What Are Sales Funnels And How They Help You Get More Clients

Sales Funnel is a term we have heard more and more in the last few years, usually paired with the buzzword 'User Journey'. It basically represents the steps a user takes in your sale cycle, from seeing an ad for the first time to buying your products or services.

Although some users will buy your product or service the first time they encounter your brand, this is not always the case. These users, by the way, will still go through your entire funnel, even if it's in one sitting.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel (or conversion funnel, in some contexts) describes the steps a user takes from observing a brand for the first time to buying its product or service. In most cases, this information is presented in a graph (as you'll see below) to help us visualize these steps.

The Stages of a Sales Funnel

Awareness: How potential clients discover your business.
Interest: Building interest and nurturing prospects.
Decision: Encouraging potential clients to make a purchasing decision.
Action: The final stage, where leads convert into paying customers.
Loyalty: The stage in which paying customers can choose to buy again.

In most cases, the five stages above are split into three parts:

Top of the funnel (or TOF - awareness and interest) represents the very beginning of the journey
Middle of the funnel (or MOF - decision) represents the
Bottom of the funnel (BOF - action and loyalty) represents the very end of the journey - the last stage before the purchase.

How Does a Sales Funnel Help Acquire More Clients

Understanding the Customer Journey

Looking at the steps a user must take before they can become a paying client is very useful in finding areas with big drop-offs or even steps you can remove or combine together to make the journey more user-friendly.

Adjusting Marketing Messaging

By looking at the journey in stages, you can adjust your messaging and CTA to fit each user's current stage in your funnel.
First-time visitors would be encouraged to leave their details, while users who have already bought would be encouraged to buy again or review your products or services.

Improved Lead Nurturing

As an extension of the above point, lead nurturing becomes a lot easier when the funnel is represented visually in a clear way. Warming users up with videos on remarketing, emails, and push notifications helps them progress toward purchasing.

How to Build an Effective Sales Funnel

Now that you understand what a sales funnel is and why you should have one, it's time to start building one.

It is important to remember that you are not limited to having just one funnel, and users can jump between different funnels as they wish.

Define Your Audience

This is an important stage that is often skipped. When setting up your sales funnel, your target audience must always be in mind.

This is because your entire messaging must be aimed at them.

Create Content for Each Funnel Stage

Think about what would benefit your audience in a way that indicates they might need your service. It could be a blog post that helps you identify them, lead magnets, case studies, whitepapers, etc.

For example, an article titled 'the three things you need to check when you're buying your first guitar' would be a great identifier for people who want to start learning the guitar, while also bringing them actual value. This would help a guitar education app establish themselves as a guitar learning option for these users.

Set Up Lead Capture Mechanisms

It's also important to pair an offer with each step, moving users down the funnel. A fitting offer for the above example could be an E-book titled "Learn Your First 10 Songs on Guitar" in exchange for the users' email addresses.

Optimizing Sales Funnels

When we look at a graphic representation of our sales funnel, our most significant drops are obvious. The funnel below clearly shows two areas where we can dramatically improve our performance: meeting schedule and meeting attendance.

An Example of a Sales Funnel in the B2B Industry

If we improve the first call's sales pitch, we'll increase the schedule rate. We can improve our call-to-scheduled rate by 20%, resulting in 4 more meetings and 1-2 more sales from the same amount of leads.

If we start sending more reminders to those who scheduled a meeting or even just send emails with a link to a video showcasing some of our service's advantages, we can easily improve our attendance rate from 65.5% to at least 80-85%. If nothing else changes, this improvement alone will increase our sales by 23% - 1-2 more sales from the same amount of leads.

By optimizing these two stages of the funnel, we increased our sales by 3-4, an 80% increase, without acquiring any additional traffic or increasing our ad budget.

The Sales Funnel After Optimizing the Call to Schedule and the Schedule to Attending Rates

Optimizing your sales funnel and optimizing your site for conversions share many similarities, so reading this article should help you with more actionable tasks.

Examples of Sales Funnels in Different Industries

Here, I want to show you a few different sales funnel examples, each representing a different industry or use case.

Finance

In the finance industry, most brokers go through a process called KYC (Know Your Client), which is essentially verifying the client's identity. They do it after the user opens an account and intends to perform a monetary transaction.

E-Commerce

E-commerce is more straightforward, and you should be pretty familiar with it, assuming you bought something online at least once. That being said, a simple action, such as completing the payment, is usually broken into a series of mini-steps to make optimizing the funnel easier.

Home Services

This is the simplest example of a funnel, showing that you don't really need an advanced understanding of users' behavior to create a functioning and converting sales funnel.

Real-Life Examples

When you have a bird's eye view of your entire funnel, is easier to see which action can increase your bottom line the most with the least effort.

In one case, we noticed a financial broker having a rough time converting leads that were supposed to be relatively easy to convert. When we looked at the funnel, we quickly identified the drop and started looking into the sales representatives pitch.

It turns out, they used the same sales pitch to each of their leads, even though not all came from the same campaign.

Once we figured it out, it was easy to mark each lead with the campaign and keyword they came from, increasing their sales by over 40% in less than two weeks.

Common Sales Funnel Design Mistakes

Overlooking the Awareness Stage

Even though it's more exciting to put a stronger effort closer to the purchase, you should never ignore the very beginning of your funnel.

It's wiser to optimize your most significant "drops" rather than focusing exclusively on down-the-funnel events. A 10% improvement in any stage, whether the very first or last step, will result in 10% more sales.

Overcomplicating the Funnel

Although funnels can become quite complicated behind the scenes, it's important to keep them as simple as possible for users.

If, for example, your lead form requires many fields, consider turning it into a multi-step questionnaire with a tool such as Tally. This makes it less threatening and user-friendly - easier to fill out with less friction.

Using Too Many Calls to Action

As an extension to the previous point, the fewer contradictory calls to action you have, the less confusion you'll cause your users. "Decision paralysis" is real.

It's one thing to allow users to choose between submitting a lead form or making a phone call, but asking your users to buy your product, subscribe to your mailing list, contact sales, start a free trial, and tag you on social media at the same time is very overwhelming.

Not Adapting to UI/UX Trends

UI and UX trends are not just whims. There are reasons most of them catch on. If your conversion rate between certain steps drops over time, try researching your competitors. Maybe there's something simple you can do to get your sales back on track.

Targeting Too Broad of an Audience

It's a common mistake to make your funnel fit a broader audience out of the assumption that it will be more inclusive to people. The truth is that the more specific your funnel is to your users, the more it will resonate with your users.

Counting on One Channel Progress Users in the Funnel

Although it's easy to trust your automated emails to advance users in the funnel, remarketing is an excellent type of paid advertising campaign that will increase users' trust in your brand, as well as help them move forward in the funnel.

Conclusion

Now that you know how valuable a sales funnel is and how visualizing it in a simple way can drastically increase your sales, it's time to create one or look at the one you're using and see where you can optimize it.

If you need help optimizing your sales funnel, contact us, and we'll be happy to help.

Should Small Businesses Advertise on Google Ads?

