If you are an affiliate marketer, getting clicks but no conversions is a common issue. Read on to learn about the mistakes you might be making and some remedies to them.
Pay Per Click or (PPC) advertising is one of the most effective digital marketing channels for affiliate marketers. It drives ‘immediate and qualified’ traffic that is quite likely to convert. PPC advertising is powerful because it capitalizes on user intent. This means that the ads are displayed to an audience that are actually looking to buy your product or service.
Having said that, just getting traffic isn’t enough for you as an affiliate marketer. If you are putting up an ad, and spending money on it, you want it to bring sales. It’s as simple as that! Now this is the tricky part. Getting traffic through PPC campaign strategies is easy, but knowing how to convert traffic to sales is almost a masterstroke.
If your Google AdWords conversion is low, you are not alone. Getting clicks but no conversions is a common issue. The average conversion rate on the AdWords search network across all industries is 3.17%. It’s even worse on the display network (0.46%). You might think if your ad copy is engaging enough, it might do the trick. That’s not true! There’s no quick fix for that. It’s a process that takes time.  Bringing conversions through AdWords requires immense hard work, immaculate planning, strategic thinking and consistent monitoring to get tangible results through your PPC campaigns.
Let’s take a look at some PPC campaign mistakes you might be making. We have elaborated on how you can overcome them to start getting quick results.
Getting Clicks But No Conversions? Here are 7 Mistakes You Might Be Making
#1: You Are Not Understanding Searcher Intent
When it comes to PPC campaigns, searcher intent is of critical importance. Google is very different from other social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook. On these platforms, people are generally hanging out and sharing stuff. However, when they come to Google, they are looking for something specific. It might be a piece of information or a product or service.
Through Google AdWords, you can capture bottom-of-the-funnel traffic. That is not to say that just ranking for any keyword would bring conversions.
Let’s say, a user types in ‘best crm’. This means that they are in the consideration phase and are looking for comparison of different customer relationship management software. You might have an engaging headline and relevant ad extensions, but you have not captured the context. They will just click one of the organic results – results that do show comparisons of top crm. If you are to spend precious dollars on this keyword, make sure you have an article or a video that answers the question and run it as a paid ad. It will help you generate leads.
Make sure you understand the user’s intent and analyze what each keyword is attempting to achieve.
#2: You Are Not Using Ad Extensions to Good Effect
Including ad extensions are a great way to improve conversion and click-through rates. Google states sitelink extensions can increase CTR by 10% and call extensions can boost conversions by 10%.
So yes, ad extensions do work but that does not mean you start including random ad extensions. They should be relevant, add value and enhance the user experience. For instance, if you are targeting local audience, it is important that you add your business’ address.
Take a look at how AgencyAnalytics have used ad extensions smartly. Instead of their company address and phone number, they have included links that they think might be of interest to the users. This improves the user journey as they get what they want in fewer clicks and less time.
Do not just add ad extensions for the sake of having them. Make sure that they are serving a purpose.
#3: You Are Not Employing Ad Groups Effectively
Quality score exists to ensure that users get exactly the results they are searching for. The higher your quality score is, more will be your chances of getting at the top of paid results.
One of the mistakes affiliate marketers make when developing paid campaigns is that they add too many keywords in a single ad group. When you do that, users do not get the desired results.
Let’s give you an example here:
If a user is looking for ‘woman’s black dress’, (s)he does not want to see your landing page for women’s dresses and then search for black ones. That’s too much work for them.
Source: ConversionXL
To improve conversions, you should use single keyword ad groups. If you find out that women’s black dress is a frequent keyword, create a single keyword ad group and also a landing page that takes them there.
You can repeat the process for other popular keywords as well.
#4: Ad’s Message Does Not Match the Landing Page
Back to quality score again. Landing page accounts for a significant portion of your quality score.
Image source: Search Engine Land
No matter how creative you get with your ad copy, or how specific you get with your keyword targeting, you will not get the desired conversions if your landing page performs terribly. Hence, not only should your ads be specific, there should be a message, matching with the landing page. Message match can improve conversions by more than 200%.
A landing page with a great message match is one that solves the users’ problem and delights them when they click the ad and see that page.
Here’s an example of a paid ad that does exactly.
Sharpspring promises that it will compare the top 6 marketing automation platforms and it does just that. They offer a downloadable comparison guide at the landing page.
With a presenable ad copy, contrasting orange color and a clear call-to-action, this landing page does the trick.
#5: You Are Not Remarketing Properly
Remarketing is an important PPC feature that allows you to show your ads to people who have already visited your website.
Since, it only shows your ads to people who have shown some interest in your product or service, the chances of conversion improve significantly. Through remarketing, you can create targeted ads for these audiences. For instance, since you know they are interested, you might offer them an exclusive discount through your retargeted ad.
Image Source: WordStream
The ad above reminds the reader how much they liked the dress in the first place and tempts them to buy it on a reduced price. What’s more, you can segment your audience and serve ads on the basis on the pages that they had visited.
#6: You Are Not Experimenting Enough
You might have the best landing page. You might be using all kinds of marketing automation tools and think that this is the best conversion rate you can achieve. Well, complacency can be your worst enemy!
Make sure you get access to the user behavior reports and analyze the information. The tiny details can come in really handy. For instance, users might get confused by an image as they might think it is clickable.
Did you know that you could improve conversions by just adding an image slider? You get these and other such insights when you keep on testing. Also remember that there are no rules here. One thing that works for a website or product family might not work on the other. The key is to be open to different ideas.
#7: Your Offer Is Not Compelling Enough to Convert
You might fret over many reasons why those clicks do not turn into conversions, but sometimes, your offer is simply not good enough.
To many people, your offering is identical to that of your competitors. This means that you need to differentiate it and provide something unique. According to WordStream, companies that had ‘massively creative and differentiated’ offers had 2-3 times better conversion rates.
However, when you are an affiliate, your offering or core product might be the same as your competitor. If that’s the case, find a way to frame it in a unique manner. Make sure that you are effectively portraying the dollar value of your service.
Another tactic you can apply to create a compelling offer for your customers is product splintering. Do not show the same offer to the leads again and again. They might get bored or even irritated by watching it again and again. With product splintering, you can use certain components of a product or service and sell them at a lower cost. This has known to increase conversions significantly.
Final Words
Getting clicks but no conversions is a common problem that affiliate marketers from across the world face. Tackling this requires planning, hard work and proper execution. Just like all good things in life, conversions do not come easy as well!
Apply the solutions provided in this article. You will hopefully get the desired results!
Are you making any of these mistakes? Are you getting clicks but no conversions? We hope you find this article helpful. Let us know your thoughts on the subject in the comments’ section below.
Umair Qureshi
Umair Qureshi works as Assistant Digital Marketing Manager for Cloudways- A Managed Cloud Hosting Platform. He loves combining creativity with skills and marketing with technology.
