Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

This is a back-to-basics article about your website and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and the relationship between the two. One of the first things we look at here at JumpFly when we get a new client is their website. And one of the very first things we look for is a phone number, prominently displayed on every page of the website.

A phone number in the header on every web page is something we highly, highly recommend to every client. It’s not enough to have it buried in the bottom of the page or only on the Contact Us page. We’re talking every page, in the header where it’s immediately visible.

And it’s not because we want you to get more phone calls, but we’ve actually seen a definite correlation between conversion rate improvement and having that phone number on your website. Here’s what we think is the reason why:

1. Having that phone number gives your site a subconscious vote of confidence – it shows you are an actual business. That’s why a toll-free number is great, as it has more legitimacy. However, a local number may work well too for businesses seeking local customers.
2. It lets the visitor know that if they have a problem when ordering, that there’s someone that can help them. And if they have a problem after they order, they know they can reach you too. Even if they never need to use it, they know they can.
3. Some people are still leery of ecommerce and using their credit cards on the Internet. You can miss out on those potential sales if the only way they can order is through your website. Why lose the sale just because you don’t list your number or make it hard to find?

Those clients who we’ve encouraged to add their phone number to their websites have not necessarily seen an increase in phone calls, but they have seen an increase in conversions. The benefits clearly outweigh the possibility of getting a phone call or two. So display it loud, display it proud and put that phone number in your header on every page.

More about Nikki

According to Google, “Click Through Rate (CTR) is the number of clicks your ad received divided by the number of times your ad is shown (impressions).”

Every once in a while a new pay-per-click (PPC) advertising client will come in who considers their account CTR to be the benchmark by which their accounts performance is judged. Depending on the keyword strategy, it is most likely not a good idea to use CTR to judge an entire account’s performance.

True, we know that CTR has a big influence on the somewhat mysterious Google AdWords Quality Score(s). It is also a great indicator for comparing performance on your various AdGroups’ different ad copies. There are certainly many instances when Click Through Rate (CTR) is a very good indicator of performance.

Now, what about when low CTR is a good thing?

There are definitely times you want to eliminate a worthless click from a potential keyword, and while this would have a negative impact on the Click Through Rate (CTR) it would certainly have a positive effect on the account.

For example, a strategy that I recently adopted for a client really drives this point home.

One of my client’s competitors has a very common word for a company name. For the sake of confidentiality I will simply call it “widget.” Well, this competitor name “widget” is also the name of a very popular movie, an artist, a location overseas, a highway landmark, and dozens of other completely unrelated things. As you might imagine, the search volume for this popular term is through the roof, while the percentage of people actually using it for the company name we wished to target is extremely small. So small in fact, that it would almost certainly discourage anybody from even trying it as a keyword.

I thought it was worth trying, and to give it the best chance at success I used only the exact match version of “widget” in its own campaign, with a very specific ad designed to only solicit the searchers looking for my client’s services.

The results were surprisingly great. The campaign resulted in my client converting at half of his target conversion cost. The CTR for this keyword was a downright horrible 0.02%, however this was a good thing as it meant the ad was eliminating all of the unnecessary searchers and only targeting the exceptionally small amount of people looking for my clients competitor. In this case, the exceptionally low CTR was a good thing.

The low CTR also had a definite impact on the keyword’s quality score and forced my client’s minimum bid up to $10/click. Even with the the high minimum bid, the conversion cost was cheap and the quality of leads generated tens of thousands of dollars in new revenue for my client. Winner.

Now, the 0.02% CTR dramatically lowered the whole account’s CTR. If that figure had been used as a benchmark to judge performance, it would have been a huge mistake that would have cost my client a considerable amount of revenue. In this case, the actual conversion cost/rate was a far better benchmark than the pathetic CTR.

The bottom line here is that a low CTR can be a good thing in some strategies and is not always the best indicator of an entire account’s performance. Every account is different, just as every marketing strategy is different. Helping to determine the best strategy for your PPC marketing campaign is just one of the many unique skills that JumpFly PPC account manager brings to the table.

What’s your benchmark?

One very important thing to consider when you’re doing PPC advertising is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). I ask my clients all the time – what is special about your company, why should someone buy from you, what do you offer that your competitors don’t – basically what is your USP? If you can’t answer that question quickly and clearly, then you need to figure it out. If you don’t know why someone should buy from you, how does anyone else?

From a PPC advertising standpoint, a USP helps make you stand out from the crowd. If everyone is offering the same thing in their ads, you need to have a hook, something different to attract attention that has value to your potential customers. And not only that, your landing page needs to echo your USP, which definitely can help increase conversion rates.

Case in point: I had a client at one time who really couldn’t tell me their USP. They were a new company, offering a service via the Internet. They were similar to several other offerings out there, some of them free. Their website was nice looking, but there wasn’t a huge amount of “meat” to it. They assured me that they were working on more web content, and that they had done their competitive research and their prices were in line with the industry. I really didn’t have a lot of great selling points in the ad, but I did what I could. We started their PPC campaigns and people clicked at a decent CTR, especially in the competitive space they were in, but no one was buying. A few people signed up for a free trial, but definitely not at the level this client wanted. After going back and forth with the client, I started to do some competitive research and found out that not only were they not competitively priced, they cost almost $10 more per month with only half of the available services than their competitors. When I pointed this out to the client, they seemed shocked that it should actually matter. With no USP and a higher price point, they didn’t stay a client, or in business very long.