One of the oldest online marketing myths is that Google Ads is not suited for small, and sometimes even medium businesses. I can't really trace it back, but it was considered an "old myth" even when I started my career in digital marketing back in 2012.

So today, I will answer this question once and for all, but I will do it the other way around.

See, I already know the answer, so I might as well save you some time and start with it. Then, I will explain why I think that and explain my reasoning.

Should Small Businesses Use Google Ads?

In short, yes. The full answer is that, like many other aspects of online marketing, it depends.

Google Ads suits every business, regardless of industry or size. That's because of its huge inventory of places where it can show your ads, either on search, video ads on YouTube, Gmail Ads, or banner ads on any of the millions of websites on Google's Display Network (GDN).

Ways Google Ads Benefit Small Businesses

Below, I listed a few ways I believe Google Ads benefits small businesses. One is by evening the playing field against larger businesses, and the other is by simply allowing small businesses to appear in front of potential new clients.

Key Benefits of Google Ads for Small Businesses — Key Benefits of Google Ads for Businesses

Strong User Intent

Unlike banners or social ads, with search campaigns on Google Ads (or Microsoft Ads, for that matter), you can trigger an ad to appear as soon as someone searches for a service or a product you offer.

Showing up as soon as a user searches for a business such as yours is very valuable, as, in many cases, the user has clearly indicated that they're interested in your services and, in many cases, is ready to buy.

Scalability

Even though it's not always straightforward, you can scale up or down your campaigns to suit your needs or business growth.

Advanced Technology Made Accessible

With changes that allowed all advertisers to use advanced automated bidding strategies that were previously only available for big companies with access to expensive technologies, small advertisers not only compete head-to-head with the giants - in many cases, they even get better results.

Remarketing is another targeting method we take for granted these days but it is one of the most effective ways of warming up users and leads.

Finishing Thoughts

If your service or product is something users search for when they need it, it means that your business is searchable, and paid search can probably help you get more clients.

The real question you should ask yourself is not whether small businesses should use Google Ads but whether Google Ads is the most suitable advertising platform for your business. If if you need help figuring that out, reach out we'll be happy to help.

Manual vs Automated Bidding Strategies: Google Ads’ Bidding Shift

These days, it's rare to see a Google Ads campaign running on Manual CPC, but why is that? Of course, it's easier to use automated bidding strategies, such as Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value, but are they really better than the good ol' Manual CPC?

To me, the most interesting question is not only whether Maximize Conversions is a better strategy than Manual CPC but also how changing Google Ads’ entire bidding eco-system towards automated bidding strategies affects how each of us manages our campaigns. What to look out for, and who is the biggest earner? Hint: Google, but as us as well.

Price Per Click in Different Bidding Strategies

A few years ago, we all knew the ranking and actual CPC formulas by heart. The Quality Score is multiplied by the Max CPC bid, which gives us the Ad Rank, by which the ads are ranked on the search result page. We also had the ad rank of the ad below us divided by our quality score, plus 0.01, which determined our actual CPC. These are all calculated per auction, by the way, and are still being used today.

But now, most advertisers don’t even use manual CPC (even though we still pay for clicks - mostly). How does everything keep running so smoothly?

This is because even though we use different methods to bid more efficiently, Google still normalizes our bidding strategy to the same base metric: CPC bid.

CPC Bids in Different Bidding Strategies

Maximize Conversions

When running on Maximize Conversion (especially with tCPA - target CPA), our conversion rate is taken into account when entering an auction. A tCPA of $100 with CvR of 8% will get us clicks at ~$8 - and that’s the CPC we’re going into auctions with.

You should look at it as a general guide because each user has a different chance of converting. It depends on the search term, location, and time of day, together with what Google already knows about the user himself, such as his interests, what other searches they performed, and other metrics used to find the overall likelihood of each query for a conversion. This results in a wider range of CPCs for the same keyword.

Maximize Conversion Value

In Maximize Conversion Value, there's an additional "layer" for the likelihood of a user converting: its worth.

Google estimates the users' value (taking into account its likelihood to hit that) and divides that by the tROAS. The higher the value or lower your tROAS, the higher the CPC bid you enter the auction with.

A Higher Conversion Rate Becomes an Interest of Google

Since an automated bidding strategy is tied to a campaign's success, the higher your conversion rate, the more volume you should expect for a given tCPA bid.

Let’s take the same $100 tCPA bid from earlier. If you manage to increase the CvR from 8% to 12%, it "allows" Google to get clicks at $12 instead of $8 and still hit the CPA goal. Assuming you’re not limited by budget, you’ll probably get significantly more volume, as if you raised your Max CPC by 50%, from $8 to $12.

A higher conversion rate has always been important for scaling up campaigns, but it's more important now than ever.

Real Time Bid Adjustments

Google indeed uses machine learning and its signals to do it in the same way that we can do it manually and achieve the same goal. That being said, a bot is more likely to win when it comes to understanding signals in real-time.

Another interesting observation is that Google advises new accounts to start by creating a campaign using Maximize Conversions. This means that Google may even use signals from other similar advertisers, and not just from within an account.

Automated Bidding vs Manual CPC

Let's say that two advertisers are running on the same keyword with the same Quality Score:

Advertiser #1 is using manual CPC with a bid of $5. To make it simpler, let’s assume they pay what they bid.
Advertiser #2 is running tCPA bid of $40 with average CvR of 12.5%.

Overall, it’s pretty simple - they’ll both pay $5 per click on average.

However, advertiser #2 will pay more for users who are more likely to convert. This means that a user that Google thinks has a 20% chance of converting will still have a $5 CPC bid from advertiser #1, but advertiser #2 will bid $8 and have a higher chance of getting the click (thanks to a higher Ad Rank).

A user that is only likely to convert 6% of the time would get a lower CPC bid from advertiser #2, $2.4, while, as earlier, advertiser #1 will bid $5 for them.

This means that advertiser #1 will have a competitive edge over advertiser #2 in terms of all of the clicks that are less likely to convert. Sucks, isn’t it?

getting more conversions from increasing the budget vs improving the conversion rate

The Biggest Earners From The Shift to Automated Bidding Strategies

So, let's look at what happens these days, where the vast majority of advertisers are competing against each other using conversion-guided bidding strategies.

Three advertisers are running on similar keywords with roughly the same tCPA bid:

In each search, Google determines the CPC bid for these advertisers based on their tCPA or tROAS and the user's likelihood to convert for each. This practically ranks the ads in order of the user's likelihood to convert for each.

So when there are multiple searches that all advertisers are qualified to show their ads for, each is bidding more competitively for users who are more likely to convert, resulting in a much higher conversion rate. This is even though they did nothing but use an automated bidding strategy. Their average CPC is most likely increased by roughly the same rate, not changing their actual CPA.

Who Earns From the Use of Automated Bidding Strategies?

The advertisers are happy: their ads target users who are likely to buy their services or products rather than waste resources like free trials and sales representatives' time.
Google is happy: the average CPC rises, making each search more valuable.

Finishing Thoughts

Even though I focused solely on Google Ads in this article, Microsoft is doing the exact same thing on Microsoft Advertising, so the same principle applies, just a bit less accurately and with some nuances.

