Leads That Convert: 4 Lead Generation Secrets for Google Ads

To create ads is human, to generate leads is divine.

Companies that are most successful with Google Ads are often those with a fat advertising budget. But what happens when your budget does not match that of these big companies. The PPC industry is highly competitive and ranking for the best keywords seems to be a tough job, especially if you are running on a slim budget.

However, this does not have to be so. There are certain lead generation secrets for Google Ads that, if applied effectively, would boost the performance of your ads noticeable with higher CTRs. After all, companies with the best performing ads don’t just throw money at Google and hope for the best. That shows that ads performance is not entirely about money.

These four major secrets would help you make the best of your advertising budget, whether it be small or big.

Improve your Quality Score

To make your advertising more effective while keeping costs low, aim for a higher quality score. The Quality Score (from 1 to 10) estimates the value of your PPC keywords, and it is determined based on three factors:

• Expected Click-through Rate: the likelihood of your ad getting clicked for a particular keyword.
• Ad Relevance: the relevance of your ad copy to your selected keyword(s).
• Landing Page Experience: the relevance of the landing page to the ad.

Therefore, you can improve your Quality Score by high intention and very specific keywords, ensuring that your keywords match the respective ads and that your landing page is well-optimized. Ads with a high-Quality Score rank higher and are rewarded with lower Cost-Per-Click (CPC). That means you would pay less to have your ads appear as desired.

To check your quality score, select the Campaign tab in your Google Ads page, then select the Keyword tab. Find the Quality Score of a keyword by clicking the speech bubble icon next to the keyword in the Status column.

Use Ad Extensions

How about some additional information to your ads such as special offers, reviews, specific site links, contact information, etc.? These add some context to your ads and also enable views to access your product or service faster. A win-win situation. That is why ad extensions boost CTR, and you should never leave them out of your strategy. Google automatically adds extensions to your ads based on its algorithm, but you can also manually set up extensions you believe are useful to your ads.

Some extensions you may take advantage of include:

1. Sitelink extensions direct leads to specific pages on your website.
2. Callout extensions allow you to include brief descriptive text in your ads to highlight special offers.
3. Call extensions (phone numbers on PC and call button on mobile) enable prospective customers to reach you directly, and immediately.
4. If you have a mobile app, app extensions direct customers to the Play Store page to download the app.
5. Review extensions allow you to showcase your high ratings to entice prospective customers more.

There are more types of extensions you would find useful depending on your ad focus. Also, extensions don’t add any cost to your ads budget, and they are treated equally as regular leads when clicked.

However, note that, according to Google, your extensions may not show unless your position and ad rank are high enough for such ‘privilege’. Therefore, focus more on creating high-quality ads in order to maximize extensions opportunity.

Remarketing

It is easier to make a lead out of someone who previously visited your website or used your mobile app. This is because they are already familiar with your brand, as well as your products and services. This is what remarketing (sometimes called re-targeting) is all about: targeting past site visitors with ads. Google uses browser cookie information to determine who has visited your site once and show them relevant ads.

Remarketing is also a dominant way to expand your ads beyond Search to other Google platforms such as YouTube, and even other sites that are on Google Display Network. And this network extends to a vast majority of the internet. Basically, Google ‘hunts’ your targets around with your ads. Apart from being cost-effective, Google allows you to incorporate media (images, videos, etc.) in these ads. Remarketing also allows you to create focused ads to target people who have taken very specific actions.

When remarketing, be creative. If someone has interacted with your brand before without signing up for or buying anything, then you need an original strategy. For instance, if you are an e-commerce brand remarketing to people who have viewed a product ad before, your new ad may include some special offer, such as a time-bound discount, a free shipping offer, or a gift for purchase.

Optimize Landing Pages

The purpose of every Google ad is to lead users to a landing page where they can purchase the services or goods advertised. Therefore, the end goal, which is sales, depends on how attractive and useful your landing page is to your leads. Also, and importantly, your landing page experience affects your Quality Score. There is no way your marketing would reach its full potential with poorly organized or irrelevant landing pages.

To optimize your landing pages, you need to make them relevant to the ads themselves, but not only in keywords, but in the organization too. The content of your landing page should be related to the search keywords. Likewise, make your landing page copy as persuasive as possible. Remember that you are not just selling the business, you are selling a solution. Therefore, the content should be about how the product or service would benefit the visitor. Only an optimized landing page would turn your leads into conversions.

Conclusion

Google Ads is a mine of opportunities. The secrets shared above would make you rise above competitors, making your ads strategy more effective whilst still keeping costs low.