Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Unfiltered: How to Show Up in Local Search Results

Posted by sherrybonelli

If you’re having trouble getting your local business’ website to show up in the Google local 3-pack or local search results in general, you’re not alone. The first page of Google’s search results seems to have gotten smaller over the years – the top and bottom of the page are often filled with ads, the local 7-pack was trimmed to a slim 3-pack, and online directories often take up the rest of page one. There is very little room for small local businesses to rank on the first page of Google.

To make matters worse, Google has a local “filter” that can strike a business, causing their listing to drop out of local search results for seemingly no reason – often, literally, overnight. Google’s local filter has been around for a while, but it became more noticeable after the Possum algorithm update, which began filtering out even more businesses from local search results.

If you think about it, this filter is not much different than websites ranking organically in search results: In an ideal world, the best sites win the top spots. However, the Google filter can have a significantly negative impact on local businesses that often rely on showing up in local search results to get customers to their doors.

What causes a business to get filtered?

Just like the multitude of factors that go into ranking high organically, there are a variety of factors that go into ranking in the local 3-pack and the Local Finder.

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Here are a few situations that might cause you to get filtered and what you can do if that happens.

Proximity matters

With mobile search becoming more and more popular, Google takes into consideration where the mobile searcher is physically located when they’re performing a search. This means that local search results can also depend on where the business is physically located when the search is being done.

A few years ago, if your business wasn’t located in the large city in your area, you were at a significant disadvantage. It was difficult to rank when someone searched for “business category + large city” – simply because your business wasn’t physically located in the “large city.” Things have changed slightly in your favor – which is great for all the businesses who have a physical address in the suburbs.

According to Ben Fisher, Co-Founder of SteadyDemand.com and a Google Top Contributor, “Proximity and Google My Business data play an important role in the Possum filter. Before the Hawk Update, this was exaggerated and now the radius has been greatly reduced.” This means there’s hope for you to show up in the local search results – even if your business isn’t located in a big city.

Google My Business categories

When you’re selecting a Google My Business category for your listing, select the most specific category that’s appropriate for your business.

However, if you see a competitor is outranking you, find out what category they are using and select the same category for your business (but only if it makes sense.) Then look at all the other things they are doing online to increase their organic ranking and emulate and outdo them.

If your category selections don’t work, it’s possible you’ve selected too many categories. Too many categories can confuse Google to the point where it’s not sure what your company’s specialty is. Try deleting some of the less-specific categories and see if that helps you show up.

Your physical address

If you can help it, don’t have the same physical address as your competitors. Yes, this means if you’re located in an office building (or worse, a “virtual office” or a UPS Store address) and competing companies are also in your building, your listing may not show up in local search results.

When it comes to sharing an address with a competitor, Ben Fisher recommends, “Ensure that you do not have the same primary category as your competitor if you are in the same building. Their listing may have more trust by Google and you would have a higher chance of being filtered.”

Also, many people think that simply adding a suite number to your address will differentiate your address enough from a competitor at the same location — it won’t. This is one of the biggest myths in local SEO. According to Fisher, “Google doesn’t factor in suite numbers.

Additionally, if competing businesses are located physically close to you, that, too, can impact whether you show up in local search results. So if you have a competitor a block or two down from your company, that can lead to one of you being filtered.

Practitioners

If you’re a doctor, attorney, accountant or are in some other industry with multiple professionals working in the same office location, Google may filter out some of your practitioners’ listings. Why? Google doesn’t want one business dominating the first page of Google local search results. This means that all of the practitioners in your company are essentially competing with one another.

To offset this, each practitioner’s Google My Business listing should have a different category (if possible) and should be directed to different URLs (either a page about the practitioner or a page about the specialty – they should not all point to the site’s home page).

