ROI

One Major Reason Your Paid Ads Aren’t Getting You Results

Last Updated: April 26, 2019

Are you DIY-ing your company’s paid ads and getting frustrated by your lack of results? You probably started a campaign on Facebook or Google expecting to drive tons of visitors to your website—or, better yet, to generate a slew of new customers.

However, for some reason, you’re just not getting the results you were hoping for. Worst of all, the cost of your ads keeps going up! You feel like you’re dumping your business’s hard-earned cash down the drain.

Why is this happening?

To answer that, let’s first take a step back and examine why you’re using paid ads in the first place…

Paid Ads: Not as Easy as They Look

Honestly, starting your online marketing from scratch can feel like such a grind. If you take the organic SEO approach, it takes several months to get off the ground, and there are countless moving parts involved. As a result, a huge number of business owners throw up their hands and take the path of least resistance: paid ads.

Why paid ads? Because they promise a high ROI and instant, measurable results that make your upfront investment seem worthwhile. Moreover, you don’t have to know much about SEO to create an attractive, attention-grabbing ad. All you have to do is upload a high-quality image, come up with a snappy caption, and publish it to the audience of your choosing.

Doesn’t that sound MUCH easier than studying SEO best practices, executing a multipronged promotional strategy from the ground up, and waiting 3+ months for results?

In other words, it’s easy to see how the idea of using ads on Facebook, Google, Yelp, and other platforms to drive people to your website is immensely more appealing to most business owners.

But… People Don’t Know Who You Are Yet

Unfortunately, the allure of fast results and ease of use leads a lot of business owners to jump headfirst into paid ads before they’re ready. As a result, they pour a lot of money into ads that just aren’t generating the website traffic or leads they were hoping for.

This brings us to one major reason your ads aren’t performing:

The people who see your ads don’t know who you are!

Your ad’s audience has no prior experience or knowledge of your business. Therefore, they aren’t motivated to click, like, or share your posts and ads.

Most often, we see this happen when you approach online marketing by starting with paid ads first. As we explained above, this is an understandable move: Jumping into paid ads from the get-go is far more appealing than plugging away at organic SEO for months and months.

However, if you attempt a paid ad campaign without any prior exposure or visibility to your target audience, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Because people aren’t aware of your company, your products, or your services, they’re likely to ignore your ad and keep scrolling.

Now that we’ve shed some light on what causes your ads to get a low number of interactions, let’s look at why this leads to higher costs…

Less Engagement = Higher Costs

The relationship between a campaign’s engagement levels and costs can turn into a vicious cycle.

If this is your first time running a campaign on whatever platform you’re using, then you’ll already start out with a high cost-per-click (CPC). This is because the platform (Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc.) has no prior data on your company. Without confidence that your company will receive lots of engagement, they’re going to give you a higher CPC at first. Eventually, as your campaign goes on and your engagement rate improves, the platform will decrease your costs.

However, if you don’t get good engagement (primarily measured by click-through rates and conversion rates), then your costs will remain high. In some cases, if your engagement is low enough, your costs may even increase. As you can guess, this is how you can get yourself into trouble.

Make Yourself Known First

What does all of this tell you? It tells you that you need to establish familiarity with your audience before you attempt a paid advertising campaign. We know this isn’t what you want to hear—after all, you skipped ahead to paid ads for a reason! However, if you want to actually get a good ROI from your ads, then you need to get your business name out there first.

Here are some ways you can do that:

Invest in SEO so your business is more visible online in general.
- This way, when someone who’s unfamiliar with your company sees your ad, they can do a quick search for your company name and immediately find you on multiple, high-quality listings. This builds your credibility and gives you an air of legitimacy (as opposed to if they googled your company name and found nothing).
Build your company’s brand. Read this blog post on branding to see how!
Participate in real-life promotions like local fairs, trade shows, partnerships, and sponsorships.
Put your business name and logo on your vehicles to increase visibility while you’re driving around town.
Ask your existing customers to spread the word.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the other factors that can affect your ad campaign’s engagement, as well. For example, things like ad formatting, call-to-action strength, and image quality are certainly important to consider when creating an ad campaign. However, these considerations are secondary. Unless you’re placing your ad in front of people who recognize your brand in the first place, these extra factors won’t make a difference.