Automated bidding strategies are worth trying if you haven’t given it a shot already, and if you have and it didn’t work - it’s in your best interest to figure out why. It’s true that Google is not hitting the goal 100% of the time, but it’s important to remember that it takes some time and that tCPA and tROAS are calculated over 30 days.

My Google rep talked me into testing broad match keywords about two years ago instead of my beloved phrase match ones. I’m sorry to say that the broad won the test by a mile. After thinking about it, it was obvious why automated bidding worked so well with the most liberal match type. It’s just using the power of machine learning and data Google has to your advantage. And what does Google get from it? Higher CPC. Everybody wins.

How to Improve your Google Ads Quality Score

Quality Score (or QS) is a metric used by Google to determine your Cost per Click (CPC) and position. The higher your QS, the less you'll pay for clicks, and the higher your ad will be placed. However, although it is one of the most important aspects of your Google Ads campaigns, it is one of the least understood metrics.

Don't worry, though. In just a few minutes, you'll know more about Quality Score than most seasoned Google Ads professionals.

What is Google Ads' Quality Score

Simply put, the Quality Score is Google's metric that assesses the combination of a user's search query, your ad, and the landing page as a whole experience. Is your relevant to the user's search? Does your landing page satisfy the user's intent?

What is it used for?

The Quality Score is a crucial part of two different formulas used by Google to determine the most important aspects of showing your ads:

The order of the ads - What's your ad's position
To set the price for each click - Different advertisers pay differently for each click, not necessarily by the order of appearance.

2 Formulas that Use Google Ads’ Quality Score (QS)

Understanding the Components of Quality Score

As mentioned earlier, the QS is a simplified score that is affected by three factors: Expected CTR, ad relevance, and LP experience. Google don't disclose each of the factors' weight in determining the QS, but after many years of trying to figure it out, I think that this is an accurate representation of things:

Expected Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The higher your CTR, the more attractive Google assumes your ad is. Google compares your CTR (or expected CTR before your ad received enough impressions) to other ads in your industry in the same position.

Ad Relevance

Ad relevance is pretty straightforward. How relevant is your ad to the search query, or more precisely - to the intent of the search query. The higher the relevancy - the better.

Landing Page Experience

The evaluation of the landing page experience is both contextual (relevancy) and technical (loading speed, ease of navigation, SSL, and mobile usability). Having a relevant landing page that is also fast, secure, and user-friendly will help increase conversions and improve the quality score.

How to Improve Your Google Ads' Quality Score

1. Conduct an Effective Keyword Research

A good keyword research not only helps improve QS, but is mainly aimed at targeting keywords that represent what you can offer the user.

Target High-Intent Keywords

High-intent keywords signal that a user is ready to buy or hire you for a service. For us, for example, a low-intent keyword could be "should I hire a marketing agency?" while high-intent keywords would be "Google Ads agency for home services company" to "marketing agency for an e-commerce business".

Use Negative Keywords

Think of negative keywords as a way to fine-tune your campaign to prevent your ads from showing to irrelevant users while excluding as few relevant users as possible. Make frequent visits to your search terms results and add negative keywords to your ad groups, campaigns, and account.

Google's Keyword Planner is not as good as other, more advanced tools, but it would be enough in 9 out of 10 times

2. Write Relevant and Engaging Ad Copy

Your ad copy sits right in the middle between the keywords you're targeting and the landing page.

Match Ad Copy to Keywords

Include your keywords and their variations naturally within your headlines, descriptions, and display URL. Use DKI and other ad customizers to improve your ads even further.

Use Compelling Calls to Action (CTAs)

An appropriate and strong call to action will more than likely increase your CTR and, thus, improve your quality score. Beyond that, it will most likely increase your conversion rate as well, which is, on its own, a reason to do it more often.

3. Improve Landing Page Quality

A good landing page that is user-friendly and meets the user's expectations will most likely do your business a really good service, even if it doesn't help improve your QS.

Speed p your Website

As the years go, users are less and less patient for slow websites. Pages that take more than 5 seconds to load on mobile were considered good back in 2010, while today, anything below 1-2seconds is showing a clear drop in conversion rate.

Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to measure your loading speed and see how to improve it.

Create Relevant, User-Friendly Content

The content in your LP should fit your ad and your keyword, while encouraging your users to schedule an appointment, buy, sign up, or give your their contact details.

Write about your expertise in satisfying user intent and establish yourself as someone who can solve the user's problem.

Your users would appreciate it, and so would Google.

4. Optimize for Mobile Users

Mobile makes up for around 80% of web traffic. Let that sink in for a second. Out of every 10 web visits, 8 are using a mobile device.

Responsive Design for Mobile Ads

Make sure your page is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and with clear buttons that are not too close to each other. Place the most important elements in the easy-to-reach area of the screen so your users have an easier time converting.

5. Test Different Variations of Your Ads

The way to test different variations of your ads changed drastically in the last couple of years, since the introduction of responsive search ads. But the principles remain the same: replace poor-performing assets with better ones.|

Today, Google will show you quickly what works and what doesn't so you can keep improving your ad copy.

6. Use Every Type of Ad Extension You Can

The bigger your ad, the more "real estate" it would have on the search results page. Take advantage of as many ad extensions as you can, within reason.

8. Monitor and Adjust Based on Performance Data

Your Quality Score is re-calculated every time a search triggers one of your ads, many times per day. Don't be too granular because it's not actionable, but try to record your quality score a couple of times per day and look at them in a weekly or by-weekly matter.

A table showing quality score improvement over time in a Google Ads account

Myths About Quality Score

Myth #1: You Can Improve Your QS by Raising Your Bids to Achieve a Higher Position, Raising Your CTR.

I hear this from many people, clients, and advertising professionals alike, and it's just not true. Your CTR is not measured compared to other advertisers that appear with you in general, but with other advertisers' CTR compared to yours while you're in the same position.

Google takes your average CTR on the searches you were at the top position and compares it to the CTR your competitors have when they're at the top. The same goes for the rest of the positions, so bidding high to show your ad on the first result won't help your QS; it might even reduce it by forcing Google to compare your ads to a better-performing one.

Myth #2: Your Quality Score Only Affects Your CPC

Well, I understand why one would think that, but the fact is that a high enough QS can get you a better position as well.

You can show your ad above your competitor whos bid higher, if your QS is higher than theirs.

Myth #3: As long as your keywords are relevant, your ad relevancy should be good

With Google's hard push toward broad match keywords, many relevant keywords can trigger your ads to appear on unrelated terms. To battle that, you should compile a list of negatives as a part of your research and go over the search term report frequently.

This would both increase your expected CTR and your ad relevancy score.

Myth #4: You must monitor QS daily to ensure constant improvement

Each keyword's quality score is updated each time it triggers an ad, so monitoring it too closely can introduce a lot of "noise" into your data. You'd be better tracking it with a script and measuring a moving 7-day average over a long period of time.

Myth #5: An easier and more effective way of improving QS is to find a workaround

I'm nop stranger to tricks to improve QS, and I have even published an article showing one of them back in 2016. That being said, the only sustainable and consistent way of improving your QS as well as improving the results of your campaigns is to do the work and improve keyword relevancy, LP experience, and CTR.