For instance, at a medical practice, one doctor could select the family practice category and another the pediatrician category. Ideally you would want to change those doctors’ landing pages to reflect those categories, too:

http://ift.tt/2zkeBAt
http://ift.tt/2iNKs5m

Another thing you can do to differentiate the practitioners and help curtail being filtered is to have unique local phone numbers for each of them.

Evaluate what your competitors are doing right

If your listing is getting filtered out, look at the businesses that are being displayed and see what they’re doing right on Google Maps, Google+, Google My Business, on-site, off-site, and in any other areas you can think of. If possible, do an SEO site audit on their site to see what they’re doing right that perhaps you should do to overtake them in the rankings.

When you’re evaluating your competition, make sure you focus on the signals that help sites rank organically. Do they have a better Google+ description? Is their GMB listing completely filled out but yours is missing some information? Do they have more 5-star reviews? Do they have more backlinks? What is their business category? Start doing what they’re doing – only better.

In general Google wants to show the best businesses first. Compete toe-to-toe with the competitors that are ranking higher than you with the goal of eventually taking over their highly-coveted spot.

Other factors that can help you show up in local search results

As mentioned earlier, Google considers a variety of data points when it determines which local listings to display in search results and which ones to filter out. Here are a few other signals to pay attention to when optimizing for local search results:

Reviews

If everything else is equal, do you have more 5-star reviews than your competition? If so, you will probably show up in the local search results instead of your competitors. Google is one of the few review sites that encourages businesses to proactively ask customers to leave reviews. Take that as a clue to ask customers to give you great reviews not only on your Google My Business listing but also on third-party review sites like Facebook, Yelp, and others.

Posts

Are you interacting with your visitors by offering something special to those who see your business listing? Engaging with your potential customers by creating a Post lets Google know that you are paying attention and giving its users a special deal. Having more “transactions and interactions” with your potential customers is a good metric and can help you show up in local search results.

Google+

Despite what the critics say, Google+ is not dead. Whenever you make a Facebook or Twitter post, go ahead and post to Google+, too. Write semantic posts that are relevant to your business and relevant to your potential customers. Try to write Google+ posts that are approximately 300 words in length and be sure to keyword optimize the first 100 words of each post. You can often see some minor increases in rankings due to well-optimized Google+ posts, properly optimized Collections, and an engaged audience.

Here’s one important thing to keep in mind: Google+ is not the place to post content just to try and rank higher in local search. (That’s called spam and that is a no-no.) Ensure that any post you make to Google+ is valuable to your end-users.

Keep your Google My Business listing current

Adding photos, updating your business hours for holidays, utilizing the Q&A or booking features, etc. can help you show off in rankings. However, don’t add content just to try and rank higher. (Your Google My Business listing is not the place for spammy content.) Make sure the content you add to your GMB listing is both timely and high-quality content. By updating/adding content, Google knows that your information is likely accurate and that your business is engaged. Speaking of which…

Be engaged

Interacting with your customers online is not only beneficial for customer relations, but it can also be a signal to Google that can positively impact your local search ranking results. David Mihm, founder of Tidings, feels that by 2020, the difference-making local ranking factor will be engagement.

engagement-ranking-factor.jpg

(Source: The Difference-Making Local Ranking Factor of 2020)

According to Mihm, “Engagement is simply a much more accurate signal of the quality of local businesses than the traditional ranking factors of links, directory citations, and even reviews.” This means you need to start preparing now and begin interacting with potential customers by using GMB’s Q&A and booking features, instant messaging, Google+ posts, responding to Google and third-party reviews, ensure your website’s phone number is “click-to-call” enabled, etc.

Consolidate any duplicate listings

Some business owners go overboard and create multiple Google My Business listings with the thought that more has to be better. This is one instance where having more can actually hurt you. If you discover that for whatever reason your business has more than one GMB listing, it’s important that you properly consolidate your listings into one.

