How to slash your cost per lead on Google Ads

 

In a tough operating environment, cost cutting while reaching new customers through your digital marketing do not have to be mutually exclusive. You can make sure each dollar is performing as strongly as it can be.

By improving your cost-per-lead, or how much money you are spending per customer sign up through your digital marketing, you can get a better return from the same investment.

Discount your bid

In Google Ads, your “bid” is the price you are willing to pay Google for someone to click on your ad and visit your website.

If you decrease your bid, you will pay less to Google for each ad click. This leads directly to a lower cost per lead.

However, decreasing your bid on a keyword is a fine science; though it will reduce your cost-per-click, it can also cause a fall in your total number of leads.

Crush click fraud

Click fraud is infuriating. Unethical operators click on your ads and waste your budget.

Although Google is pretty good at identifying low-level fraud from competitors who are randomly clicking on your ads, it is possible for others to get around the fraud filters and eat up your campaign budget. 

In high-risk categories like plumbing and electrical, it might be necessary to block people from seeing your ads after they have clicked on your ads just once. That means they get to click on an ad of yours only once and then are blocked for some period of time. This can be a very effective way to beat fraudsters and drive down your cost per lead.

Explode your conversion rate

What percentage of visitors to your website make an enquiry? 

This is known as the ‘conversion rate’. Your website conversion rate is the big lever in your marketing program. A much higher conversion rate can change the course of your business by delivering many more leads and sales at no extra cost. For many service businesses, a doubling of the conversion rate is very achievable.

The higher you can get your website’s conversion rate, the lower your cost per lead. If you double your conversion rate, then you will halve your cost per lead. 

You can improve your conversion rate by simplifying the process for customers to sign up once they arrive on your website. What barriers are there once they arrive? How can you remove them?

Boost your quality score

Your business’ quality score is a rating out of 10 that Google gives to every keyword in your account. The higher your quality score, the less you will pay to Google. 

Your quality score suffers when people click on an ad, visit the landing page and then click back to Google. That suggests the user did not find what they were looking for. Your landing pages need to be highly relevant to the user’s intent.

You can increase your quality score in three ways:

1. Ad relevance. Your ad needs to be super relevant to the intent of the searcher.

2. Expected CTR. Ads with a higher than expected click-through-rate are rewarded with a higher score.

3. Landing page quality. Ads that deliver users to a landing page that solves their problem are rewarded.

Google rewards highly relevant ads with a higher quality score. That means the words the user has typed into the search engine appear in your ad. You need to ensure a very tight match between search query and your ad text.

Keywords with a quality score of 7/10 or higher will help reduce your cost-per-click, which will also reduce your cost per lead.

<!– wp:acf/pm-alert {"name":"acf/pm-alert","data":{"title":"Terminate wasted spend","_title":"field_63dc5c208a0a7","content":"

Your Google ads budget is limited and cannot be wasted on users who will never convert.

Common sources of wasted spend include:

• Showing ads to people outside your service area; 
• Showing ads when people search for your competitors; and
• Showing ads for irrelevant keywords. 

By eliminating wasted spend you free up budget for those keywords that are likely to convert. This will produce a lower cost per lead.

“,”_content”:”field_63e3067fb31ae”},”mode”:”preview”} /–>

Cull the under-performers

If a keyword is continually under-performing it is a good idea to cut your losses and pause it.

This will free up budget for your best performing keywords and further bring down your cost per lead.

Retreat to off-peak bidding

In your market there are certain times that are far more busy than others. It is usually at these times that you and your competition are going your hardest with Google Ads. That means you are all bidding each other up and driving everyone’s costs higher. The only winner at these times is Google.

It may be sensible to drop out of these high cost periods. Rather than splurge your limited budget on high cost leads, you can hold your budget for those off-peak times when competition is lighter and costs are lower.

Now is the time to slash your cost per lead from Google Ads. Implement these tips and enjoy the extra profit.