Myth #6: Your Quality Score is tied to your conversion rate - the higher your conversion rate, the higher your QS.

There's no direct line between them. Improving your conversion rate won't affect your quality score. That being said, QS and CvR are highly correlated, because a highly engaged user that saw a relevant ad, clicked on it, and went through a well-performing and selling landing page is a lot more likely to convert.

Finishing Thoughts

Maintaining a high quality score can drastically improve your performance and save quite a bit of money - significantly improving the ROI. Gaining higher average positions while paying less per click should be a good enough reason to do it, shouldn't it?

Improving and maintaining a high quality score should be part of your optimization routine, but not the only thing you do.

8 Simple Growth Hacks to Boost Your Business and Sales

Do you feel that you're not utilizing certain aspects of your marketing efforts correctly or that you're missing something? Incorporating a few growth hacks can often amplify or even create new revenue sources for your business.

In today's post, I'll show you 8 growth hacks for businesses of all industries and sizes. These hacks can be started right now to help you increase your sales, retain your existing clients better, and improve your average clients' LTV.

What Are Growth Hacks and Why They Matter

So, before we get into the hacks themselves, I want to first clarify what growth hacking is and why it's important. Many business owners and marketing professionals use this term almost every day without necessary understanding it.

white flowers grow — It's a bit cliche, I know, but I really like this photo, and it kind of relates to growth, right?

Growth hacking is not a technique, it's a mindset. It revolves around achieving fast and sustainable growth with low or no additional marketing resources.

8 Business Growth Hacks

Although, in many cases, growth hacking requires a lot of creativity, looking at your existing data and starting to constantly have this at the back of your head will give you more actionable ideas than time to execute them.

That being said, you should start with a few simple hacks, like the ones I listed below, to get the ball rolling. Let's start!

Hack #1: Leveraging Social Proof to Build Trust

Use some of your good reviews as part of your social media strategy, but make it a bit more interesting than just posting a screenshot.

You can describe the client or the service you provided, what you did, and what made the client's experience so positive. What did you do that your competitors didn't or wouldn't? If you can get a video testimonial, that would be even better!

This is true for every business, no matter if you sell to end consumers or other business. It's the same whether you have a hotel, a home services company, a sheet metal fabrication shop, or a corporate bank.

Social proof in the form of testimonials and reviews

Hack #2: Using Email Marketing for Quick Wins

In my opinion, email marketing is an extremely underestimated form of online marketing. Many small and medium businesses abandoned it completely, and big companies and corporations send occasional emails just to check off the task.

The truth is that email marketing (when done right) helps you re-engage and retain past clients, as well as lower your user acquisition cost by engaging with prospects that never converted in a cost effective way.

Hack #3: Optimizing Your Website for Conversions

One of the most important aspects of any business (especially in highly competitive industries) is CRO - Conversion Rate Optimization.

It's your way of making it easier for users to become clients, but it goes beyond your site (even though improving your site relates directly to lowering your user acquisition cost).

Accepting cryptocurrency, for example, can help attract clients that are more tech-savvy. Accepting more types of credit cards (Amex, Diners, and Discover, for example) reduces the friction in your payment page on your site or your checkout counter at your store.

This is just one example, and it's easier to start with your site than to rethink your entire business operation.

Here's an article I wrote about some easy-to-implement conversion optimization tips for websites.

Hack #4: Maximizing the Impact of Your Content with Repurposing

This is an efficiency "hack" just as much as it is a growth supporter.

If, for example, your online marketing efforts consist of maintaining an active presence on social media, a website, an email marketing campaign, and an occasional webinar, repurposing content is not only highly effective but essential.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Convert webinars into blog posts or ebooks: Transcribe a webinar or podcast and use the content to create a series of blog posts or a downloadable ebook, after some minor edits.
Make videos from popular blog content: Turn a high-performing blog post into a video.
Turn customer testimonials into case studies: To go further from the first growth hack I shared, try expanding brief testimonials into case studies that tell a story and highlight your contribution to your clients' experience. This is, by the way, what inspired me to write this series of case studies (How we almost quadrupled the revenue for one of the biggest home services companies in the world: part 1, part 2, part 3), as well as this one, where we 5x the ROI of an e-commerce business in 6 months.
Transform podcast content into quoted images, reels, shorts, and TikToks: Take the best parts of a podcast (or a webinar) and turn them into social media content.
Turn blog posts into social media posts: If you have blog content (especially lists type of posts, such as this one), it's as easy as it can be to turn them into multi-image social posts. This is, by the way, what I'm going to do with this post on our Instagram.

Hack #5: Engaging with Your Audience Through Social Media

And by that, I don't just mean "post on social media" but actively engage with your clients by liking and commenting on their posts, showing that you value them beyond just charging them.

This will show potential clients more sides of you as a business that takes genuine care of their clients, and will easily differenciate you from 99% of your competitors who don't bother doing it.

It also helps with encouraging your clients to post positively about their experience with you on social media and makes it easier for you to collect testimonials.

Hack #6: Create a Referral Program

Incentivize your existing clients to refer you to their friends by offering them additional services for free, discounts, or monetary compensation. This is as effective as word of mouth and can easily turn your one-time clients into repeat clients and ambassadors because they keep thinking about you when they mention you to their friends and family.

Just make sure that the compensation you offer doesn't cost you more than the cost of acquiring a new client.

Hack #7: Upselling and Cross-Selling to Increase Revenue

Most business owners don't know the difference between cross-selling and upselling, although they are very easily distinguishable and require a different selling approach.

The main difference between them is that upselling is offering a another product or service instead of what the client wanted to get, while cross-selling is suggesting additional, and in most cases, related products to the original.

For example, if you have a computer store, if a client bought a laptop, you can:

Offer an upsell in the form of a higher-tier laptop
Try to cross-sell related products, such as a laptop bag, extended warranty, a wireless mouse, etc.

Hack #8: Partnering with Other Businesses

This was among the first things I did to grow my sales. At the time, we mostly offered paid advertising services on Google Ads and Meta. So, we collaborated with web design studios and SEO agencies so they could offer additional services to their clients (and, by doing so, offer them a real 360-degree service) and hire us to do that. Win-win.

Conclusion: Putting These Growth Hacks into Action

Today, we learned what growth hacking is and looked at 8 hacks you can implement right now to start growing your business through new and existing channels as early as today.

The biggest enemy of growth is procrastination. Instead of thinking of reasons to do it tomorrow, I want you to do something right now, no matter how small or insignificant it seems.

If you need help, we'll be happy to help you grow your business and profitability. Drop us a line, and we'll take it from there!

23 (+1) CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) Tips to Instantly Improve Any Website

CRO (or Conversion Rate Optimization) is the process of improving the conversion rate of a landing page or a website to generate more conversions (be it leads, sales, or any objective) from the traffic it already receives.

In a way, CRO is the lowest-hanging fruit in your marketing efforts because it affects your existing traffic sources and campaigns. So, without further ado, here are 15 conversion rate optimization tips and best practices you can apply right now to your website or landing pages to get more sales and leads.