Other sources linking to your website

If verified data sources, like the Better Business Bureau, professional organizations and associations, chambers of commerce, online directories, etc. link to your website, that can have an impact on whether or not you show up on Google’s radar. Make sure that your business is listed on as many high-quality and authoritative online directories as possible – and ensure that the information about your business – especially your company’s Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) — is consistent and accurate.

So there you have it! Hopefully you found some ideas on what to do if your listing is being filtered on Google local results.

What are some tips that you have for keeping your business “unfiltered”?

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AdWords Changes, Keyword Madness & Other Spooky Stories from October

As witches descend from their mountainous caves in search of lost hikers to sacrifice to their eldritch gods and the restless dead rise from their dusty crypts hungering for the warmth of human flesh, it’s time to look back at the spookiest and most popular posts from the WordStream blog from October.

 Best of the WordStream blog October 2017 Stranger Things-style text

And my, were there some spooky stories this month! From major changes to how Google spends your money and how to find your most valuable keywords, to innovative chatbots and duplicate content, there were more than a few scares in October. Grab some of the candy you’ve been “saving” for tonight, secure a flashlight firmly beneath your chin, and catch up with the most popular posts of the month.

1. Breaking: Major Changes to How Google Spends Your Budget

Our top story this month was this emerging news story from Allen concerning forthcoming changes to how Google will spend your ad budget. This change will affect all advertisers regardless of size or spend, so if you haven’t heard about these important changes or how they’ll affect your campaigns, find out everything you need to know.

2. How to Create the Ultimate Facebook Business Page

Creating a Facebook business page is deceptively tricky. Sure, it’s easy to get one up and running, but is it any good?

 How to create the ultimate Facebook business page

In our second-most popular post of October, Allen walks you through how to create the ultimate Facebook business page to drive leads and sales via this immensely powerful social platform.

3. How to Find Your Most Valuable Keywords (& Find More)

Newcomers to paid search often mistakenly believe that keywords with high CTRs are their most valuable keywords, but if high CTR keywords aren’t converting, they’re not nearly as valuable as they might appear. In this post, Allen explains how to identify your most valuable keywords – the keywords with high CTR AND high conversion rates – as well as how to consistently find more of these keywords. Essential reading.

4. 8 Ways to Make the Most of Your AdWords Keywords

Once you’ve found your most valuable keywords, it’s vital that you make the most of them – which is precisely what guest author Max DesMarais of Vital Designs shows you how to do in our fourth-most popular post of October.

 Average search position CTR myth

Max covers a wealth of important topics in this highly actionable guide, including optimizing landing pages, conducting A/B tests, and more.

5. 6 SEO Tests You Need to Try

Speaking of A/B tests, our next post in this month’s spooktacular round-up focuses on testing for SEO. In this comprehensive guide, Brad outlines six SEO tests that you should be running to ensure your site is as tightly optimized as possible. How many of these tests have you already run?

6. How to Pass the AdWords Exam: 7 Tips from Newly Certified Professionals

Achieving AdWords certification is often among the first steps taken by fledgling new account managers – including every single member of WordStream’s rapidly growing Customer Success team – but passing the exam is a whole different animal entirely.

 Passing the AdWords Certification exam tips from newly certified professionals

In this post, Margot offers seven fantastic pointers on passing the AdWords certification exam from newly minted AdWords-certified professionals. If you’re planning on taking the AdWords exam, you need to read this post.

7. 10 of the Most Innovative Chatbots on the Web

Love them or hate them, chatbots are here to stay – and some of them are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In this post, yours truly looks at 10 of the most innovative chatbots on the Web, as well as the ways in which conversational agents could further transform the landscape of the Web in the future.

8. The Beginner’s Guide to Duplicate Content

There are dozens of stubbornly persistent SEO myths that, like zombies rising from the grave to exact a terrible vengeance on the living, simply refuse to die – and misconceptions about duplicate content are among the most prevalent. In this post, Jean Frew of Hallam Internet dispels some of the myths about duplicate content and what you should do about it.

