Not every “hit” is going to result in a sale with pay per click. But, every hit does result in a fee so it’s in your best interest to work on reducing your PPC bounce rate.
What Is Bounce Rate
If 100 people visit your website and 10 of them leave before clicking any further, you’ve got a 10% bounce rate. Most would say that 10% is a pretty good bounce rate. If your bounce rate is really high, it’s a good idea to analyse your PPC strategy and refine it.
Because you’re paying for every hit, you want to be sure that you maximise your ability to reach every visitor. There are a number of different considerations. Something might be turning people “off”. It’s time to investigate what and remedy it. Not all traffic is equal. Analyse your traffic and your strategies and you can minimise your PPC bounce rate and maximise your pay per click dollar.
Is There Something Wrong With Your Ad?
The two line ad that brought that visitor to your landing page piqued their interest. Does your page deliver on the promise you made? An enticing ad is good but it’s only as good as the content on the landing page because otherwise, you’ve piqued enough curiosity but just cost yourself money when your website didn’t entice your visitor further.
Did you use “buying” keywords? There are phrases that you can bid on that, by nature, are more geared to someone ready to buy rather than someone browsing. Keyword research is important. The right keywords will help you attract the right prospect to your site.
Is There Something Wrong With Your Sales Copy / Design?
Did something on the page turn people “off”? Did the page take too long to load? Was it hard on the eyes? Did the way you tried to sell the product not hit the mark? Learn all you can about the elements of writing a great sales letter so you don’t turn people away before they get a chance to read all about your great product.
Are You Selling A Great Product?
Are you selling something that’s worth buying? Is there a demand for it? Is it value-priced? Hopefully you’ve done your due diligence and researched and used the product you’re selling so you know if it’s worthwhile.
Some internet marketers flog products that have high commissions and that have high gravity with sites such as Clickbank but many do so without ever having used the product themselves. It’s in your best interest to know what you’re selling so you can adequately represent and sell it.
What About The Opt-In?
Not everyone is ready to buy on the first visit so it’s a good idea to try to obtain permission to market to visitors in the future. Once they’re on your site, can you get them to subscribe to your newsletter or opt-in so that they can receive a free-report that you can then use to guide them through an automated sales funnel? It’s great if you sell to them in the first visit but if you have an opportunity to get their attention in terms of permission marketing, the initial PPC bounce rate issue becomes somewhat less important.
About Sean Rasmussen
There really is so much to think about.
Some people think it’s just a matter of getting a website together and paying for some ads… And then, voila! Their phone will be ringing off the hook or their sales will just jump through the roof! There’s all this stuff raised in this blog post to think about, then there’s all the testing too.
Another thing that could be causing the bounce rate, is the offer – Maybe the offer just isn’t clear or enticing enough. After all, we know how quickly internet users can lose interest.
Certainly what you say is entirely true. All these things about enticing and exciting the potential customer should be considered. What they find when they get to your site is vital. On and on you can go and I follow.
However, I find that it is very difficult to either have or produce enough time to constantly research and fine tune what I have already done so it will always get better as well as have time and energy left over for the creative process of working on a new site, project, article, blog and do the necessary research (keyword etc) to make the new project(s) valid, interesting and exciting.
Personally I find that I have to be energized and motivated in order to make any of these tasks either work or produce. Routine won’t do it for me. So, I have to find a way to juice up routine so it looks like something different.
Also there is the feeling that the tried and true is what has to be undertaken regardless of how mindless it feels. Whereas new and fun ideas are suspect if you can’t find that they have been tried and tested.
All this is merely frustration popping out that for some reason Sean you have not yet got the 36 hour day operating.
Thank for you insights.
Dobbs, I find your insights and experience to be very valuable. It is great to get an independent view of these techniques along with possible pitfalls for the uninitiated to look out for. Thanks. It takes time to find the best thing to do and in the meantime we spend time doing what is not ultimately the best. So, again, insights such as yours are valuable and save time for others.
Thanks Sean
When or if I decide to use PPC ads I will refer back to this
Great tips
Hi Sean,
If your bounce rate is high on your website before you start using PPC; does that automatically mean that you can expect to have the same issue with your PPC? Should I focus on reducing my bounce rate before I start running a PPC campaign?
I’m not comfortable writing ads but I’m willing to put the effort in to learn how to do it effectively. There are a lot of areas that I need to work on here.
Your bounce rate would depend on whether or not the traffic you are receiving is targeted or not (and also to do with your content obviously). You may find that traffic generated from social media etc may not be targeted, hence a high bounce rate. On the other hand, if you are using PPC, your traffic should be quite targeted and the bounce rate could reduce depending on the relevancy and quality of your landing page.
Hi Sean,
I think I see what you mean. When I check my stats, some sites register a high bounce rate and yet others are really low. The ones that are low are sites that clearly know what my site is about. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.
There have been times when I thought I had my landing page perfect. But then the lack of enthusiasm from my market made me realize it wasn’t so perfect. And so cycling through trial and error until the present result is much better but still not where I want it. A lot, I think, is in the mind.
Hi Sean
Initially I would have thought this would be something you would get the ‘experts’ in to sort out. I realise now the calibre of the training you are giving us as internet marketers, that we can do our own research, statistics, and everything else concerned with internet marketing. I never realised when I started this journey with you just how much you were going to teach us.
I can see that analysing your bounce rate is a very important thing to do in regards to finding out if your advertising is working. You have related this article to a PPC campaign, but what about people visiting your site and measuring the conversion rate. Can you use the same method of research for that?
I have wondered how to assess what the bounce rate means. I see its importance for PPC, but that is a campaign that is out of my scope at the moment.
However, what does it mean or imply for Adsense? I just scanned the bounce rates on some of my sites – seems 58% give or take 3 points is common. Does a high bounce rate mean they are more likely to click Adsense ads?
I’m not too sure what you mean there Peter, if they are bouncing, there’s a fair chance that they are not clicking anything.
This post has me wondering just when do you start a PPC campaign?
Do you wait till you have a hundred people a day coming into your site or do you start early to bring those people in.
I am no good at writing adds yet, so I know there is much I have to learn.
The amount of organic site traffic really doesn’t play a part in deciding when to start a PPC campaign Rita. If you feel you have a profitable product and a well targeted landing page, there would be nothing wrong with starting a small campaign to test the market.