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Clicks are a top goal for any digital marketing campaign. But conversions — moving customers to the next stage of the sales cycle — are even more critical. When a customer converts, they’re taking whatever action you wanted them to take, whether that’s buying a product, subscribing to a service, or simply signing up for your webinar or newsletter.
Clicks and conversions go hand in hand. You need the customer to click on something, like an online ad or a listing on a search engine results page (SERP), to get them to your website or a landing page where they will then, hopefully, convert. That said, conversions are harder to earn than clicks. Even if your marketing efforts generate a lot of clicks, it doesn’t mean they’re effective at actually converting customers.
In this post, we’ll look at some of the common reasons an ad campaign may be getting clicks but no conversions, and how you can tackle common issues that can prevent customers from converting.
First, some good news: The reasons behind your campaign’s “clicks but no conversions” problem might be relatively straightforward to resolve. Even the most experienced marketers grapple with this issue from time to time, so don’t assume you’re doing anything wrong when it comes to your ad campaign management. But you may need to readjust your strategy to ensure alignment between your marketing, customers, and website.
Speaking of your website, that may be a top factor for your inability to drive more conversions. The landing pages supporting your campaign could be at fault, too. If those elements contain inconsistent messaging or otherwise offer a clunky or lackluster user experience, a low conversion rate is almost assured. (A webpage loading at a snail’s pace will deter even the most determined customers!)
Luckily, there are quick fixes you can make to get your marketing campaign on track and increase your conversion rate. Following are fourteen actions you can take to help bump up your conversion rate.
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it likely includes at least one of the reasons (and likely more) that your ad campaign is getting clicks but no conversions.
If your ads aren’t attracting the right traffic, it can be a major reason for getting clicks but no conversions. To become a magnet for users who are likely to convert, you need to know which search terms will resonate with them and use them effectively in your ad campaigns. There are a number of tools and resources to tap for this insight.
For example, if you’re receiving Google Ads clicks but no conversions, you should take time to review your Search Terms Report to understand how your ads performed in actual searches. You may also want to consult Google Ads specialists; they can help you identify the best search terms and keywords to feature in your campaign.
A heat map is a snapshot report showing where visitors to your website are spending their time. It tracks clicks on your webpages from all users and displays them as colors — with the brightest colors showing where clicks are most concentrated and darker colors where click rates are trending lower.
A heat map can help you see where users might be encountering friction with certain elements, so you can run A/B tests and make targeted improvements. You may discover that many users are overlooking a poorly placed CTA button, or they’re clicking on things that aren’t clickable, but look like they are. Making simple adjustments to your landing pages to eliminate user confusion and streamline their journey can open the door to a flood of conversions.
Landing pages are doorways through which users can launch a relationship with your business, brand, products, and services. So, it’s vital to use your campaign’s landing pages to make a great first impression with visitors to your website.
Critically evaluate landing pages as if you were a potential customer: Would you stay or click away? And is the landing page offering content relevant to your target audience’s searches? If not, users will likely bounce.
Are you presenting people with a clear call to action (CTA) in your advertising? The CTA is the clincher for moving users along the conversion funnel, so it’s imperative you include one in your ads, on landing pages, and in other marketing materials, like emails or push notifications — and use it to create a sense of urgency.
The most effective CTAs have two common features: They’re simple, and they use strong action verbs. Some examples include “Sign Up Now,” “Start Saving Today” and “Download for Free.” If your business values phone call conversions, you may want to experiment with CTAs like “Call Now” or “Talk to an Expert.” Each CTA gives a clear instruction and a value proposition to tempt the user. For other examples, check out this blog post.
A scrollmap is a type of heat map that shows you how far users (desktop and mobile) will scroll on a webpage before they click away. Scrollmap data can help you ensure that you’re creating webpages of optimal length and positioning your CTAs at (or just above) the point where most people leave the page. That can help to increase the conversion rate.
The inability to easily locate contact information is the lament of many a website user. If a staid contact form is the only option you offer to users for getting in touch, and it’s buried on your website, you risk driving those customers away — for good. So, make sure your website has contact information prominently displayed, provide several ways for users to contact you — including a phone number, if possible — and make sure the information is regularly updated.
