11 Tips For Increasing Your Paid Search ROAS and Improve Ad Performance
If you spend money on PPC campaigns, keep in mind that getting clicks is half the story. Your ads are ineffective if they fail to generate Return on Ads Spending (ROAS). ROAS is a significant factor for analyzing PPC advertisements. Moreover, an adequate paid search ROAS indicates that your ad campaign is going well and aligned with your ultimate marketing goals.
Many factors come into play that will affect your ROAS. Some of these factors are modest paid search tactics, and others are advanced-level strategic ad management. More or less, the ROAS of your campaigns will keep fluctuating, and staying on a constant number or expecting an increase is setting unrealistic goals for beginners.
In this article, I will take you through the 11 ways to increase your paid search ROAS and explain how to measure ROAS as well. So, keep reading to enhance your knowledge about paid search management and boost paid search ROAS.
How to Measure ROAS
You need to track your sales and conversion to improve your ROAS. The basic formula of calculating conversions or sales is dividing the revenue earned from a campaign by the total amount spent. Most paid search platforms have this feature built-in, so you won’t need to bring out your pen and paper. By simply adding a transaction value for each conversion, you can calculate your ROAS.
How to Improve ROAS of Ad Campaigns
Improving the ROAS of any campaign requires a firm understanding of revenue and cost. Here are several ways you can enhance the ROAS of ad campaigns.
- Increase revenue by lowering the cost of ads
- Stabilize the cost of ads and maintain revenue
Both metrics mentioned above can be improved separately by following advanced PPC strategies, which are shared below.
1. Target Low-Paying Keywords
It’s a straightforward approach if you have a firm understanding of keyword bidding. Typically, marketers use keywords from Google keyword planner to bid on. This is a general practice; however, there are other ways to find relevant keywords that can be used to run ads. There are plenty of free and premium keyword tools to find keywords for paid ads. By utilizing different tools, you can build a firm understanding of the expected web traffic you will receive from the keywords you bid on. Remember, all keyword tools show average expected search volumes. Therefore, verifying the search volumes from third-party tools can reassure your keyword investments and prevent you from investing in hyped keywords.
2. Improve Quality Score
The early days of paid ads were not cluttered with different metrics of ranking. However, as Google started receiving thousands of requests for paid ads on particular keywords, the company introduced the quality score system. Think of it like this; when 4 companies have bid on the same keyword, each with a high budget, which one will Google rank?
To lessen confusion, Google takes help from the quality score system. It’s a simple metric that calculates the number of times your website has used the particular keyword you have bid on. This system increases your chances of ranking your website on top despite having a small budget. Moreover, the quality score helps Google improve search results for its users in response to paid ads. So, you can expect the quality score to drastically impact paid search ROAS in the future.
3. Improve Mobile Friendliness
Google’s highest search traffic comes from mobile devices. According to Statista, mobile searches account for half of Google’s search traffic worldwide. Despite these statistics, most companies have yet to embark on a mobile-friendly interface for their website. No matter how well planned your paid searches are, your ROAS will not increase unless you give your customers a pleasant user experience. Moreover, Google de-ranks websites that don’t have a mobile-friendly interface. So, you can’t expect to hit record high sales if your website isn’t mobile-friendly.
The mobile-friendly user interface is crucial for eCommerce stores. Since customers spend an ample amount of time shopping online, you need to provide a comfortable visual and navigation experience to boost sales.
4. Keep Tabs On Your Competitors
No words are enough to express the importance of keeping track of your competitors. You can use many tools to track your competitor’s ad campaigns, offers, keywords, and ad copy. Keep in mind that getting traffic is half the story. You need your ad visitors to buy what you are selling. To do so, analyzing long-term trends can be helpful. Keeping an eye out for ads generating massive clicks but low conversions is also important to find room for improvement. You can do all of this by spying on your competitors and improving their paid search strategy.
5. Improve Your Ad Copy
Content is the king in digital marketing, and most companies have yet to realize its importance. One of the most significant reasons why paid ads don’t generate profit is because of low-quality ad copy. Remember, your ad copy is the first thing the target audience comes in contact with. If it’s not conversion-optimized, you can say goodbye to improving your ROAS.
Many content writing agencies can do the hard work for you. However, you need to hire a copywriter specifically. There are significant differences between a content writer and a copywriter. The most important one is that a copywriter writes excellent sales copy to capture the reader’s attention and generate sales. So, you need to either hire a good copywriter or contact a copywriting agency to boost paid search ROAS.
