A couple weeks ago our CRO Director Keith Lovgren wrote an excellent piece on “5 CRO Tools That Make Conversion Rate Optimization Better”. I wanted to follow up on this and why I think CRO is important for the success of any Paid Search campaign.
Over the years I have managed hundreds of Paid Search accounts with very little emphasis on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). This always blew my mind considering the amount of money that was being poured into Paid Search.
Clients were willing to spend thousands and thousands of dollars into buying quality traffic but rarely analyzed the on page experience once the traffic, at times as much as $50 per visitor, landed on their site.
Getting the relevant person to your website is only the beginning of a successful Paid Search campaign.
With the online space more competitive than ever, and the ability to compare retailers and service providers with ease, it has become very challenging for advertisers to generate a “converting” user.
On many occasions I was at the mercy of a website that was not optimized for conversions, crossing my fingers that somehow we would be able to generate a lead or a sale.
Many times website owners focus on the aesthetics of a site instead of the user experience. It’s a mistake that costs them money on a daily basis.
Once a user gets to your website, we need to maintain consistency, relevancy and usability in order to ensure we don’t lose customers that we just paid for.
I compare this to a brick and mortar store; just because you get people into your store does not necessarily mean they are going to make a purchase.
You need to create an experience that resonates with the customer whether that is customer service, product placement, product demos, self -checkouts, etc.
For example, the Apple store is designed to facilitate the user experience by encouraging customers to engage with their products. Their laptops, iPads, iPhones and iPods are set up to encourage a passerby to experience & use their products. Grocery stores display candy bars and magazines in the checkout line to facilitate impulse purchases.
These retailers have “optimized” the customer experience and maximized the probability of every single customer into making a purchase.
Here at Incubate, we are constantly testing new layouts, content, offers, headlines, images etc. on an ongoing basis so that we can maximize revenue and ROI for our clients.
Optimizing is a never ending process, just like brick and mortar retailers who are constantly testing the consumer experience. With the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) being well understood in the Paid Search world there is going to be a point where there is only so much we can do (search query analysis, new ad copy, bid optimizations, day parting, geo targeting, etc.) to move the needle with any significance.
At the end of the day, if you are not optimizing your on page experience you are leaving money on the table.
Give us a call to assess your website. We’d be happy to help optimize your traffic and on page experience.
