new ad with slight variations and go again. once you've done this a few times it should get you to 80% as good as it can be. if you want it honed to perfection pay a copywriter to produce you a few.

With these few issues sorted, you should significantly reduce your Cost/Conv