Conversion Rate Optimization Tips and Best Practices

Forms and Payments

Forms and payments are the essence of your site's conversion rate. You want to ensure that users who decide to contact you or buy your product can do so as easily as possible.

Simplifying forms can help a lot with conversion rate optimization

1. Simplify Your Forms

There's no reason to ask for date of birth if you can ask for age (in most cases), and you can simply ask for a user's full name instead of asking for first and last names separately. There's absolutely no reason to ask your users to enter their email address again just for verification purposes because the email is auto-filled by the user's browser in most cases anyway. The easier your form is to complete, the more submissions you'll get.

In some cases, you'd have good reasons to split the first and last name into different fields or ask for a date of birth, but if that's not the case, don't overcomplicate a simple form.

2. Don't Ask for Information You Don't Need

The users' contact details are most likely essential to your first interactions with them. How can you call if you don't have their phone number? But the more questions you can ask over the phone instead of extending your form, the better.

In most cases, full name, e-mail address, and phone number are enough, and you can save questions such as age, address, favorite color, and first celebrity crush for your phone call.

3. Use Technology to Ease Filling Forms

In many instances, especially in the local home services industry, the first question on the form is what the user's zip code is. This is crucial because that way, users outside the service area are blocked from filling out the entire form. That being said, the users must fill in their full addresses at the end of the form, which is pretty redundant in many cases.

In a test I made with a client, we used the zip code to determine the user's city. This saved the user from having to fill it out as part of their address, improving the completion rate of the address by over 15% and, overall, by almost 5%.

4. A Red Stroke is Not Enough - Explain the Error Message

I see it all the time: a user does not fill out a mandatory field or put their phone in the email field and gets a general error that doesn't explain the problem.

Do yourself and your users a favor. If there was an error in the details, let the users know what they did wrong, and they will be more likely to fix it.

5. Make Moving Between Field Easier

Make sure that pressing 'Tab' moves between fields in the order of appearance. If there's a field in which the input length is pre-determined (zip code, credit card number, etc...), auto jump to the next field as soon as the user types the last character, so they don't need to alternate between the mouse and keyboard or leave the keyboard view on mobile.

6. Use the Proper Field Types

Always make sure to use the appropriate field type in forms. Use "name" in the name field, e-mail for the email field, and so on. The first reason is that many browsers remember the users' input and allow them to auto-fill the fields based on similar fields they filled out before. Another reason is that each field opens a different view of the mobile keyboard. A phone field type would only show numbers, and an email field would display a keyboard layout that contains an @ and ".com".

7. Show a Simplified Exit Popup

In cases where users are about to leave your site or landing page without filling out a form, leaving their details, or buying anything, show an exit pop-up with a simple form asking for an email address. 'Leaving intent' is pretty easy to identify, and this is our last chance to get something out of this visit.

Signing up to email newsletter, discount codes through SMS, even a last second offer for a small discount at the store can significantly improve your chances to get something out of that visit without affecting the user experience of any user who didn;t plan on leaving in the first place.

Data Collection and Analysis

8. Use Modern Captcha Instead of Asking Users to Type the Words

Today, there are so many soft signals that services such as ReCaptcha (V2 and up) use to determine how likely a user is human or not that, in most cases, there's no need to bother human users with solving captchas anymore.

Although the original ReCaptcha V1 was shut down in 2018, similar solutions are still in use today, such as typing misshaped letters, solving simple math tests (that bots can quickly solve, by the way), and whatnot.

9. Use Heatmaps and Session Recordings

Session recording and heatmaps allow marketers and CRO specialists to see live user sessions to understand their behavior on the site. Heatmaps are a way of showing how far users scroll on each page and where they click. Using this information is crucial to understand what needs to be improved on any site or landing page.

Back in the day, screen recording and heatmaps used to be the preserve of very few marketing and CRO professionals. Somewhere around 2016 they became slightly more common, and as time passed, they became increasingly popular. Today, screen recording and heat map tools have become very affordable (and even free), allowing most conversion-oriented (whether leads or sales) websites to have them implemented.

Examining your site's heatmaps can easily reveal where there are UX issues that prevents your users from converting

10. Test Methodically and Make Data-Driven Decisions

Define the objectives and KPIs for each test you make beforehand and track the performance of each version. Plan your tests according to the volume of traffic you have. Don't run more than one test if you don't have enough to test multiple variations at once.

Start with tests that have the potential to make the most significant change rather than testing something users need to scroll to even notice.

Design and User Experience (UI / UX)

11. Loading Speed Matters More Than You Think

Users don't wait for slow sites to load. Optimizing your site if it takes more than a second to load can dramatically improve its conversion rate overnight.

There are many different ways to speed up websites, including compressing images, minifying CSS, using CDNs, upgrading hosting, and more. It's far less complex than it used to be a few years ago.

12. Round Buttons Work Better Than Square Ones

This is true 90% of the time. Simply rounding the shape of buttons can improve the conversion rate by 5-10%. I'm not sure if it's because it gives a more modern vibe, because round buttons seem less aggressive, or because it's just the trend of the last few years, but the fact is that it works.

You'd be amazed with what a simple change like a button shape can do to a page's conversion rate

13. Consistent Design Goes a Long Way

When each page looks different, users feel like they may have gotten to a new site. It takes many users some "looking around" before they hand over their contact details or credit card numbers. If every page looks significantly different, or the text size and design guidelines are inconsistent, beyond looking very unprofessional, it makes users feel like they haven't been on your site long enough.

14. Use Proper Spacing

Effective use of space can help highlight a website's most important components, such as buttons and forms. In contrast, overpopulating an area with texts, images, and buttons can make them seem invisible.

15. Mobile First Approach

Up until 2017, desktops ruled web browsing. But since 2017 (December 2016, if you want to be exact), mobile devices have been responsible for most web visits. Today, more than 60% of web traffic comes from mobile, and it calls for a mobile-first web design approach.

Traditionally, we used to design websites for desktops and then adapted the design to fit mobile devices, prioritizing desktops over mobile.

Ever since mobile traffic surpassed desktop, it makes more sense to favor the device responsible for more traffic.

16. Subtle Animations Make Users Want to Scroll

A subtle movement of a few components can really help users want to read more because it makes the site less static. On average, users on sites with animations scroll 20% farther on pages.

17. Sticky Headers Makes Navigation Easier

And while we want to make scrolling as easy and fun as possible, helping users navigate the site no matter how far they scroll is crucial. And no, the "scroll up" button is not cutting it.

Content and Messaging

18. Write Less When Possible

Users' attention spans are short, and they keep getting shorter. You should get the message to users before they lose it. When appropriate, don't beat around the bush; get straight to the point.

19. Put the Most important Sections Higher

As an extension to the previous point, given users' limited patience, you should put the most crucial section, your best-selling USP, or your best-performing tagline as close to the top of the page as possible. So, even if users need to scroll a bit to see it, at least they don't have to scroll a lot or go through less important aspects of your business.

In simpler words, the closer a component is to the top of the page, the better its chances of being seen by users.

