Why Campaigns with High Conversion Rates Fail
Newbies will browse affiliate providers looking for a campaign with good conversion rates and try to run it, hoping for the best. When they fail, or break even, some will drop the campaign and move onto the next trial. The ones who grow out of that newbie phase are the ones who learned from their initial failures.
The more you learn to recognize why your campaigns might fail, the better your chances of improving conversions on your existing campaigns. You’ll also learn valuable insight you can use to scout new campaigns worth advertising. These reasons are some of the most common for campaign failure.
Failure to Notice Key Indicators
What could time spent tell you besides “people aren’t bouncing from a website”? For starters, time spent could be an indication of how well your copy is performing if you have a long-form sales letter. It can indicate how much of a video a user has watched, if the video is set to play automatically as the page loads.
Bounce rate can tell you more than just “people are leaving without clicking anything”. It could be an indication that your ad is loading very slowly and that users are unable to see the full content. It can tell you which of your pages have the highest “sticky” value.
If you are not tracking goals, you’re ignoring key information on how users are responding to your product and sales pitch. If you run multiple landing pages, and you want to see which has the best chance of converting, “most popular pages” might help you glean some useful information. Learning to go granular with your data will drive many of your decisions.
There is a lot more to Web marketing than click-thru rate, and if you ignore these stats you’ll pass on ideas that could work with a bit of nurturing.
Failing to Scale
It’s very tempting to find a campaign, tweak the conversion rates to get an acceptable margin and move on. The trouble is your competition is researching your market and actively trying to take a slice of your pie. Failing to scale your previous campaigns with new targeting, new keywords and aggressive bidding is the fastest way to let an amazing campaign tank. Set reminders for yourself if you need to, but never let a campaign lie dormant for too long.
If you need some ideas on where to start, try investing in mobile ads. Targeting consumers while they are actively shopping is a good way to compete for impulse buys, especially if you can offer competitive pricing.
Bio: Ted Dhanik is an industry insider and a passionate marketing professional from Los Angeles. Ted Dhanik is the CEO of engage:BDR, and blogs frequently for VentureBeat and AdAge. Ted Dhanik and the engage:BDR team can help you grow your business with display advertising.