9. How to 3X AdWords Conversion Rates Without Touching AdWords

Everybody wants higher conversion rates. Not everybody wants to spend years learning the arcane, mystical rites hidden in the depths of the AdWords interface in order to achieve them.

 RLSA campaign performance graph how to increase conversion rates without touching AdWords

Fortunately for you, Larry Kim is here to help. In our penultimate post of this month’s round-up, Larry shows you how to triple your conversion rates without touching a single setting in AdWords.

10. Case Study: Google Search Ads vs. Facebook Ads for a Small Local Business

For many small businesses with limited marketing budgets, paid search and paid social is often an either/or proposition. Unfortunately, many newcomers to digital marketing are unsure about which type of campaign is right for their business, which is why this case study by Hallam Internet’s Lauren Ahluwalia is essential reading for small, local businesses just getting into digital marketing.

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4 Ways Facebook Messenger Ads Are Awesome (& How to Set Them Up)

Remember when one billion was cool?

Well, Facebook recently surpassed two billion monthly active users on their site.

facebook users versus users of other social netoworks

But that’s not good news. Not for you and me, anyway.

It means there are millions of advertisers you’re competing against. There are easily thousands of other companies in your niche.

How do you differentiate?

Facebook’s new Messenger Ads give us the ability to reach customers instantly. And according to Facebook, they’ve already been shown to increase conversions and response rates.

So, what are Facebook Messenger Ads, and why should you care? How do you use Messenger Ads to drive sales, increase conversions, and qualify leads?

Here are four things you need to know about Facebook Messenger Ads, plus some tips on how you can set them up today in just a few minutes.

What Are Facebook Messenger Ads?

Facebook Messenger Ads are a relatively new ad feature that allow users who see your ads to initiate a text conversation with your business with the click of a button. Facebook currently offers a few different types of Messenger Ads:

  1. Destination ads
  2. Sponsored messages
  3. Home section ads

These are all designed for advertisers to start conversations with users and drive interactions and sales.

The destination style Messenger Ads show in your Facebook newsfeed like a typical ad, but the objective is vastly different.

Instead of a typical call to action like “Shop Now,” users see “Send Message”:

 

what are facebook messenger ads

(Image Source)

Where a normal ad would send people directly to a landing page, this Messenger-style ad will engage customers without directly asking them to buy – meaning you don’t have to scare away cold, non-brand-aware users with a heavy ask.

The second ad type is called a sponsored message. These ads allow you to deliver specifically crafted messages directly to a user’s inbox:

facebook sponsored messages

(Image Source)

It’s a great tool for driving strategic engagements and actions relating to your business while keeping a user on the platform and reducing the risk of a bounce.

The last type of ad that works for Messenger shows up directly in the home dashboard of your messaging application:

facebook messenger ad types

(Image Source)

The main use of these ads is pretty simple: To generate real, organic conversations with your customers. You know, to actually interact with them rather than treating them like another user on your list.

Once you’ve made initial contact, you have the opportunity to personalize your customer service and tailor the experience for each user.

personalized facebook messenger ad examples

(Image Source)

The results speak for themselves. Globe Telecom has already reduced calls to their hotline by 50% with the implementation of Messenger Ads.

So, why should you invest your marketing budget into this ad type? What are the key aspects that you need to know about?

Here are four things you should know about Messenger Ads.

1. You can reach people faster on their preferred medium

Customer support is moving towards messaging.

If you aren’t using a live chat service in some way, shape, or form, you risk losing out on conversions. Because it’s no secret that responding to a potential lead faster will only increase your odds of closing a deal.

The Harvard Business Review conducted an impactful study a few years ago to see how a company’s response time to leads would impact their qualification rate.

They wanted to see if response time played a role in conversion rates. Can you guess the results?

If you don’t respond in the first five minutes of a customer reaching out to you, you decrease your odds of converting them to a lead by 400%.