20. Dial it Down to as Few Goals as Possible

This is more relevant to landing pages used in paid advertising, but you can apply this concept to every page meant for user acquisition.

You can't ask users to fill out forms, call you, and buy a bunch of stuff at the same time because it's confusing. You want to limit the number of things you ask your users to do to the minimum and set up the entire page around that goal, whether it's contacting you, calling, or buying something online.

21. Have an FAQ Section When Appropriate

Address questions potential clients commonly ask over the phone, on social media, or contact forms. Clearing potential clients' doubts before they even ask about them will often help them trust you with their contact information.

22. Social Proof Means a Lot

Adding user testimonials and star ratings can reassure users that they reached a business they can trust. This trust helps them contact you and, in turn, helps them decide to buy from you.

23. Make Yourself Accessible

It's true that you have business hours, but implementing a chatbot or integrating a chat service (WhatsApp or FB Messenger) can make it easier for users to reach out. You can use automation to warm up the leads and keep asking questions that would help you with your sales pitch when you reach out to them.

It's a lot easier to sell when you know the user's problem and come prepared to the call with a service or a product that solves it.

One Last Tip

24. CRO is a Constant Process - Keep Testing

CRO is not a one-time optimization, it's an ongoing process. You need to test out different layouts and ideas and find ways to make converting easier for users. New design trends are emerging all the time, and those who don't keep up are left behind.

Finishing Thoughts

Today, we learned about ways to instantly improve any website's conversion rate. As I mentioned in the last point, it's important to remember that CRO is a never-ending process, but it gets easier the more you do it and think about it.

Improving your site's conversion rate can generate more conversions from your existing traffic and significantly improve your SEO and paid advertising campaigns, so it's well worth the effort.

If you need help improving your website to acquire more clients, contact us. We'll be happy to help!

10 Marketing Tips for Local Home Services Businesses

Do you run a local home services business but find yourself chasing work instead of providing your services to clients? Whether you're a contractor, a handyman or own an appliance repair company, garage door repair, locksmith, plumbing, or any other local service, the tips below can easily improve your bottom line in a matter of days.

Marketing Tips for Local Home Services Companies

We used some of the techniques below to more than triple the profitability of one of the biggest home services companies in the US, and some other techniques on others, so everything was tested extensively.

1. Hire a Marketing Agency

I know what you think: "Marketing agencies are expensive", "they don't guarantee results", "I'd be better off buying leads", and here's why I think you're wrong:

A good marketing agency can blend different marketing channels to ensure you hit your revenue, profit, and business goals. It would also ensure that they generate more profit than what they charge, so in most cases, it really is a no-brainer.

When you hit your "size limit", a good agency would find growth opportunities so you can scale up your operation without sacrificing your revenue.

2. Retain your Existing Clients Better

We always think that as soon as people need a service such as yours, they go to Google and look for a service provider, but there's one thing they do before that.

The first thing they do is try to find out if they know someone they have hired in the past by searching their contact list on their phone. I know you like handing out these magnets, but they are not as effective as you think.

A woman calls a local home service provider — Most people will search their contact list for a service provider they trust before they search for one on Google

3. Measure, Measure, and Measure Some More.

It's easy to track calls, but not all calls are the same. Report paying customers back to your ads platform through offline conversions, preferably with conversion value. This will ease the process of optimizing your campaigns to favor high-paying clients over those who will likely not hire you or just pay for the service call.

4. Take a Second Look at Your Service Areas

Even if you can technically service one big city and 10 of its suburbs, it doesn't mean you should. Take a look at your data (and if you don't collect it, start now) and see which neighborhoods or cities you convert more leads into fulfilled jobs and which areas' average value per job is higher.

You'd be better off focusing your energy there rather than spreading across a bigger area just to get lower revenue per job.

5. Collect Good Reviews Efficiently

It's very easy to collect good reviews. One way is to email a client a survey after you leave and ask them to rate your job and their experience. If they gave you a good score, ask them to rate you on Google My Business, Facebook, or Yelp, and if not, give them space to write why - this is a great opportunity for improvement and to try and make up for poor experiences.

Make sure not to incentivize your clients to leave positive reviews (through discounts and freebies, for example), as it goes against the terms and conditions of most review services (Trustpilot, Yelp, BBB, etc), and you don't want this notice to hang above your page:

TrustPilot Misuse Notice — Trustpilot Misuse Notice

6. Display Your Reviews on Your Site in a Great Way

Collecting the reviews, though, is just half the job. To take it to the next level, you need to showcase them in a way none of your competitors do.

Think about a map showing users visiting your website your 5-star reviews from their neighbors. Amazing, right? It's pretty simple, too, and we offer this as a service to our clients.

This little thing alone increased the conversion rate for some of our clients by almost 30%!

RWL Review Display — Showing reviews on a map from nearby clients can improve your conversion rate by 30%

7. Don't Put All of your Eggs in One Basket

Diverse your marketing efforts over a few different ad platforms, and don't just concentrate on the biggest one. Try Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising (Bing), Yelp, and other relevant networks. By doing that, you can pay less of a "premium" on each platform and significantly lower your marginal cost per lead.

8. Getting Work from Big Companies is Fine, but Won't Take You Far

Although getting the lead for "free" is tempting, these companies usually take around 50% of the client's payment. This comes down to an average of $130 per job (excluding parts), and let me tell you that most leads don't cost that much.

You'd be much better acquiring your leads yourself, promoting your own business, and putting your name out there instead of identifying yourself as an employee of another company.

9. Buying Leads or Calls is not As Good as You Think

A lead aggregator's sole responsibility is to provide you with leads, but not all leads are of the same quality or fit your business in the same way. Some leads are more likely to hire your company, some are projected to bring a bigger job than others, and some are just from users who want you to evaluate the problem for free over the phone.

It's nothing against lead companies, but this is just how things work. Once they give you the lead (or forward you the call), they don't know whether you got paid or what payment you received, meaning that they won't be able to optimize for higher-value clients.

Another thing that is hidden from local home services businesses is that, in many cases, the way pay-per-call companies and lead aggregators generate leads is by setting up fake companies that users call to get services from. When you pick up the phone or call the lead, they have no idea who you are or why you answered the phone because they tried contacting a different company.

10. Keep Communicating With Your Clients Throughout The Year

We like to think that most local home services answer an immediate need, but the truth is that many jobs wait for a few weeks before the client calls a professional. Tons of small projects around the house, such as hanging shelves, small drywall repairs, and other non-urgent tasks, wait until spring cleaning, the holiday season, or until they gather a few small things to justify calling for a professional.

By emailing your clients with valuable information and discounts throughout the year, especially during the peak seasons, you can stay on their minds and even save a lot of money on paid advertising during the most competitive months. Not to mention that you can impacr their decision and cause them hire you instead of trying the FYI route.

Make sure to have a yearly gantt with relevant holidays to not miss this sort of opportunity. Collecting emails is simple enough, and the cost of emailing your clients is insignificant compare to the potential revenue it can bring.

