You’ve invested time and money in paid search ads for your dealership. Yet, conversion rates for your landing pages are not what you’d hoped for. Don’t give up.
Consider implementing the following tips to optimize your ad space for 2020 and create lead capture pages that improve conversion rates.
Go into the new year with a new resolve to create better ad content and landing pages that will boost sales for your dealership!
How to Optimize Your Paid Search Ads
Before any leads visit your landing pages, you need to ensure that your paid search ad content is doing its job. Optimize your content with the following tips.
- Targeted Content – Use geotargeting to reach a specific location via zip code, radius, or city. Exclusion and inclusion criteria enable specific targeting.
- Right Keywords – Keywords must match relevant information in ad content and the related offer on the landing page. Use long tail keywords for added specificity, increased conversion rates, and decreased costs per keyword.
- Urgent CTA – The call-to-action (CTA) needs urgency to encourage consumers to click through to the landing page. Use words like “subscribe now” or “call this number” or “act now before it’s too late.”
- Ad Extensions – Google ad extensions don’t cost extra, and they can increase your click-through-rate (CTR). Use the location, site link, and call extensions. They lengthen your ad space and can improve your conversion rate.
- Get Specific – When featuring a new car rollout for your dealership, include special features and the starting price for the make and model. Show benefits of those features so consumers want to click through to your landing page.
- Analytics – Track whether or not you are meeting key performance indicators (KPI) with your ad content. With Google Ads, you can track various factors such as phone calls, button clicks, and track offline conversions for any phone calls or showroom visits after the ad ran.
- Remarketing Ads – With dynamic remarketing, you can target leads who visited your landing page or website but didn’t convert further down the marketing funnel. Personalize ads and messaging to target those leads.
Tips on Creating Landing Pages That Convert
You’ve optimized ad content and need to make sure that your landing pages will deliver that sense of urgency that encourages the consumer to follow through with your CTA.
Implement the following tips to create landing pages that convert.
1. Identify Your Objective and Focus on It
You’ll increase the conversion rate if you create a landing page with a clearly defined goal that matches the goal of the ad. If you want to drive more traffic to your service department to increase fix ops sales, focus on that goal.
Don’t combine several goals for one ad and landing page. That will confuse your content creation and cause confusion for anyone viewing your ad—which can deter them from clicking any links.
For example, only include one offer such as a discount for an oil change. Combining multiple offers won’t improve your conversion rate.
2. Complete A/B Testing for Better Conversion Results
If your landing page has a high bounce rate, the content likely doesn’t correlate to the ad content. Your page content may not have effectively engaged the user.
Maybe your navigation pathway was unclear and caused confusion.
Use the online tools available through Google’s Optimize Resource Hub. Some of the resources available include a help center, checklist, conversion tips, inspiration ideas, educational videos, and a community chat room.
With Google Optimize, you can create a free account and link to Google Analytics. Google Optimize 360 offers additional features for a monthly fee.
You can utilize these resources to test various versions of landing pages to identify which ones have the most optimized design to improve CRO.
Run an A/B test to see which landing page has a better conversion rate. When you identify which landing page worked better, you can use that page and continue to make adjustments to more significantly improve sales.
You can test various factors such as page dimension, button colors, background colors, text for your offer, and contact links for phone, email, or SMS.
You can even run A/B testing for your lead capture form. Maybe a shorter heading would work better.
You might get more conversions if you added Sign Up and Get Free Vehicle Service Tips instead of simply Sign Up.
Whatever you can do to make your lead capture form more relevant and valuable to the consumer will likely increase your conversion rate.
Value is key. Differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Continue to test landing pages to get the best return on your investment.
3. Create a Dynamic Headline with a Singular Message
Write dynamic headlines that catch the user’s attention immediately and relate to the ad content. The headline must compel the consumer to follow your CTA.
Use these tips to write more compelling headlines:
- Bold and Title Case – Your headline should stand out.
- Simplicity Wins – Keep things simple so people click through.
- Stay Relevant – Always relate the title to ad content.
- Selling Words – Use power words like Buy Now, Must Have, Quick, Excellent.
Be creative and make your headline stand out from competitor’s landing pages.
4. Simplify Your Lead Capture Form for Better Conversion
You want leads to follow your CTA and complete your lead capture form. If you create too many fields to fill out, that could increase your bounce rate.
Simplify your lead capture form and only ask the important questions that matter.
Remember to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the EU. Maybe you won’t have visitors from the European Union. However, make sure all your lead capture forms comply with their regulations just in case.
Always be transparent about the use of the information that you are asking the user for.
5. Optimize Your Landing Page for Mobile Viewing
There are approximately 4 billion unique users using mobile devices like cell phones or tablets to search online. Just like your website and blog, landing pages must be optimized for mobile viewing.
You want to instantaneously capture the attention of potential customers with the right landing page. If your landing page loads slowly and isn’t mobile friendly, users will likely leave the page—and that’s another lead that doesn’t convert.
Consider the following factors that make your landing page mobile friendly:
- Responsive Site – Features all the content within the mobile-viewing frame.
- Autocorrect – Turn this feature off for easier mobile viewing to complete forms without autocorrect slowing down their user experience (UX).
- Buttons – Use larger button sizes so they’re easy to view on mobile devices.
- Font Size – Use font sizes at least 14px for better viewing on mobile screens.
- Images – Images used should be compressed for faster loading speeds.
- Testing – Make sure to consistently test your landing page for mobile viewing so you can identify any issues affecting how the page loads.
6. Reduce Distractions to Provide a Clear Path to the CTA
Less is more. You don’t need to fill the entire landing page with text and images. If you reduce distractions—and only provide relevant information—you’ll give users a clear pathway to your CTA.
Remember, the goal is always to get consumers to your paid search ad. Then get them to click through to your landing page and then to follow through on your offer.
Maybe your CTA is to get consumers to bring their vehicle in for an oil change or to come to your showroom for your dealership anniversary sales event where you’re hosting a special giveaway.
You might want to offer test drives for a new vehicle rollout. Your landing page might give consumers an opportunity to compare prices and deals at your dealership.
Just keep things simple and you’ll see an improvement in your conversion rates.
7. Make It Easy to Complete Your CTA
Keep the simplicity going. When you make it easy for people to see and react to your CTA, you increase the chances of them following through on your offer.
The moment they click through to your landing page, visitors should clearly see your offer.
If you’re offering a discount on an oil change at your service center, create a simple button they can click on. Consider using directional cues like an arrow to direct the viewer to the offer button.
Use a darker color on the button so it stands out from the coloring on the landing page. Of course, as mentioned previously, you want your headline to be displayed prominently.
Remember that your CTA is the central part of your landing page. That’s why you’ve worked so hard to get consumers there.
Boost Sales for Your Dealership in 2020
Creating an optimized landing page is not as difficult as it might seem. You need to stay focused on your objectives so you can accomplish your goal of increasing your conversion rate.
If you implement these tips, you will likely boost sales at your dealership.
Take your 2020 paid ad search marketing strategy to the next level by working with the professional team at J&L Marketing.