So, bottom line? Make sure your company has some brand recognition before you waste your money on paid ads!

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to our specialists if you have any questions. Good luck!

The PPC Metrics You SHOULD Be Focusing On

Last Updated: October 13, 2016

If you’re handling your own PPC with AdWords or Bing Ads, hats off to you! It’s not an easy undertaking. However, it’s certainly doable once you become more familiar with industry vocabulary and best practices.
Learning the right terminology and approach can take time, though. One common stumbling block, even for experienced DIYers, has to do with metrics. Oftentimes, business owners are focusing on the wrong PPC metrics and therefore aren’t getting the most out of their campaigns.

Look Beyond Traffic-Based Metrics

At the end of the day, what’s the goal of your PPC campaign? Our guess: profit.
For this reason, our first suggestion is to stop focusing so much on traffic-based metrics. These metrics are all that’s included in the simplified AdWords dashboard, which is why so many business owners don’t look beyond them. These include:

Impressions
Clicks
CTR (click-through rate)
Average CPC (cost per click)

To be clear, it’s not wrong to look at these metrics—it’s just limiting to your overall understanding of your campaign. These traffic-based metrics only tell you how often your ads are being viewed and/or clicked. And while traffic is definitely something you want to pay attention to—after all, you need people to see your ads in order to interact with them—it doesn’t paint a full picture of how well your campaign is actually doing. Maybe you’re not getting a ton of clicks on a certain campaign, but if you’re getting a lot of paying customers out of it, who cares?
That brings us to what you should be focusing on.

Related: The Four Most Commonly Misunderstood PPC Metrics

Track Your Ads’ Conversion Rates

When you want to measure how well your ads are performing, look at the conversion rate. This is the only way to tell whether your campaigns are actually helping your business make money. It’s one thing for people to click on them, but that’s not enough: you also need to be converting those clicks into leads. Clicks alone aren’t going to help your business grow (unless, of course, your only goal is to create brand awareness).
You can set up conversion tracking on Google AdWords and Bing Ads yourself. Then, just sit back and check the reports as they develop.
Conversion tracking will show you the following metrics:

Cost per conversion: How much each conversion costs (on average).
Conversion rate: How often a click leads to a conversion.
Value per conversion: How much each conversion is potentially worth (you fill this out yourself).
Total conversion value: The total value of all conversions.
Conversion value per cost: How much each conversion is worth compared to how much they cost.
Conversion value per click: Total conversion value divided by total number of clicks.

And don’t forget to track phone leads in addition to online leads (newsletter signups, form submissions, purchases, etc.). For many businesses that provide local services like accounting, massage therapy, HVAC, and so on, the phone is the primary way customers contact them.
If you’re banking on phone calls, then you definitely need to incorporate phone tracking into your conversion monitoring. Assign a unique call-tracking number to each campaign so you can identify which ad generated which lead.

Go a Step Further and Calculate ROI

If you really want to be a PPC rock star, then you can calculate the ROI of your campaigns. Doing so will tell you which ads are actually generating money for your business (as opposed to just traffic or leads).
Calculating ROI is rather complicated, and there are several different methods you can use. One helpful tool is a customer relationship management (CRM) software that tracks all of your leads and sales data. A CRM will prevent you from having to record everything manually.
Regardless of where or how your sales data is stored, you can calculate your ROI by comparing how much you spent on each campaign (including cost per click and cost per conversion) and how many sales dollars it generated. The result is a concrete number that tells you which PPC campaigns are most contributing to your bottom line.

All Metrics Fit Together

There’s no single metric that tells the whole story on its own. Likewise, there’s no metric that you should just flat-out ignore, either. Look at all of the metrics together like pieces of a puzzle.
For example, you can tell if something is wrong with your landing page content if you have a high CTR (meaning lots of people are clicking on your ads) but a surprisingly low conversion rate. Clearly, people are interested in your ad but are then turned off by your landing page. Now you know it’s time to make that content more compelling so your visitors will feel motivated to fill out a form, contact you, or take whatever action is your goal.
When you put all of the above information into practice, you’ll be in a much better position to maximize your conversions and get more bang for your PPC buck.
Still unsure of the best strategy for weighing your PPC metrics? Would you feel more comfortable in the hands of a professional? The team at Prospect Genius offers effective pay-per-click marketing management and transparent pricing. Call now to find out how we can help.