Finishing Thoughts

Today we looked at 10 different ways you can improve the marketing efforts of businesses in the home services industry. Implementing any of the above tips could really make a difference, and the more you use, the better!

You can read more about the impact of some of these in a series of three case studies, in which we used many of the tips mentioned on this article. The overall result was multiplying the revenue of an appliance repair company by 3.8 (part 1, part 2, part 3).

If need help getting more leads that actually buy your service, improving your bottom line, or scaling up, feel free to reach out for a free consultation. We'd be happy to help!

Easing PPC Competitive Research with Ad Libraries

Running a successful PPC campaign requires more than just targeting the perfect keywords and a great ad (on Google and Bing) or an extremely accurate creative that meets the users exactly when they're about to make a purchasing decision (on Meta and TikTok).

Most advertisers don't run their campaigns in a vacuum, and to rise above the competition, an advertiser must first know what their competitors are doing.

So, in today's post, I'll show you how you can perform an almost complete PPC competitive analysis in less than 10 minutes without using any expensive tools.

Performing PPC Competitive Analysis

A PPC competitive analysis means different things in the context of different advertising platforms. In most cases, it has a lot to do with the offering, creative, and landing pages used in live campaigns. For these, ad libraries have the most up to date and accurate data.

What are Ad Libraries

An ad library is where big advertising platforms show up-to-date, live ads in different industries and, in our case, by a specific competitor.

Meta was the first to create one, by launching the Facebook Ad Library back in 2019. This was Meta's (Facebook, at the time) response to being accused of influencing the 2019 US elections. It was their way of being more transparent about the ads running on their platform. Thankfully, other platforms followed the trend.

Up until that point, we (advertisers and marketing agencies) relied on third-party tools to see competitors' ad creatives. This was efficient but pretty expensive and inaccurate at times, as these tools didn't really catch up with most campaigns in real time. In some cases, we'd still use third-party tools to help us with PPC competitive analysis, even today, but this is getting pretty rare.

Performing Competitor Research with Ad Libraries

Although most libraries work in the same way, each has its own features. Despite that, they're all very intuitive and easy to use.

Meta Ad Library

The ad library that started it all. It lets you searsh for ads by keyword (that can represent either the creative or the advertiser) and filter by location and ad category (political or other ads).

Visit the Meta Ad Library

Google Ad Transparency Center

Google's Ad Transparency Center includes ads running on Google search, the display network, and YouTube. You can search for ads from a specific industry or by a specific advertiser.

I find the industry lookup not to be as accurate as it could've been, so I usually run some manual searches from the location where I plan to run ads and do the research based on specific advertisers.

image of the Google Ads transparency center — Google Ads transparency center

Visit Google's Ad Transparency here

Microsoft Ad Library

The Ad Library by Microsoft includes one search bar that searches both advertisers and creative. It's not complete, and it doesn't show many of the ads it should have shown, even from verified advertisers.

Visit the Microsoft Ads Library

LinkedIn Ad Library

On LinkedIn's Ad Library, you can search for either part of the creative or advertiser name, and filter by country and date. I haven't yet experiences ads that were missing from there.

image of LinkedIn's Ads Library — LinkedIn's Ads Library

Visit the LinkedIn Ad Library

TikTok Ad Library

TikTok's Ad Library is only showing ads running in European countries. It allows you to search for ads or advertisers and display the results.

Visit the TikTok Ad Library

Twitter (X) Ads Repository

The X Ads Repository is only available in countries from the EU. It's pretty limited compared to other libraries, allowing users to only search for ads from a specific advertiser. It also doesn't show you the results of your search, but allows you to generate a CSV report.

image of X Ads repository — X Ads repository

Visit the X Ads Repository

Completing the Research

Once you gathered the creatives used in multiple advertising platforms from the same advertiser, you can pretty much understand how they transformed or adjusted their offer to reach audiences in different places. What do they do differently on social than search, etc...

Take this information to help you craft a set of ads that are more likely to perform well, using tests done by your competitors.

Finishing Thoughts

Today we learned how to conduct a PPC competitive research by using the ad libraries run by big advertising platforms to learn from competitors' experience and tests.

If you need help with your online campaigns, reach out and we'll be happy to help.

Should You Use Broad Keywords on Google Ads?

In the last two years, Google representatives started offering advertisers to use broad match type keywords instead of phrase and exact, which were the standard at the time.

In the last year, they took it a step further, pushing advertisers to experiment with broad keywords and even allowing them to turn all of a campaign's keywords into broad in a single click.

But, as an advertiser, should you rely more on broad match keywords, or would you be better off sticking to the more old-school phrase and exact? I think you should at least give it a shot, and today I’ll explain why.

What’s Broad Match Type?

Broad match type keywords are the broadest (didn’t see it coming, huh?) of Google’s 3 match types: Broad, Phrase, and Exact.

Originally, they triggered ad impressions based on very clear criteria, which became much more complex and vague in 2022.

It essentially means that a broad match type keyword can trigger one of your ads if the user’s search query matches the intent Google believes represents your keyword. Did I already say it’s vague? We’re essentially giving Google a green light to trigger our ads whenever they feel like it.

Although it sounds like a bad idea, when paired with conversion-oriented automated bidding strategies, it very often works remarkably well, but more on that later.

The Old Criteria

Exact keywords triggered your ad only when they exactly matched the search query entered by the user.

Phrase keywords triggered ad impressions when the user’s query included the whole keyword. Meaning that the query could add words before, after, or both but has to include the keyword as a whole.

Broad keywords were (and still are, actually) the loose cannon of the three. They triggered an ad impression if at least one of the words in the keyword was included in the user’s search query.

Broad Match Keyword Paired with Automated Bidding Strategies

Even though, as mentioned above, using Broad match keywords gives Google the freedom to show or not show your ad based on criteria they don’t share publicly, Google’s conversion algorithms are arguably the best of their kind.

When you pair a conversion algorithm that is very accurate with the ability to decide whether or not to show your ads, you can expect scale at a higher rate than with other match types. But there are times when you don’t really want to use it.

Reasons to Avoid Broad Keywords

There are a few situations where we notice Broad match type keywords performed significantly worse than other match types.

New accounts with not enough conversion data. What’s enough conversion data? Usually between 100 and 200 conversions.
When using it with a new conversion, even if the account has a lot of data for other conversions. This is not as bad as using it with a new account, though.
Making converting “too easy” for the user. Examples include clicking on a phone number instead of actually tracking call lengths or navigating to the contact page rather than filling out the contact form.
It doesn’t work in the same way in every language. A rule of thumb is that the more popular and closer it is to English, the better it works.
Very small or niche industries are harder for Google to understand, especially if you’re only targeting a small portion of the audience.
In any way, your campaigns must have a healthy list of negative keywords, but with broad match type, it’s ten times more important.

Best Practices for Using Broad Match Type Keywords

To properly use the benefits of broad match type, there are a few best practices that can direct you in the right place and save you some money on, potentially, expensive and irrelevant clicks.

Use Broad Match Type Keywords With Automated Bidding Strategies Aimed At Conversions

Even though Maximize Clicks technically counts as an automated bidding strategy, pairing it with broad keywords will most likely result in getting many clicks but not many conversions. Broad keywords work best with Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value.

