10 Strategies For Boosting Google Ads Conversion Rates

Are you tired of pouring money into Google Ads but failing to convert enough visitors to paying customers? You’re not alone.

Many businesses have a tough time turning their ad clicks into meaningful website actions such as purchases or lead form submissions. Fortunately, there are things that can be done to remedy this, and in this article I’m going to delve into practical tips and strategies that my agency employs for our clients to substantially boost conversion rates.

I’ll cover everything from refining your keyword selection and writing compelling ads to optimizing your landing pages. These actionable strategies have proven to increase conversion rates time and time again.

?

1. Implement conversion tracking

It’s surprising how often we take over management of an ad account for a new client, only to find that the previous agency had zero conversion tracking in place.

Without having proper conversion tracking in place, there’s no way to truly understand the impact your ad campaign is having on your business.

There are a few ways conversion tracking can be implemented:

• Google tag via Google Ads
• Google Tag Manager
• Imported from Google Analytics 4

All of them achieve a similar effect, but my preference is to use Google Tag Manager due to the flexibility it provides.

When setting up your conversion tracking, you’ll need to establish which conversion actions are most important for your business. If you’re an ecommerce store, your primary conversion action will be a purchase. For a service-based business, it might be the submission of a lead form, or a direct phone call made from the ad or website.

Whatever conversion action makes sense for your business, ensure that you have proper tracking in place so you can analyse the performance of your ads, and make the changes required to boost your conversion rates.

2. Optimise keyword targeting

The next method of increasing your Google Ads conversion rates is to continually analyse and optimise your keyword lists.

Navigate to your Search Terms report to see which keywords people are searching for when they click on your ads, and which ones are actually generating conversions.

If you see that certain search terms are causing users to click on your ad but not convert, then consider updating your keyword targeting options to focus your budget on high-converting keywords.

3. Ensure your ad copy and landing pages are consistent

A common reason that visitors leave your website after clicking on your ad is that the content on the landing page is not consistent with the content of the ad that they clicked on. This leaves the user disappointed and hitting the ‘back’ button to find a different page that is more closely aligned with their needs.

A powerful strategy for optimizing conversion rates is to ensure your landing page copy is completely consistent with your ad copy. This means ensuring your landing page headlines and copy have the same keywords that the user saw in the ads.

This cohesion will make the visitor feel like they are in the right place, boosting the chances that they engage with the content on the page and convert.

?

4. Use Clear Call-To-Actions

This one is insanely simple but so often overlooked. You need to tell the visitor, very clearly, what you want them to do when they land on your page. The language you use in these cases can have a significant impact on how many visitors take the action you want them to.

Always use action-oriented language, such as “Request a quote” or “Shop now”, that communicates exactly what the visitor is expected to do. Ensure your call to action (CTA) buttons are styled in a way that they jump out at the visitor.

Use large fonts or contrasting colors to draw the user’s attention. Place multiple CTAs at strategic positions throughout the landing page when a user might decide to take the next step.

Split testing different CTAs can help you establish which ones resonate best with your audience.

?

5. Ensure your website is optimised for mobile

The vast majority of website visit take place on mobile devices, and ensuring your website experience is 100% optimised for mobile visitors will help you to convert visitors regardless of the device they use.

Ensure your site has responsive styling so the user experience is seamless regardless of screen size, and make sure your CTAs are easily accessible throughout the page.

?

6. Test different ad copy

Ad copy is one of the key factors you can control in your PPC campaigns. Using slightly different language in your ad headlines or descriptions can have a significant impact on your clickthrough rates and conversion rates.

This is why running different headlines and descriptions at the same time is crucial for learning what language resonates most with your audience. Google’s Responsive Search Ads make this easy by allowing you to provide 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, which Google then tests to find which language and combinations generate the best results.

Some language may attract lots of clicks, but not convert. Other copy might attract a much lower quantity of clicks, but with traffic converting at a higher rate.

It’s important to analyse and compare the performance of different ad copy, and tweak your campaign as required.

?

7. Utilise ad assets

Ad assets are a useful Google Ads feature that allow you to convey additional information about your business.

Assets such as structured snippets, sitelinks and callouts provide the opportunity to include additional details not contained within your standard headlines and descriptions.

While these assets increase the overall prominence of your ads and help encourage clicks, they also provide the opportunity to share valuable information that can help to convert more visitors.

?

8. Negative keyword management

A proactive negative keyword strategy is one of the most effective ways to improve your conversion rates.

It’s essential to routinely review your search terms reports and ensure you’re not wasting any of your ad budget on keywords that are unlikely to convert.

Sometimes, Google’s broad match keyword type can cause your ad to appear for search terms that are unrelated to what your business offers, and it’s essential to add these as negative keywords as early as possible.

?

9. Implement audience targeting

Google’s ever-loosening keyword targeting options means it’s more important than ever to use audience segmentation to get in front of the right audience.

The 'Audiences' feature allows you to target your ads towards specific groups of people that you expect to convert at a higher rate, or exclude those you think are unlikely to convert.

Google Ads provides numerous options for targeting specific groups of people, such as:

• Affinity Audiences: Target people based on their interests and hobbies
• In-Market Audiences: Target people who are actively planning to make a purchase for products or services similar to yours
• Custom Audiences: Target people who have already engaged with your website

?

10. Utilise retargeting

Ecommerce sites convert at an average rate of 2-3%. This means a massive 97% of visitors will view your products but leave the site without making a purchase.

Retargeting allows you to re-engage these visitors at a later point with the goal of encouraging them to return to the site and make a purchase.

Some examples of retargeting lists might be:

• Users who visited a specific page on your website
• User who added a product to the basket but didn’t check out.
• Users who visited a certain number of pages on your website.

Retargeting is generally a low-cost strategy for re-engaging people you didn’t manage to convert the first time round.

--

So there you have it – ten strategies you can implement to boost those conversion rates. The most effective option will vary depending on your industry, website and audience, so evaluate the list and choose the tactics you think will help you the most.