CRO for PPC: Key areas to optimize beyond landing pages

Conversion rate (CVR) is one of the top performance drivers when it comes to PPC campaigns.

This article outlines key factors that can influence PPC conversion rates so you can squeeze as much revenue from your paid campaigns as possible.

Optimizing for PPC conversion rates

A common conversion rate optimization (CRO) methodology involves three steps:

• Step 1: Investigation. Collecting data, analyzing past results, generating insights, etc.
• Step 2: Design. Crafting hypotheses, prioritizing actions, etc.
• Step 3: Implementation. Using tools like Google Ads’ Experiment feature, AB Tasty, etc.

CRO is mainly about A/B testing, but most tests focus only on landing pages. While important, improving conversion rates involves more than just landing pages. I’ve discussed A/B testing challenges before, but data collection often gets stuck on just landing pages.

To avoid this, here are the factors influencing your PPC campaigns’ conversion rate and how to improve them.

Tracking conversions effectively

It may seem obvious, but you can’t improve conversion rates without tracking them. More importantly, you must use the right tools to evaluate conversions.

For example, suppose your Meta Ads campaign leads to a landing page that isn’t accessible anywhere else on your website. Let’s also assume that you leverage retargeting audiences a lot, and, as a result, most people convert within a one-day view-through window. 

In this scenario, your data tells you your audience converts using another page. Focusing CRO on your Meta Ads-dedicated landing page does not make sense, right? 

Make sure to understand where and how conversions relate to your customer journey. That way, you can avoid misconceptions and truly work on impactful CRO tests.

Here’s another example. Let’s say that you’re working for an ecommerce store that uses GA4 to track purchases. It’s handy because it deduplicates purchase events, so you know which channel “scored the final goal.” As a result, your CRO plan will focus on GA4-level purchases.

In this common scenario, Meta Ads may appear ineffective because they target higher in the funnel compared to search. You might think Meta Ads traffic is low quality, but from a CRO perspective, we can find several solutions:

• Focus on retargeting audiences (since it’s closer to the purchase event). The downside is that we’re only gaming the attribution system here, so it’s probably too short-sighted.
• Review the target KPI (initially those GA4 purchases) so it matches Meta Ads’ intent. It’s certainly a better solution, but it fails to picture all touchpoints and could lead to lower-quality traffic because you don’t use a signal as strong as purchases (if you’ve ever run lead gen campaigns, you know that all leads are not made equal. Same thing here).
• Use both Meta Ads’ attribution tool and GA4 to understand how this channel impacts conversion rates. This method shows both the “last click” channel and the overall impact of Meta Ads. Using additional attribution tools improves accuracy, a method known as “triangulation.”

This overview isn’t complete, so check out the articles below for more details.

However, keep in mind that these advanced measurement strategies may not be suitable for quick CRO improvements and could be excessive for now.

Take measurement tools and attribution ****** into account when collecting data. This will help map CRO opportunities and manage expectations so that each channel’s results are properly segmented and analyzed.

Audiences, intent and external factors

Here is an example from one of my agency’s clients (focusing on education) for Google Ads campaigns’ conversion rates:

• Competitor: 2.8%
• Generic: 6.1%
• Brand: 27.8%

As you can see, conversion rates vary greatly depending on the audience. Similar to measurement tools, this means that targeting is a critical CRO component in and of itself. Let’s break that down.

(Auto) bidding and setup

Note: I’m focusing on auto-bidding since it powers the vast majority of ad campaigns. However, the overall thought process remains true for manual bidding, too.

Feeding ad networks’ algorithms with the proper conversion will make a world of difference to your targeted audience and, ultimately, your conversion rate. This is why you need to regularly audit:

• Conversions: They need to reflect your CRO goal.
• Monthly/weekly conversion volumes: They need to meet algorithms’ minimums (see Google Ads’ tROAS guidelines or Meta Ads’ guidelines).
• Conversion latency to meet algorithms’ needs: Based on experience, you don’t want to exceed four weeks between ad clicks and actual conversions, but it can vary depending on volumes and industries.

If your historical data meets the above criteria, then you play with a decent budget. However, if that’s not the case, you want to review the budget as part of your CRO mapping. Sometimes, improving conversion rates simply means increasing the budget to better feed algorithms.

Auto bidding is not magic. Make sure it’s set up for success (and yes, that does include budget). That setup should be a top priority in your CRO opportunities map.

Audience segmentation

When mapping out CRO efforts, you should segment your goals by funnel stages and integrate them with traffic acquisition tests.

Let’s say you want to improve the purchase rate. Unfortunately, there’s a massive out-of-home (OOH) awareness campaign happening at the same time. The result is that you will most certainly see a dip in conversion rates since more top-of-funnel visitors will pop up on your website. 

Is that a bad thing? No. You simply need to better integrate that CRO map with other teams’ tests.

