Jan 23rd, 2019

5 Quick & Easy Ways to Increase Google Ads Conversions & Reduce Your PPC Costs

It’s easy to start with Google Ads, set up a campaign and then start advertising online.

However, it’s even easier to pay a lot more per click, and cost per acquisition than you actually should when your campaign is not optimised to increase Google Ads conversions.

But where to start?

There are many ways to optimise a Google Ads campaign and below are five quick & easy tips that will save you money and help reduce the costs of your current Google Ads campaign.

At the end of this post, we also have an awesome free checklist you can use to help you track your progress.

1. Optimise your Google Ads campaign settings to increase conversions.

Revisit the campaign settings tab and consider every setting you have previously made. Do they align with your business goals?

Google Ads Campaign Settings - Optimising Ad Campaigns

If the goal is increasing brand awareness, then make sure you have set your bid strategy to maximise clicks.

If your goal is to gain conversions, whether that is a form fill for a lead or an actual sale on your website, then consider setting your bid strategy to maximise clicks and enable enhanced CPC.

Even better, choose the maximise conversions setting.

If you find your campaign performing well but the cost per conversion is too high then change the bid strategy to Target CPA (Target Cost Per Acquisition) and set an amount you would like to spend per conversion.

This way Google will try to increase conversions within your budget based on what a conversion is worth to your business.

It’s never a good idea to spend $50 per conversion when a conversion is only worth $25.

Working on the above settings will help you decrease the costs per conversion in line with your marketing and campaign goals.

2. Targeting the right locations to increase Google Ads conversions.

Another easy step you can take towards increasing Google Ads conversions, spending less money and allocating budget more effectively is to ensure you are targeting locations that actually drive conversions.

Dig into the locations settings and filter out the number of conversions based on location.

Google Ads- Optimise Location Settings

If you find any locations that haven’t been performing or converting well for the last two or three months, then you should eliminate them from your targeting list.

You could even consider excluding these locations altogether.

This will free up budget that can be allocated to other locations that are actually converting.

By doing so it will increase the number of conversions in those locations and it will also greatly reduce the overall cost per acquisition in your account since you are no longer wasting money in areas that do not convert.

3. Ensure your website works well and your landing pages are optimised.

This might sound obvious; however, I still encounter ads that lead to landing pages that do not have a clear sales funnel for the visitor.

Even worse, ads that promise one thing and a landing page that offers something else, or even ads that lead to 404 Not Found landing pages!

When a person clicks on an ad that offers 50% off of a new internet router but gets directed to a page where the router or discount is not available, he or she will leave instantly.

This is money wasted on a click, a chance for a conversion missed and a sign to Google that your ads and landing pages are not as good as they can be.

This will hurt the quality score of your campaign, lower the expected click-through rate and increase the cost per click.

Always ensure your landing pages have a clear call to action (CTA) that meets your campaign goals, ensure the visitor can find what they have been promised in the ad and that there are no obstructions for him or her to converting.

That also means a quick site loading speed and no nasty pop ups.

You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to help optimise the speed of your website.

By doing so you will decrease the number of people leaving your website (irrelevant clicks) and increase the number of conversions made.

PageSpeed Insights - helping you optimise website speed

4. Retarget website visitors that leave your page without a conversion.

There are several ways you can retarget people who visited your website with the Remarketing options in the Display Network.

You could choose to retarget people who visited a certain page or product or people who did not convert, amongst other options.

Step one is to install the Global Site Tag on every page of your website.

The easiest way to do this is by using the Google Tag Manager application as this allows you to install snippets of code on your website without having to alter the source code of your website.

Google Tag Manager

This will tag any visitor that has visited your website so you can them follow them around on the internet and present your ads and offers to them wherever they go.

Step two is deciding which people are most valuable for your business and which you want to retarget, from there on you can start creating audience lists based on those parameters.

For instance, you could retarget people that landed on your landing page and offer them other deals they might be interested in.

Retargeting people who showed an interest in your website, product or service but weren’t ready to convert then, are more likely to convert when they see your offers again.

Also, the cost per click and per conversion will be much lower compared to targeting them with a regular search campaign.

5. Tracking Calls from Ads in Google Ads.

Conversions are not always a form fill or an actual purchase on the website.

Someone calling your business can be just as valuable a conversion as any of the others I have mentioned in this article.

To track calls directly from your website you need to set up call tracking numbers and make changes directly to your website which may involve some web development time/costs.

Instead, a nice quick easy way of doing it is to set-up call tracking directly on your Google Ads.

This will show a phone number on your Ad and then track if anyone clicks on or calls it.

All you need to do is create a call extension, enter your phone number and create a call tracking conversion in Google Ads.

You can even schedule your call extension to the times that are most convenient for you.

By doing so you make sure your phone number only shows when you are able to pick up the phone and speak with your customers.

It also prevents wasting budget on call extensions when you’re not available.

After setting this up, be sure to go back to your ad extensions and select which conversion action you want to assign to your call extension.

If you don’t do this, Google Ads will show your conversion action as verified but it will not track any calls.

Google Ads - Call Tracking

If you aren’t tracking calls then you might not be bidding on keywords that are actually converting!

By tracking phone calls you can discover which keywords drive calls and conversions and therefore stop spending money on the ones that don’t.

Summary & Free Checklist

The above five tips are quick and easy to implement without the need for a high level of Google Ads knowledge.

You will need to be familiar with the platform and be able to set up basics ads though.

Make the changes as described above and these tips will surely help you increase the effectiveness of your campaign and decrease the budget spent.

To help you with this I have put together a handy checklist that you can printout, stick to your desk and fill out whilst you are making these changes. Click here to get your free Google Ads Checklist.

Do you need help?

If you need help with any of the above, or would like to speak to us about how we could be improving your Google Ads campaigns, please feel free to contact us on 02 8205 3133, drop us an email to hello@smart-traffic.com.au, or schedule a free, no obligation 30 minute consultation here with one of our Digital Marketing Strategists.

About the author

Michael Holder

A specialist in Google Ads, and with a wide range of SEO skills and experience, Michael has a particular interest in Local SEO strategies for small to medium sized businesses. When Michael is not working hard increasing conversions for clients Paid Advertising campaigns he enjoys traveling, dining out and watching Formula 1 and football.