And according to a Drift study, the vast majority of sales teams don’t respond within anywhere near five minutes or less:

sales team response times

In their study, only 7% of sales teams responded within 5 minutes. On the other hand, 55% took more than five days to respond to inquiries or never responded at all.

In today’s world, the standard response time is only shrinking. Meaning you need to be responding ASAP if you want to find success when driving sales and qualifying leads.

Nobody wants to wait four days to get an email response from your company.

That’s why messaging apps have started to surpass social networks in their usage:

messaging app usage

In fact, 73% of customers prefer talking to companies via live chat rather than email. And 56% of people would rather message you than call you for customer service.

Why? Because you can get your problem solved almost instantly. No more sending hopeless emails to inboxes that seemingly never get checked.

Waiting on the phone, only to be bombarded by an annoying sales rep, isn’t your only option for fast help anymore.

On top of just fast messaging to potential leads, over two billion messages are sent between consumers and businesses every month. Facebook also tells us that 53% of consumers are more likely to buy from you if they can message you.

why use facebook messenger ads

Facebook Messenger Ads allow you to effectively reach more people faster, giving your business the chance to convert users at higher rates.

2. You can personalize ads like LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail

LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail is equal parts awesome and creepy.

You can essentially send personalized messages to users who you aren’t connected with and land them straight in the user’s inbox.

How’s that for an invasion of privacy? But they work because online ads are often a numbers game.

Facebook Messenger Ads now allow you to do pretty much the same thing, except you can’t target non-brand-aware users – meaning you can only do this for people who have interacted with your ads previously.

That’s actually a good thing because it virtually removes the creepiness associated with it. It’s like remarketing on steroids, allowing you to personalize ads from head to toe.

Remarketing also works. Clothing company Barbell Apparel was able to raise 49x their product launch goals using remarketing tactics.

You can get your message directly to a user within their messaging app, so you’re not restricted only to the news feed, meaning you can (somewhat) naturally reach out via a direct, personalized message.

You can use these for almost any type of remarketing. For example, Jon Loomer uses them to give users who engaged with a previous webinar ad a reminder to convert:

facebook messenger ads jon loomer

(Image Source)

But the kicker here is being able to scale this effort to huge lists – you can retarget thousands of people with these semi-personalized messages.

Typical display advertising conversion rates aren’t great. And the Facebook News Feed is already cluttered.

With these ads, you also don’t run the risk of being seen as creepy or overreaching because you’re only targeting people who’ve already shown interest in your brand. And sending a personalized message gives you a better shot at landing conversions than a basic, mass-produced remarketing ad on their feed.

3. Messenger ads offer better local targeting options

One of the best ways to use Facebook Messenger Ads is for building localized brand awareness.

Have you ever tried to run ads on Google or Yelp to drive local traffic? Did it work?

If you haven’t used those sites or found success, Facebook Messenger might be your new favorite tool for advertising.

With their new “Local awareness” feature, you can create newsfeed ads that drive huge levels of engagement. You can select a specific local audience depending on where your business is located to determine who will see your ads:

facebook messenger ads local business awareness

(Image Source)

Once you’ve selected a target city or audience, you can come up with specific offers that people can use at your local business:

jaspers marketing example

Meaning you can drive real foot traffic with a simple, message-style ad!

Driving local traffic has become increasingly difficult, but with these Facebook Messenger-style local ads, you can reach customers that live nearby with deal-based conversion offers.

4. Messenger ads are best for starting a conversation

If getting leads to converse with you is tough, which it probably is, these ads should be your bread and butter (yes, I’m hungry).

Qualifying leads and gauging interest is critical when it comes to producing real sales. Nobody wants to spend five weeks talking to a lead before finding out that they don’t even care about your product.

And when you can’t simply ask a user to convert instantly (meaning cold traffic), you need to start a casual conversation to assess their needs and interests. Otherwise, you’re going to have to run tons of remarketing ads with your fingers crossed, hoping to land a sale.

