For local businesses trying to find their target audience and expand brand recognition, running successful ad campaigns is an essential aspect of business growth. Even company owners catering to their local area can reap massive benefits from effective digital marketing strategies, including running a Google Ads campaign.
However, making Google Ads work in your favor can be challenging. “Google Ads not converting” is a popular search term — on Google itself, no less — and some business owners seem puzzled about how to successfully drive traffic using Google Ads.
As providers of a Google Ads service for plumbers and other contractors, our team at Relentless Digital knows a thing or two about running ads and online marketing. Read on to learn more about how to optimize your Google Ads campaign and identify what may be slowing your progress.
Is Google Ads Worth It?
For some local businesses, running a Google Ad campaign may not seem like a major priority. After all, if you’re serving customers in your area, is it really worth it to invest in a full-scale digital marketing campaign?
Generally, the answer is almost always yes. In the age of social media, search engines, and online business reviews, establishing your online presence via a website alone may not be enough.
This is because people searching for services like yours will also see your competitors. Online and in the real world, reputation is everything. So, if your competitors have a better site, more engaging ads, and a higher search engine results page (SERP) ranking, they’re likely to attract more customers.
Making a Google Ads account is a cost-effective way to identify and reach your target audience and simultaneously receive helpful insights about your customers through conversion tracking. The beauty of PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is that you can increase conversions, drive traffic to your website, and establish yourself as an authority in your industry — all without breaking the bank.
Running a PPC campaign allows you to:
- Carefully monitor advertising costs
- Only pay when someone clicks on your ad
- Increase brand awareness
- Get faster results
- Adjust your ad campaign using data from conversion tracking
Google Ads Not Converting? Here’s Why
Now, you may be wondering, “If Google Ad campaigns are so great, why am I still seeing such low conversion rates?”
Disappointing click-through rates could be the result of several factors. Below, we’ve compiled a list of the most common problems that may be hindering your ad campaign’s success — how you can fix them.
1. You’re Not Using the Right Keywords
While great ad copy is certainly an important aspect of optimizing your ads and website for SEO, it’s only as useful as the keywords you include. In the world of digital marketing, keyword research is a fundamental part of increasing conversion rates because it allows you to target your niche and attract very specific users.
The best keywords for a given industry will shift over time depending on what’s trending, what’s happening in the news, and users’ search behaviors. This means you’ll need to select new keywords every so often to stay relevant.
Generally, Google Ads suggests including 10 to 20 keywords per ad group. There’s no consensus about exactly how often you should update your ad groups, but doing so at least every quarter is a safe bet.
Finding the best keywords to use in your ad copy requires careful research about keyword intent, which match types suit your ads, long tail keywords for your industry, and so on. You have to learn about your customers’ most popular search terms and how you can make your ads more relevant to them using high-value keywords.
Likewise, it’s important to learn about negative keywords and weigh the benefits of a broad match versus an exact match.
Negative keywords are words or phrases that prevent certain terms from triggering your ad. For example, if you input “flower” as a negative keyword to your ad groups, you’re effectively telling Google Ads not to display your ad for any inquiry that includes the word “flower.”
In a similar vein, broad and exact match types describe what kind of searches will trigger your ad. Broad matches only have to contain relevant keywords you’ve selected, whereas exact matches must be identical to the chosen word or phrase.
By learning about match types and your customers’ popular Google searches, you can create ads that target a more specific audience and improve conversions overall.
2. Your Ad and Landing Page Don’t Match
Landing pages serve a particular function in ad campaigns. A high-quality landing page is a website designed to increase sales by encouraging users to seek out more information about a certain product or service. If your landing page doesn’t match the ad you run, it will likely reduce your conversion rate for that ad.
To optimize your ads for more conversions, ensure that your value propositions translate from the ads to the landing pages. Likewise, you need to format your landing pages with your AdWords conversion rate in mind. This means making each landing page include features such as:
- Clear, concise ad copy. Pay-per-click ads work best when the messaging gets right to the point. Trim down lengthy ad copy and focus on what’s most important to the customer.
- An engaging call to action.
- A user-friendly design that adapts to different types of browsers.
- A form of social proof, like testimonials or reviews from previous customers.
3. You’re Not Using Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are a method of location targeting. This is because many ad extensions include phone numbers for customers to call. If a potential customer wants contact information, that usually means they’re searching for services in their area.
By including your company contact number or a link to your website in an ad extension, you can organically increase traffic to your site and improve your conversion rate.
4. Your Budget’s Too Low
A Google Ad campaign is an ideal form of marketing because it’s cost-effective, but increasing your click-through rate in the competitive digital landscape still requires some careful strategizing.
Plenty of companies use Google Ads to improve conversions and increase traffic. To achieve a high CTR, you have to outperform them, and it’s often not as simple as “just bid high.”
To see success for your ad campaign, it’s better to set realistic, achievable goals. No marketing strategy is going to provide a quick fix, and it’ll likely take some time to get the results you want. Be aware of your budget’s limitations and formulate a plan with these limitations in mind.
This is where keyword research comes into play. The first few weeks you run ads, your primary objective is to learn how to effectively target your audience and use average conversion rate data to make changes as your campaign goes on. Over time, you’ll learn how to improve conversions while making the most of your budget.
5. You Aren’t Considering Searcher Intent
If you take a look at the ads you see on Google, what do you notice is a common theme among them?
Unlike other platforms, which people may use for entertainment or social interactions, users get on Google to find solutions to their pain points.
This is a user base that already knows what they want. Your job as an advertiser is to figure out what your customers are searching for in relation to your services and how you can capture their attention when they do so.
For example: if someone searches for “best design software,” are they more likely to click on an ad showcasing a company’s design software product, or an article simplifying the best options available?
If you said the latter, you’d be correct, and this demonstrates the importance of determining searcher intent as part of improving conversions.
This is especially relevant depending on what kind of ads you want to run. Marketers use display ads to “push” users into clicking and checking out their products. These types of ads can appear anywhere and serve the dual purpose of boosting conversions and increasing brand awareness.
However, in a text-only format, ads need to “pull” the attention of users already searching for a specific service or item. Getting to know how your potential buyers engage with digital marketing will allow you to tailor your ads to your audience.
Improve Your Google Ads Campaign With Relentless Digital
Struggling to get more conversions with your Google Ad campaign? At Relentless Digital, our team has a wealth of expert knowledge and experience optimizing ads for increased sales.
We provide contractors with personalized digital marketing strategies that increase website traffic, SERP rankings, and conversion rates. We use sustainable advertising techniques that you can apply in the long term to steadily and consistently grow your business.
Our team can assist you with every step of the advertising process, including advertisement creation, setting up Google local service ads, and optimizing your digital presence for SEO.
Take control of your success today. Contact Relentless Digital at (262) 393-4241 to schedule a free marketing strategy call with our team.