Conversely, smaller brands that “only” run Google Ads paid search and have small SEO traffic (which mostly originates from branded queries) can probably ignore segmenting audiences altogether.

In any case, take external factors into account. There are the usual sales, Q4 madness, summer holiday and back-to-school periods to consider, as well as political or global events.

Audiences vary in their conversion rates. Group them and adjust your KPIs and measurement methods accordingly. If audience patterns change (e.g., due to seasonality), reassess to better understand your CRO results.

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Ad copy, creative and product

An ad should urge people to take action. To improve conversion rates, align the ad with the desired action.

While improving Quality Score with relevant ad copy and landing pages is important, focusing too much on vanity metrics can harm conversion rates.

To balance ad effectiveness for better CRO and profitability, consider these three key items.

Audience and messaging personalization

A brand can only expect many keywords to resonate strongly with its products, and that is OK. Improving CRO should mean tailoring your ad copies and creatives to that very specific audience. 

This means that sometimes, ads should repel some people (the unqualified). Let’s take a personal example.

PPC professionals are often marketing-educated. We tend to think all creatives should look sleek, mobile UX/UI should follow the latest trends, etc.

But if your audience is plumbers, they probably will not care about those items because they are not familiar with the latest UI or design trends. Worse, they could think that such sleek-looking creatives mean that your price tag will be above their budget.

Should you test making your customer journey uglier? Could be. Depends on your target audience.

Audiences are unique. You cannot use a one-size-fits-all approach to copywriting, creative production and tone of voice. Not sure where to start? Benchmark competitors and add that to your CRO map.

Product and offer positioning

Ad copy and creative often fail to clearly explain products. Marketers get out of touch with their target audiences and start using jargon when they should not.

No wonder conversion rates turn bad. Ads attract (and repel) the wrong type of prospects.

For example, a client recently suggested a Meta Ads image that, out of context, conveyed a completely different message. They were so focused on their own perspective that they didn’t see how it would appear to others.

Another example: a client insists on using video ads produced by an agency that doesn’t specialize in performance marketing. As a result, the videos lack strong hooks. Simpler, more impactful image ads would actually drive better traffic and conversion rates.

Test showing your Meta Ads ad in a busy Instagram feed to potential prospects. And see whether it hooked them. Then ask them what they understood from your ad.

If your ad passes the test, it’s a good one. Otherwise, it’s got to be featured on your CRO map simply because it will not drive action.

Product/offer value and differentiation

While ads are meant primarily to drive traffic, they will be seen alongside competitors’ ads. They should be as strong as possible, so prospects take the desired action right away, dismissing competitors.

If we take the above item further, you should also focus on competitors’ pricing and/or USPs. For ecommerce brands, a great tool to get started with is Google Merchant Center’s Price Competitiveness report.

That kind of benchmark will help you understand where you stand and whether your copy and creative should focus on differentiation rather than fighting competition head-on. If your product is average, it only fuels branding discussions.

Benchmark competitors regularly and ensure that your product is better or different. CRO is closely tied to the product, so include this in your strategy to avoid issues caused by competitors’ changes in pricing, features or releases.

Landing pages and user journey

At this point, you may have understood that improving conversion rates does not solely involve landing pages. If anything, landing pages should follow the same basic rules seen above:

• Correctly tracked with the right tools.
• Personalized according to targeted audiences.
• Aligned with the ad message and the product’s USP.

There are lots of other landing page-specific items. Search Engine Land contributors already did a great job detailing them:

The above points don’t cover technical details, but you should also check load time, UX/UI, and mobile friendliness. Make sure to address these aspects and prioritize your CRO efforts based on their impact on your business.

Offsite properties

User journeys span several touchpoints. Some can be dark social or “simple” review sites like Trustpilot.

While you only see a 30-minute session in GA4, your prospects multitask and gather external information. They may come back, having read positive reviews about your product, and buy it. Or they close their browser’s tab and never bother.

The downside is that you would think the conversion rate drop is due to your landing page (for example). But it could very well be due to a poor online reputation.

Depending on your industry, you may want to include review sites in your CRO activities. For example, you may want to prioritize Glassdoor if you’re looking to hire people.

Post-purchase experience

This is slightly off-topic since conversion rate does not exactly relate to LTV and repeat purchase rate. But direct traffic can hide returning customers, who will show higher conversion rates.

If you’re looking at the overall GA4-level purchase rate for all website visitors. You want to make sure that customer retention is top-notch, too.

There are plenty of options, and it will depend a lot on your business, but here are 10 ideas to improve churn rate, which will directly improve returning customers’ conversion rate.

Mapping CRO opportunities in PPC campaigns

Conversion rate is usually regarded as primarily driven by landing pages, but PPCs (and traffic managers) can help boost that KPI significantly.

Make sure to review this CRO map every now and then to correctly prioritize your efforts and improve ROI!