Facebook Messenger Ads are a perfect balance between ads and real sales conversations.

For example, check out how Jon Loomer uses these ad styles to initiate a real conversion with potential leads:

facebook ads messenger cta

(Image Source)

Instead of instantly asking prospects to sign up for a training course and pay him, he asks them to message him directly and chat about it.

He helps them see if it’s really a good fit, rather than expecting the user to know immediately and shell out their hard-earned cash on it.

Plus, this ad style has the added benefit of extreme personalization: Is this training right for you? Let’s talk it through!

It gives the user an experience that regular remarketing ads simply can’t provide. And once a user responds, you can even customize automated response messages using bots:

facebook messenger ad chat bots

(Image Source)

Delivering custom offers and CTAs has never been so easy.

You can see another example of how powerful messaging-style interactions can be in Drift’s recent “Year without forms” article.

They scrapped the typical marketing and advertising playbook of lead magnets and forms and switched their site over to a mostly messaged-based form of lead gen.

They used welcome messages to engage prospects, similar to how these new Messenger Ads work:

drift year without forms

Using this strategy of initiating the conversation, they found that 63% of people who clicked on their message ended up speaking with a sales rep.

Now that’s a good conversion rate.

Remember: there are millions of companies advertising on Facebook. You need to stand out and differentiate (ah, college marketing buzzwords) your business if you want more leads.

Start a conversation with them using Messenger Ads to qualify leads with fewer steps than a traditional sales funnel.

How to Set Up Facebook Messenger Ads

Now that you’ve got a grasp on some of the best ways to use Messenger-style ads, it’s time for the fun part: setting them up.

I can tell you’re already jumping for joy.

You’ve got a few options for setting up Facebook Messenger Ads.

It’s relatively easy, and anyone with a Facebook Business Manager account can do it in just a few minutes.

Keep in mind that this platform is still new, growing, and changing, so your options are currently somewhat limited.

Currently, you can only create Messenger-style ads with three different goals: Traffic, conversions, and app installs:

how to set up facebook messenger ads

Click on your desired marketing objective and create a new ad account for it.

Next, scroll down to the conversion section and select “Messenger”:

facebook messenger ads conversion tracking

This option ensures that users who click on your ad will start a conversation with your business rather than having Facebook direct them to a landing page. That way you can tell them how awesome you guys are. But seriously, don’t do that.

Now you want to edit your placements to fit your goals:

facebook messenger ads placements

The key here is to make sure that “Messenger” is selected and in use.

You’ll also notice that “Sponsored Messages” is not eligible yet. That’s because it’s a form of remarketing, as we discussed in the first tip of this article.

Once you’ve selected “Messenger,” your ads are just about ready to run. Fill it out with your desired content and head to your call to action.

Make sure that “Send Message” is the call to action users will see on your ads:

facebook messenger ads cta

Now you want to set up your message offers. This is different from your headline or description that you’ll find on the standard ad.

set up messenger ads on facebook

Essentially, this is what the user will see once they’ve clicked on your ad and are taken to their messenger app. For example, here’s how Jasper’s Market customized their message for users that clicked:

facebook messenger ads offer example

Once a potential customer engages with their ad, they’re sent a coupon straight in their messenger dashboard.

You can customize just about everything in the message, from the initial message to the custom responses that a user can choose from:

customize facebook message

For example, here’s how you can structure a potential message to consumers:

codeless facebook messenger ads

You can offer up a welcome message coupled with a headline and give them multiple options on how to respond.

If you want to use the messaging interaction to take users off-site, you can add buttons instead:

facebook customer actions

Once you’ve customized your messaging, all you have to do is place the order, and your messenger ads will be live.

A few final words on Messenger Ads

Facebook Messenger Ads allow you to speed up and personalize customer interactions, and reaching people faster is key in today’s cutthroat marketing environment.

