It is possible to optimize your PPC campaign without spending large amounts of money on advertisements. If you’re questioning if there is indeed a realistic way to boost your conversions while saving on ads, you should learn about optimizing your CPA metrics.
CPA stands for cost per acquisition. Your CPA is a metric, or measurement, of how much money is required to pay for your conversion. Not be confused with cost per action, cost per acquisition is directly entwined with your cost per click, or CPC. So, if you’re looking to cut costs and reduce your advertising budget, the two most important metrics to improve are your CPA and CPC.
In order to get accurate CPA reports, Google AdWords gives you the power to check and track your conversion goals. Armed with these important statistics, you’ll be ready to learn about improving your CPC.
Discovering CPC Optimization
Deciding how much you want to pay for each website visitor’s click on your ads determines your CPC. When setting up your PPC program in Google AdWords, you will be able to actually determine how much you are prepared to pay for each individual click.
The competitive component of setting up and running your PPC program is based in Google AdWords’ auction-centric system. In a nutshell, the more money you pay per click, the better odds you have of actually receiving placement on a search engine results pages (SERP).
Of course, you can’t solve all of your PPC program issues simply by throwing money at them. Next, you should be aware of Google’s Ad Rank program. This metric allows Google to determine your ad’s position and rank in search results. If your ad has a low ranking, it may not even be displayed at all. Calculating your Google Ad Rank involves multiplying your CPC bid by your quality score, plus the impact of any other ad formats. These formats are referred to as extensions.
Spending less on your CPC translates into making sure that your ads have a high quality score. Keep these important components of Google’s AdWords in mind when taking steps to improve your score:
Expected Click Through Rate (CTR)
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- – Your CTR is a metric that Google uses to determine how frequently your ad is clicked on when displayed during related search results. Thus, your expected CTR is Google’s projected estimate of web users’ CTR and is calculated by keyword performance and your past SERPs.
Landing Page Viability
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- – If your ad is high quality but your landing page is not highly functional or user-friendly, your quality score will be negatively affected. However, if your landing page is easy to use and enticing to web surfers, your quality score will enjoy a boost. To ensure that your landing page corresponds well to your high quality ads, make sure it contains relevant content, is easy to use and browse, implements consumer calls to action (CTAs) and clearly states the goals and benefits of selecting your business for services or goods.
Ad Relevancy
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- – Calculated by Google, your ad relevancy is determined by the
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- used in your ads in comparison to a web user’s search query. You can easily monitor this metric under the keywords tab of your Google AdWords PPC campaign.
Expected Impact of Ad Extensions
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- are a valuable tool to use in order to display more information about your services or products. Extensions give you the opportunity to communicate important things such as consumer satisfaction scores, business contact information or any current sales and specials. Ad extensions provide more information that is immediately available to potential customers, thus making them essential to increasing your chances of getting your ad to the top of the proverbial dog pile.
Optimizing Your Conversion Rate
Of course, keeping your CPC low is vitally important to your success, so ensuring the high quality of your advertising is crucial. However, low CPCs are only half the battle – next you need to optimize your conversion rate. Your conversion metric, determined by dividing your number of conversions by number of ad clicks, tells you how many visits related to an e-commerce transaction. To help raise your conversion rate, focus upon the following:
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- Ease of use
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- Informative value
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- Intuitiveness and responsiveness for mobile devices
- Powerful CTAs
With over 65 percent of products or service searches being conducted on mobile devices, it’s important to implement an integrated design display network for ease of translation between the various screens that now define the world of e-commerce. By implementing this display in addition to contextual targeting for mobile devices, you’ll notice a vast improvement in your CTR. Don’t forget to customize your CPC bids. For example, the closer a user is to your geographical location, the higher the bid will be.
If your conversion rate isn’t working, don’t hesitate to redesign in order to adapt to real web user habits and behaviors. Make sure your most pertinent information is highly visible, leading users to follow your conversion plan.
Bottom Line
The CPA is one of the most difficult metrics for optimization. However, don’t avoid working on its enhancement. The more improvement your CPA experiences translates into less money spent on conversions and higher SERP displays.
Improving your CPC and conversion rate really boil down to these important factors:
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- Selecting relevant yet unique keywords
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- Constantly improving your website’s ease of use and design
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- Ensuring relevant content
- Focusing on developing a sense of consumer urgency with persuasive CTAs
With a little bit of extra effort, you’ll soon enjoy monetary savings on ad displays and higher conversion rates that result in more profit!