Choose The Right Conversion Goal

Even if you do use a conversion or conversion value oriented automated bidding strategy, you must understand that algorithms must be trained. You want to ensure the conversion you’re tracking is worth prioritizing and is not a soft conversion.

Wait Until You Have Enough Conversions

You want to keep a balance between the number of conversions and their value. The more they are at the top of the funnel, the more you’ll have and the easier it would be to gather a substantial amount of, but the less valuable they would be.

Experiment Before You Turn Everything Broad

Like everything, you should test it before you change your entire account to broad match type. Below I explain exactly how to set up that experiment.

Want To Give Broad Match Keywords A Try? This Is How

So, if you want to try broad match keywords, there are a couple of ways to do it.

#1: Start an Experiment

The simplest way to test whether broad match keywords work for you is to run an experiment. Thankfully, Google already has a “preset” for this.

Go to experiments at the bottom of the left panel, and then click on “Create Experiment” under “Add broad match keywords” under the recommended experiments.

#2: Set It on the Campaign Settings

You can use the broad match keywords setting to determine whether you want to use your keyword match types or bypass them and treat them all as broad.

The Broad match keyword option under campaign settings in Google Ads — The broad match keyword option under campaign settings in Google Ads

#3: Upgrade to Broad

You can mark keywords at any level (ad group, campaign, or account) and change them to broad under “edit”.

The Upgrade to broad option unter change match type while looking at keywords

#4: The Good Ol’ Google Ads Editor

If you’re not familiar with Google Ads’ Editor, it’s a tool that allows you to edit your campaigns offline and perform bulk actions very efficiently, including match type editing.

Finishing Thoughts

At the end of the day, I think you should at least consider testing broad keywords if you are running campaigns using Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value bidding strategies and have enough events.

Need help managing your Google Ads account? Reach out, and we'll be happy to help!

How to Stop Getting Spam Leads

Fake leads are a pain point in many types of campaigns. They waste advertising budgets, and they mess up the conversion algorithm of some automated bidding strategies.

That said, there are a few easy and effective ways to fight fake and spam leads, and today we’ll review them, each with its pros and cons.

What Are Fake Leads

Fake leads are either the result of bot clicks meant to sabotage your campaigns or just made manually by users or competitors.

In some cases, especially if you offer a freebie in exchange for the users' details, they are not made by users with malicious intent but by regular users who prefer not to share their real details.

What’s The Problem With Fake and Spam Leads

Beyond being extremely annoying, fake leads can also mess with conversion-focused automated bidding strategies because they provide many fake signals that don’t really describe your clients.

If they look real, spam leads can even waste sales agents’ time and hurt their target sale rates.

How to Stop Fake Leads

There are many ways to stop fake and spam leads. Each method below would work for a different type of fake leads, so invest some time in identifying the problem before you choose a solution.

Recaptcha

Recaptcha almost became a synonym for identifying bot traffic. In the early versions, it required users to type misshaped words, but in its latest versions, it does most of the identification with the help of behavior analysis and other signals, ensuring most users won’t even know it’s running in the background, leaving the user experience unaffected.

ReCaptcha is Best For

Everybody. It integrates pretty easily into most forms and is, in most cases, completely free. One thing you should know is that it won’t stop humans from leaving fake details in your forms.

For The Best Results

Pair with offline conversions to improve lead quality.

3rd Party User Identity Verifiers

Some services, like Pipl, for example, match the actual lead details and compare them against their database to determine whether the lead details left in your form belong to a real person. It’s more expensive, but it’s really accurate in giving a definitive answer for whether the lead is real or not. Not to mention the data enrichment feature.

User Identity Verifiers are Best For

Businesses working online at a large scale and need a reliable service to determine whether a lead they receive is real in real-time.

For The Best Results

Prevent users who don’t pass the test from getting into your CRM or ask them to verify their phone number or email address.

Double Opt-in (DOI) / Phone Number Verification

Double opt-in is a method to verify the email address of a lead by sending an automated email with a link they need to click on.

Phone number verification is done by sending a 4/6 digits number to a lead’s phone number and asking them to fill it back on the page before the lead is submitted.

Lead Verification is Best For

Freebies, newsletter campaigns, giveaway submissions.

For The Best Results

Pair with another service that verifies the user first and ask for SMS or email verification only if they failed the automated test. In most cases, verifying phone numbers and emails is an awful user experience, especially if the user converted on their desktop.

Honey Pot

Honey Pot is a very old and very simple method to prevent bots from filling forms. Although it’s old and not very complex, it’s still very effective.

It works like this:

You add a field to your form, but make it invisible with CSS. This makes it invisible to humans, but since bots see it in the code, they act as if it’s visible. Most bots are designed to fill out all the fields in a form, so you can safely know that every time this field is filled, it was a bot submission and you should just ignore that submission (don’t post it to the CRM) and send the user to a fake thenk you page.

Honey Pot is Best For

Literally everyone. It’s not a service, so there are no ongoing costs other than the initial setup, which can be done together with setting up your landing page or site for the first time.

For The Best Results

Use it before you trigger additional checks, such as identity verifiers or SMS and email verifications to save costs.

Fake Clicks Prevention

Services such as ClickCease prevent fake clicks from Google Ads using IP exclusion. They are working under the (true) assumption that Google doesn’t catch all the bot clicks. I don't think it’s anywhere near the 20% they claim it to be, but I know it exists.

IP exclusion is not the most effective method, but if your campaign is spending enough, you can safely assume that your monthly cost on invalid clicks is greater than the cost of their service.

Bot Click Prevention is Best For

Businesses with above-average numbers of invalid clicks, or those working in highly competitive industries with many small competitors, such as plumbers, appliance repair technicians, locksmiths, etc…

For The Best Results

Use offline conversions and call tracking services that can report a conversion only after a certain call length.

Using Offline Conversions

Using offline conversions together with a conversion oriented automated bidding strategy, and especially, reporting conversions that are lower in the funnel, is a great way to improve lead quality whether or not you are under a fake leads attack.

By signaling Google, Facebook (or any other advertising platform) about conversions that are lower in the funnel and closer to the end goal of the campaign, you are rewarding the algorithm only for leads you have chosen and not for all of them.

You can choose to report for leads that your sales team identifies as “interested”, for those who asked for a follow-up meeting, or even just for those who picked up the phone. In any way, you won't report fake leads, so over time, you’d get fewer and fewer of them.

Offline Conversions is Best For

Businesses who start taking their online marketing efforts more seriously and want to scale up and increase their profitability, and are willing to put in the effort to set it up.

For The Best Results

Use data from your CRM to determine the ratios between leads, qualified leads, and a sale. Bid accordingly, and make sure that you optimize for down-the-funnel conversions only after you’ve tested the conversion and let the system some time to adjust.

Finishing Thoughts

Today, we learned about a few different methods to prevent fake leads and how to save money and time by dealing with them. We learned about the pros and cons of each method and which combination of methods gives us the most advantages.

If you are dealing with fake leads or want to increase the scale and profitability of your online campaigns, contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.