ROAS, or return on ad spend, is one of the most important metrics in eCommerce PPC or pay-per-click.
If you have a positive ROAS, things are good, though they could be better, assuming revenue covers any management cost associated with your eCommerce PPC management company.
Also, if a campaign is performing well, there are things you can do to improve your ROAS. Here are a few of them.
Lower Your Bid for Keywords That Perform Well
If you have keywords that you dominate for – for instance, any keywords for which your ads are the only ones that are displaying, you’re not bidding against anyone, or against very few.
You might be able to bid a little less aggressively and still get impressions or clicks. In that case, you may not need to pay as much as you are for clicks. Bid less, still get the same revenue from your PPC advertising, and ROAS will rise.
Increase Your Bids for Keywords That Don’t Perform Well
On the other side of that coin, if there are keywords associated with some of your ad campaigns that you believe will be lucrative but you aren’t getting your ads to display for them, you might need to bid on those.
The thing is, if you increase bidding, ROAS will dip. So in concert with this you might need to adjust your price strategy to justify the expense in bids.
If you make more than you’re paying for clicks, ROAS should increase.
Exclude Geographic Locations That Don’t Make Sense
If you’re running a PPC campaign and there are certain areas of the country that just don’t buy what you’re selling, exclude target audiences from those areas.
Believe it or not, there are some campaigns out there displaying ads for searches and geographic locations that just make no sense.
Exclude these from your paid search campaigns and you won’t pay for clicks to customers that can’t possibly be serious leads.
Exclude Keywords That Don’t Yield Conversions
Take a look at the keywords in your campaign list, and focus on ones that aren’t generating any conversions. Any of these that get clicks but don’t convert – add them to your negative list.
Go After New Keywords That You Justifiably Believe Will Yield Conversions
Just as you should be excising keywords that don’t yield conversions, you should also be looking for keywords that might.
This is a bit of a gamble, but if the price of what you’re selling is justified by the cost of the click for the keyword in question, profitability will rise, and that’s linked to ROAS.
Remove Obstacles on Your Landing Pages
One of the silent killers of an eCommerce PPC campaign is a landing page, or a set of landing pages, that is poorly optimized.
Sometimes, poor landing page optimization kills conversions after targeting and PPC ad copy yield a click. Landing page optimization is a critical element of PPC performance that you cannot afford to neglect.
Cut Any Other Costs
Lastly, if there are any other costs you can cut away from your campaign without impacting revenue, then costs will fall as revenue either stays the same or rises.
When that happens, ROAS invariably increases.
Working with an eCommerce PPC Management Company
One other thing you can do to improve ROAS – potentially – is work with an eCommerce PPC management company that has experience in your industry.
Granted, the short term effect will be a drop in ROAS because you will be adding an expense in the form of the management fee, but experienced PPC management providers can potentially provide a big boost to your revenue that will ultimately raise your ROAS.