Here’s something to consider: Perhaps the price point for your product is too high for the consumers who are clicking through to your website. Keeping a close eye on your pricing relative to your competition might help prevent users from clicking away once they see your price. Also, if your pricing is higher for a good reason, justify it by clearly explaining why wherever you have pricing listed.
Advances in website technology mean it’s now possible to easily record visits of actual users to your website. This opens the door far wider for Tools like Hotjar, FullStory, and Crazy Egg allow marketers to see exactly how users interact with a website. This insight into their behavior means you can see where they get bogged down and lose interest, allowing you to make adjustments quickly. Menu too cluttered? CTA not prominent enough? Page not loading fast enough or at all? You’ll see it all on the recording and can initiate a fix immediately.
Your session recordings may also show that online visitors are leaving their sessions to place a phone call. If you’re not using a call tracking solution, you won’t be able to track what happens when the user goes offline — for example, did they convert over the phone? But with Invoca, you can connect the full online-to-call experience.
If a picture paints a thousand words, it can drive a thousand conversions, too. Once a potential customer has clicked through to your landing page, you want to keep them there by engaging them with compelling content, including high-quality visuals.
Large, high-resolution photos are more likely to keep people on a landing page than small, poor-quality images. High-quality images can also help you sell your product. And if you take care to use the right captions and alt text with your photos — and compress them — you can meet your search engine optimization (SEO) goals, too.
Say your Facebook ads are getting clicks but no conversions, or maybe it’s your Google Ads that get clicks but no conversions — either way, A/B testing can help you pinpoint why.
With A/B testing, you can understand how best to optimize digital marketing campaigns, so they’re more effective at driving conversions, and not just clicks. You test two versions of an ad featuring different elements, like images, email subject lines, or calls to action, with the same audience to see which ad produces better results. This should be a continuous process, too, so that you’re constantly optimizing your ads.
Try using a free sample campaign as part of your strategy to increase conversions. After all, who doesn’t like to get free stuff? Free samples can bring back repeat customers, generate new customers and just make people feel good about your brand. (San Francisco-based See’s Candies knows this well: It hands out 1 million pounds of free samples each year to people who stop by its candy shops! It’s an example of offline marketing, sure, but you get the point.)
Remarketing campaigns create a stickier relationship with potential customers. Say a customer visits your site and puts something in their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase. Sending a reminder to that customer via an online ad or email can spur them to go back and complete the transaction.
Remarketing campaigns can easily be accomplished through most ad networks. These networks provide you with a pixel tag (or small piece of code) that drops a cookie, adding each new visitor to your site to a remarketing list. When the same user visits another site on your ad provider’s network, they’ll see your ad again. This can be a highly effective way to recapture traffic lost by your website.
Digital design innovations are happening more frequently today, which means website designs can get stale very quickly. So, it’s a good idea to review and refresh your website often, so it feels contemporary, has the bells-and-whistles savvy consumers expect, and provides an exceptional user experience — including for mobile users.
Perhaps visitors to your site are clicking away because they aren’t finding evidence that your product or service is really what they’re looking for? Featuring case studies on your site can help satisfy this need by showcasing how your offerings solved a problem or benefitted a purchaser.
The same goes for testimonials. Prominently featuring quotes from real customers on your website, either as text or delivered by actual customers in video snippets, can help you earn the confidence of potential customers and increase your chances of turning clicks into conversions.
If you don’t have the right tracking place, you could be mistaken in thinking that your campaigns aren’t driving conversions. For example, perhaps your marketing is driving customers to convert over the phone and you don’t have the tracking in place to know that. If you aren’t tracking both phone call conversions and online conversions, you aren’t getting the full picture of your campaign’s performance. With Invoca, you can track your phone call conversions with the same accuracy you track online conversions. See how it works in the short video below:
Invoca has helped leading companies, including Rogers Communications, University Hospitals, and AutoNation, increase revenue by providing a complete view of each customer’s path to purchase. The conversation insights Invoca gathers from callers also empower marketing teams to optimize their digital campaigns and personalize all digital touchpoints cost-effectively.
To learn more about how you can use Invoca to maximize your marketing investments, measure true marketing performance, and get more clicks and conversions, contact Invoca today.
Want to learn more ways to improve your ROAS with Invoca? Check out these resources:
Download our Ultimate Guide to Reducing Wasted Marketing Spend to learn how you can lower your CPA while improving marketing campaign performance.