Four Ways Your PPC Services Could Be a Rip-Off

Last Updated: July 13, 2016

“Where’s my money going, exactly?” If you’re paying an online advertising company for PPC services, this is a question you should be asking.
A disheartening number of providers don’t offer any type of transparency when it comes to billing, clicks, or campaign performance. Unfortunately, there are several ways your PPC services provider could be ripping you off without you even realizing it. When PPC providers don’t offer transparency, you pay dearly.
In this post, we’ll highlight a few of the hidden dangers that result from a lack of transparency in PPC advertising. Be on the lookout.

1. Mysterious Management Fees

It’s not uncommon for online advertising companies to charge a management fee for PPC services. However, the problem lies in whether they disclose their management fee to you.
Far too many providers pocket a large chunk (sometimes over 50%!) of your budget as part of their management fee—without telling you. This could mean less than half of the money you’re paying is actually going toward clicks.
But they won’t tell you this. Usually, the best you can hope for is a passing acknowledgment of their management fee’s existence as part of your service charges. It’s rare to have a company tell you exactly what this fee is.
And because of this total lack of transparency, some providers may sneakily pocket more and more of your money while spending less and less on clicks. They’ll squeeze every last penny they can from you before you finally notice a problem and fire them.
Take a look at your last PPC services bill. Did your provider note the exact cost of the management fee? We’re guessing not.

2. No Ability to Check Your Campaign Performance

If you aren’t spending at least a certain minimum amount on clicks (which varies by location and service category), your ads won’t perform. Plain and simple. And if your PPC provider is pocketing half of your budget, there’s a good chance you aren’t spending enough on actual clicks. Diminished performance is the result.
So, to prevent you from detecting an issue with your PPC spending, many providers will try to keep you in the dark. Most often, they do this by not providing access to reports on your campaign performance. This way, you can’t see how much is going toward clicks or how your ads are ranking. When you can’t see these reports, you can’t see how little they’re spending on advertising your company and how much they’re pocketing.
Ask to see a report of your campaign metrics. If your provider can’t give you access to one, that should tell you something.

3. Reporting Only One Metric

Other times, instead of not showing you any performance metrics for your ads, a PPC provider will show you one metric. The problem with only revealing one metric is that you don’t get the full context of that number.
For instance, if your provider focuses solely on click-through rate (CTR), then you miss other important factors, like total impressions (the number of people who saw your ad). Let’s say your campaign has a CTR of 66%. That sounds great, right? Well, it’s great until you realize only 9 people saw the ad and only 3 people clicked through. Conversely, a CTR of 0.5% sounds pretty dismal on the surface. However, 0.5% could mean 10,000 people saw your ad and 50 of them clicked through. Aren’t 50 clicks significantly better than 3?
The lesson here? Context matters. Don’t be fooled by a company that manipulates only one metric so you can’t tell how much money you’re actually wasting.

Read more: “The Four Most Commonly Misunderstood PPC Metrics.”

4. No Control Over When Your Budget Is Spent

Oftentimes, the dollar amount of your total PPC budget is the only say you have. Once you’ve set your budget, you have virtually no control over how and when that money is handled. That’s why most business owners aren’t aware of how their PPC budgets are spent. Some questions to ask:

Is your click budget portioned out so it lasts all 30 days of the month?
Is it exclusively spent during peak days and times?
Is your budget used up all at once?

The timing of your click spend may not be something you’ve put a lot of thought into before, but it actually has a huge impact on your campaign’s overall performance. For example, if your budget is portioned out little by little, and there’s only a small amount of money leftover (after the substantial management fee) for your clicks, then your ads will only run for an hour or two each day. Obviously, this is not going to provide you with satisfying results.
To better understand how your money is being spent, you need to find out when it’s being spent.