6. Refine Keyword Targeting to Boost Paid Search ROAS
Keyword targeting is the core of paid search marketing. Without a refined keyword targeting plan, your paid search ROAS has fewer chances of increasing. Your keyword targeting has to be specific to what you are advertising to accelerate your ad performance and generate more revenue. Moreover, using high purchase intent keywords can also increase your income, but it might affect your paid ads’ cost. The ultimate goal of refined keyword targeting is to discover high-traffic-low-cost keywords that your competitors missed. So, spying on your competitors can be a good place to start. Simply note down the keywords your competitors are using and try to find other keywords in relation to them.
7. Leverage Geo-Targeting
Google paid search not only supports online businesses, but it’s also great for brick-and-mortar stores. If you happen to be marketing one, you needn’t pay for clicks from customers who live 1,000 miles away from your store. The best way to target the most relevant audience through paid search is by Geolocation. This robust feature allows PPC experts to target keywords triggered from certain locations. This strategy makes sure you are paying less and earning more.
Additionally, geo-targeted keywords also have a high purchase intent. For example, “best shoes in Queens New York.” These keywords show that the searcher is ready to purchase. You can leverage geo-targeting for eCommerce stores that don’t ship in specific locations and turn off hits from such areas.
8. Add Negative Keywords
Besides adding relevant keywords to your planner to boost paid search ROAS, you can also include negative keywords. Negative keywords are specific terms that are slightly related to your keywords, but you know for sure that your customers would never type these search terms. Therefore, adding these keywords to your list will ensure your ads stick to relevant keywords and you maximize your ROAS.
9. Optimize Your Landing Page
Customers’ buying journeys start from the moment they click on your ads. From here, it’s up to you how you can convert a potential visitor to a lead or a sale. The most crucial aspect of boosting paid search ROAS is improving the landing page experience. If your customers cannot find what they came looking for, they will leave quickly and increase your website bounce rate. This might affect your paid search ROAS and bring your ads to the second page of Google. Recovering from this slump is challenging but not impossible. However, it’s best to avoid de-ranking altogether.
The best way to test your landing pages is through A/B split testing. Google Optimize is a great tool for making several versions of your website and launching them against each keyword you are targeting.
10. Use Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion rate optimization is one of the best ways to boost paid search ROAS because it targets consumer psychology on a neurological level and generates massive conversions. One of the main aspects of conversion rate optimization is its potential to decrease cart abandonment rate. According to Smartinsights, the global cart abandonment rate is 75.6%. This translates into millions of dollars added to the cart yet didn’t go to the check-out phase.
To make sure you capture all the lost income, add a cart abandonment email plan. It’s a simple system that sends an email to potential buyers regarding cart abandonment. Cart abandonment email is available on various online web designing tools. Also, this system can easily be integrated with a few codes on a website.
11. Advertise Seasonal Offers
Most businesses know the potential of promoting seasonal offers. Still, they don’t understand its impact on paid search ROAS. Advertising seasonal offers can drastically boost paid search ROAS and recover your business from drowning. Moreover, seasonal offers also enhance brand exposure; however, it’s challenging to compete on Google paid searches during high sales seasons like Christmas and New Years’. This is because many businesses are investing in paid searches, and the competition becomes fierce. The best way to boost paid search ROAS during high sales seasons is by targeting seasonal keywords in advance. This will ensure your position on the first page of Google.
Moreover, you should double or triple-check your landing page optimization—internal linking and mobile-friendliness before the 11th hour. Otherwise, you might be paying huge amounts of money and won’t receive many sales because your page isn’t ranking.
The Bottom Line
Boosting paid search ROAS is in many online businesses’ books; yet, achieving this benchmark is relatively difficult. However, the quest for the cheapest ads and highest revenue continues regardless of how difficult it may become. By following the tips mentioned above to increase paid search ROAS, you can drastically improve your revenue streams. Moreover, working proactively on the tips mentioned above will ensure your top position on Google search ads during the holiday season. Finally, you can also boost paid search ROAS by using the Wayback Machine to track the changes on your competitor’s website. Monitor the amendments made by your competitor near the holiday season, find opportunities for improvements and integrate them on your website. This will positively impact your paid search ROAS and boost your revenue altogether.
If you enjoyed reading this blog post, you can learn more about digital marketing and affiliate marketing through my website.
