2008 PPC Learnings

2008.
With 2008 coming to a close,have you reflect back regarding your search campaigns in 2008 ? What can you learn and leverage for 2009 ?

Here's some learnings to share for 2008:

Daily Budget:
How better to blow your budget overnight ?
- Setting a newly revised daily budget and going for a holiday, going for a few day retreat, ignoring the budget over the weekend. Get ready to burn off your budget when you try the above mention.

Keywords
- Bidding on high click through keywords which has zero or very low conversion rates.
- Over bidding on keywords without having taken into consideration of your revenue / profit per conversion.
- Paying for negative keywords without knowing (Failure to run the reports in identifying the negative keywords which are costing you money but zero / low conversions)
- Lumping all your keywords all onto a single ad group when you should be segmenting them individually onto respective relevant ad groups.

ZERO testing:
- Simply just running your only ad copy without any alternative copy in testing which has a better conversion rate. No split / AB testing conducted.
- Which elements of the landing page are better enticing the prospects in converting ? (Call to action button, colours, hero image, form fields, copy content)

Generic Landing Page:
- Simply send all your potential customers to a generic page without a goal in mind; paying for all the clicks but zero conversions. When you should be sending them to respective product / promotions / information page.

Your Turn.
PPC search campaign learnings to share ?

8 Landing Page Optimization Tips

How do visitors come to your website ?
Did they came from search engines when they click onto your paid ads? If it is so, what are they searching for ? Have you optimized your landing page or website to conforms according to meet their needs? Are they searching for something specific which leads them eventually to your website or landing page. Are they here looking for information or are here to shop for a product or service ? If your website or landing page doesn't relate to their needs, don't blame them for immediately clicking away from your website.

It is too much of an importance to overlook or leave this very vital optimization action. Don't bring all visitors to your default home page which doesn't relate to the pay ads or PPC. Simply put your visitors don't really care about your company's history or what you are trying to tell them, what they are interested in is why they link or came to your website or landing page in the first place.

Take them directly to what they want and where they are interested in. (e.g. If your visitors are looking for business laptops, don't lead them to all of your laptop selections.)

So how do you optimize your landing page ?

1. Leading your visitors to your unique landing page.
2. Leading your visitors to the specific page of your website in relation to the PPC or search term.

Having determine that, what are the design elements that are essential to increase your conversion rate ?

1. Landing Page Design

• Is the landing page design appealing ?
  
• Is it browser friendly ?
• Does the design took too long to load ?

2. Copywriting

• Which are the key-phrase that leads them to action ?
• Repeating the key-phrase within the headline is the easiest way in which to do this is.
• Does your headlines captivates visitor's attention ?
• Are your headlines prominent and bold ?
  

3. Content that leads to Action
Is your content related to your PPC ad ?
Simply put, why do you want your visitors to land on this particular page ?

• Why they would be interested ?
• What is the product or service offering ?
• Why would they be enticed to take action ?

4. Web Forms - If your desired actions from the visitors is leading generation, is your required fill-in form too lengthy or asking too much of information in this initial stage ? What are the most important fields that is only required for this first stage ?

• Name
• Email
• Contact
• Desired interest area

5. Call to Action Buttons

• Where is the best place for your "Submit" button ?
• Is the "RESET" button even required ? Why you say it is not required ? Do you wish your visitors to fill up the form only to accidentally hit the "RESET" button instead of your "Submit" button and not refilling up the form and eventually leaving the site ?

6. Where are the Clicks

• Where are the visitors clicking on your landing page ?
• What are they clicking on ?
• Have you tried using third party software like crazyegg for the heat map tracking, are they clicking onto what you want them to and where are they actually clicking on your landing page.
  

7. Testing
You will never know what works and doesn't until you track the visitors' behavior in your landing page. If you're serious about increasing your landing page conversions, you have to keep on testing and testing. Some of the landing page elements you should keep in mind when conducting your tests are:
* Hero shots picture (placements and type)
* Testimonials or Endorsements
* Calls to action button (Colors and placements)
* Headings and headlines
* Web Forms
* Product or service price range
* Copywriting
* Colors

8. Thank You Page
Have you taken into the consideration of inserting the Thank You Page after your visitors have completed the required action ? Don't leave this opportunity to thank your visitors for their time and first touch point.

Are you optimizing your landing page ?

Related Posts:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !
. Optimization #03: Landing Page

Optimization #03: Landing Page

How are you optimizing your landing page ?
Does it ultimately leads your audience....
Signing up for your newsletter ?
Downloading your trial software ?
Signing up for latest product updates ?
Or....?

High conversion or low conversion rate ?
How can you improve your conversion rate ?

Or are you going by your "Gut feeling" ?

In this post, I will be sharing my humble tips on optimizing your landing page, which hopefully will help drive your conversion rate. All the elements found in your landing page, plays a role on driving your overall conversion rate success . So what are the elements ?

1. The Layout for your landing page:

• 1 vertical column layout.
• Or 2 vertical column layout.
• Or 3 vertical column layout. Or ?
• The placement of your copy (top of the page, middle, bottom or ?)
• The placement of your image (top of the page, middle,bottom or ?)
• The placement of your call to action button (top of the page, middle,bottom or ?)

2. The Copywriting:

• The message / s that entice your audience in taking action. Which version converts better ?
• Longer or shorter copy ? Which version converts better ?
• Product benefit or key benefit copy ?
• Quotes, testimonial or 3rd party endorsement ? Does it help convert ? Which version converts better ?
  

3. Call to action button:

• The copy on the call to action button that entice your audience in taking action.
• The size of the call to action button. Bigger or smaller ?
• The color of the call to action button. More color or one color ?
  

4. The image:

• Portraying human or graphic design ? Which version converts better ?
• Flash or static version ? Which version coverts better ?
  

So what works and what doesn't works ?
Let your audience decide for you.
Lastly, even with the data, nothing is going to happen unless you test it !

Take action: Run the Multivariate page testing.

• Evaluate your control versus your variations.
• Let the data do the talk.

Gut feeling or your audience telling you what they want ?
You decide.

Related Posts:
. Optimization #01: Call to action button
. Optimization #02: Test ! Test ! Test !