How to Avoid Being Ripped Off

Don’t let this blog post scare you away from PPC services. PPC is a super-efficient way to attract leads, even if it’s a little pricey. The trick is to find an online advertising company that’s honest and professional.
For instance, at Prospect Genius, we do charge a small management fee for PPC services; however, we tell you exactly how much it is so you can see what’s going to Google and what’s going to our team. And if the portion reserved for AdWords clicks won’t be enough to support a strong campaign, then we’ll tell you not to do PPC at all. Why? Because the meager results wouldn’t be worth your investment. Unlike other companies, we refuse to just pocket our management fee while your business flounders.
Furthermore, we provide our clients direct access to campaign reporting. With these reports (easily accessible by logging in to your portal account), you can see how much we’re spending each day, your average ad position, and even what each ad looks like! We also develop an ad schedule with you, so you can have a say in when your ads appear.
Shed some light on your PPC services! Talk to your provider to get some answers. Or feel free to get in touch with Prospect Genius to discover how we’re different.

Why You Must Give Your SEO Campaign Time

Last Updated: October 15, 2015

How long do you plan to keep your company in business? For the vast majority of business owners, the answer is something longer than 90 days. Why, then, are many business owners so reluctant to invest in online advertising for the long haul? If you want a long-lasting web presence that gets stronger and stronger as time goes on, then you must be patient as SEO builds. An SEO program may try your patience for the first 90 days, but the long-term ROI will be worth the wait.

Here’s why SEO requires your patience, and how your patience will pay off.

SEO = Building a Reputation

Why does SEO take at least three months to start generating results? It’s because SEO involves so much more than just building a website. As we’ve noted previously, SEO requires lots of repetition as you build your website’s reputation and establish its credibility with Google. This includes submitting your site to multiple tiers of directories in stages, updating your social media profile regularly, and performing other tasks that build your backlinks.
If you look at starting a new SEO campaign like starting a new business, it might make more sense: Opening a physical storefront is only the first step. You then have to get the word out about your business by announcing your arrival on the scene. You need to bring attention to your new business by holding a grand opening, sharing the news on Facebook, handing out business cards… Whatever it takes to get people to notice you. Then you can start expecting customers to roll in. It’s the same with an SEO campaign. Your advertiser needs to spend time putting your name online and demonstrating your legitimacy to Google before you can expect your phone to start ringing.
When all is said and done, the whole “grand opening” process for SEO campaigns usually takes at least three months.

Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare

While SEO may take a while to gain traction, it’s the only form of online advertising proven to go the distance. As your campaign gains momentum, its performance will grow until it doesn’t even resemble what it was like in those first few months.
To use another analogy, building an SEO campaign can be compared to building a house. During the initial stages of construction, you’ll have a fine-looking house from the outside, with four walls, a roof, and some windows. But when you open the door, you’ll see that the house is still uninhabitable, as the plumbing and electricity still need to be installed and the interior needs to be furnished.
Quitting your SEO campaign after the first four weeks because your website has been launched “without results” would be like deciding to move in to this uninhabitable house because it looks finished from the outside. You would soon realize you made a huge mistake by rushing it. However, if you’re patient for a few more weeks, you’ll have a cozy, fully functional home.
In the same way, if you stick it out with your SEO company for a little bit longer, you’ll have a high-performing advertising campaign that can start to generate leads from all different corners of the web. Best of all, once your site has established a solid reputation with Google, it’ll only require regular monitoring and occasional maintenance to keep going strong.

Stick With One SEO Provider

Whatever you do, don’t start working with another advertiser during this three-month waiting period in the hopes that it will speed up your wait time. It won’t. In fact, it could actually make you wait twice as long, considering the damage it would do to your Quality Score on Google. You’d make your advertiser’s job harder while making your campaign’s performance worse.

Make the Commitment. It’s Worth It.

When you put in the time and allow your SEO campaign to gain traction, you’ll be rewarded with prominence in local search results and a steady increase in leads. As time goes on and your website’s value becomes clearer to Google, your campaign’s performance will improve even more. Provided that your advertiser isn’t doing anything shady—like creating fake map listings or copying the same content for all of their sites—you should give your advertiser at least 90 days to work their magic. You’ll be glad you did.

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