Chances are, if you don’t like waiting for an email response or being on hold with customer service, neither do your customers.

Instead of blasting an ad to thousands, you can deliver custom messages to your audience in the form of messaging-based ads.

Reaching a customer in five minutes or less is critical to qualifying a lead, and personalizing those messages can help you drive lower costs and build loyalty.

Facebook Messenger Ads can specifically help you with personalization and great remarketing.

The new platform also helps with local targeting. You can direct specific, in-store offers to the inbox of local residents with ease.

Lastly, it’s great for starting a sales conversation that is otherwise hard-to-obtain. You can instantly start real, natural conversations that can help you nurture a potential lead until they convert.

And once you initiate that connection, you have instant access to their inbox for the rest of time.

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Monday, October 30, 2017

How to 3X AdWords Conversion Rates Without Touching AdWords

Over the last six months or so, one of my colleagues and I have been able to cut the cost of conversion by 2-3x, from over $325 per conversion to under $100. Here’s what that looked like:

rlsa cost per conversion

Pretty impressive, right? If you can cut your cost per conversion that much, you can drive way more conversions with the same advertising budget. So how did this happen?

What Happened?

It’s often extremely difficult to connect cause and effect in search marketing, because there are so many variables changing at the same time. However, this analysis was aided by the fact that I hadn’t made any changes to the campaign in question:

  • Did we change the landing page? No.
  • New bid strategy? Nope.
  • New ads? No. We ran the same ads over the entire time.

I had done nothing at all to the campaign over the period in question, as it was a smaller RLSA campaign that we didn’t bother focusing on because it wasn’t housing a ton of spend.

When I discovered CPAs had gone down so much, I needed to know what the heck was going. It’s not every day an untouched campaign goes bonkers like this!

The first thing I checked was to see if the CPCs were going down. That could play a huge role in lowering CPAs. But as you can see here, the CPC is steady from week to week, with the exception of August where I had to turn off the campaign for 3 weeks for budget reasons.

rlsa cost per click

It wasn’t that click prices were going down – it was that that the conversion rates were going way up. From the 2% range to the 7-8% range in recent months, as shown here:

adwords rlsa conversion rates

How Did Conversion Rates Triple So Quickly?

Here’s what was different: During the time period in question, the company ran Facebook ad campaigns targeting higher-funnel audiences corresponding to people who have the same interests and demographics as their buyer persona. The audience size was approximately 20 million people.

We bombarded this selected audience group with tons of different videos, ads, offers and content. On average people in the target audience saw the ads just over 10 times each between February and October of 2017, as shown here:

facebook ad campaigns reach

The Facebook ads generated clicks and conversions as you would expect from any pay-per-click advertising campaign.

But I believe the campaigns had an additional halo effect of creating a strong brand bias among the people who clicked through to the site, which profoundly impacted the RLSA campaigns, since they only target people who have previously visited your site.

Over the spring and summer months, we bought a ton of Facebook ads, bombarding their newsfeeds with ads (essentially manufacturing brand affinity), and the conversion rates for the RLSA campaign went up every month.

What we’re seeing here is that people with stronger brand affinity have higher conversion rates than people without any, because people tend to buy from the companies they have already heard of and begun to trust.

What does it all mean?

I’m a CRO skeptic. I think there’s a lot of the CRO bs out there that is just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Most of the time when people talk about conversion rate optimization they focus first on the obvious things like tweaking ad copy and landing pages or changing your bids – yes, these are all important things we must attend to, but they rarely yield sustainable 200-300% decreases in cost per conversion.

conversion rate optimization hacks

When it comes to increasing conversion rates and lowering CPA, the unicorn of all conversion rate optimization hacks is to create brand affinity among your target audience, for your business.

Quantifying the impact of brand affinity on direct response marketing is very difficult to measure, but this case study isolates a lot of the noise and illustrates the huge impact it can have on purchasing decisions.

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