The dashboard says your ads are working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People are seeing them. People are clicking. Google is happily taking your money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the enquiries aren\u2019t coming in. Or they are coming in, but they\u2019re not the kind you wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s tempting to change the ads immediately. Sometimes that\u2019s the right move. First, though, I\u2019d follow a click all the way through to the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A click is only useful if the person behind it could realistically become a customer. Look at the searches triggering your ads. Are people looking for the service you sell, in the area you serve, at a stage where you can help them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you provide a paid service and keep attracting people looking for free advice, more clicks won\u2019t solve the problem. Neither will a prettier advert. This is where I\u2019d check targeting, search terms and the words in the ad itself. Sometimes being more specific means fewer clicks and better enquiries. That\u2019s a trade I\u2019d happily consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine clicking an ad for \u201cbookkeeping for small businesses in Reading\u201d and landing on a homepage that talks vaguely about \u201ccomprehensive financial solutions\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019d have to work quite hard to confirm you were in the right place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your landing page should carry on the conversation the ad started. Explain the service, who it\u2019s for, why someone should trust you and what they should do next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then check it on a phone. Can you read it easily? Is the enquiry form sensible? Does the page load properly? You\u2019d be surprised how much money can be spent sending people to a page nobody has tested on mobile recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before declaring a campaign a failure, make sure you can see what it produces. A form submission is one useful measure. Calls and booked appointments may matter too. But even those don\u2019t tell the whole story if your real goal is qualified opportunities or sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d want to know which enquiries came from the ads and what happened to them. Were they suitable? Did anyone respond? Did they receive a quote? Did they become customers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without that connection, it\u2019s easy to optimise a campaign for the cheapest lead while the better business comes from somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An ad can do its job and still be let down afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If someone asks for a quote and waits days for an answer, the problem isn\u2019t necessarily the campaign. If they receive a vague reply with no next step, the next campaign change probably won\u2019t fix that either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look at a few recent enquiries from start to finish. The weak point may be the search, the ad, the page, the form or the follow-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point is to find out which one before you spend more.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Clicks are useful. Customers are better. Your ads should be judged by how well they help you get from one to the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The dashboard says your ads are working. People are seeing them. People are clicking. Google is happily taking your money. But the enquiries aren\u2019t coming in. Or they are coming in, but they\u2019re not the kind you wanted. It\u2019s tempting to change the ads immediately. Sometimes that\u2019s the right move. First, though, I\u2019d follow a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advertising"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldan.expert\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}