PPCChat | Conversion Rate Optimization Advice | 4 Sep, 2018

This week’s PPCChat session was hosted by Julia Vyse where PPC experts discussed about their CRO testing learnings, role of AI in CRO,  advice to new PPCers to achieve CRO goals and more.

Here is the screencap of the discussion that took place.

Q1: Let’s find out how many of us actually have the option to do CRO directly. Who makes landing pages in your programs?

Honestly, kind of a mixed bag – @JonKagan

We mostly turn to creative partners (some of whom brought us in solely for PPC/CRO) for page design.– @heyglenns

I’m finally somewhere were I can truly test everything. I have to coordinate with designers and IT. Working in house is awesome. No “upselling” the AB test. – @TheSteve_Slater

It’s half/half for us. Usually we want some control over landing pages & product pages, if so we can get things done fast. With larger clients it’s really hard to get that level of control, so it can be a struggle. – @gilgildner

I do a ton of LP development. And, if I can’t do it directly, it is a huge topic to cover as we are discussing strategy & setting expectations! – @NeptuneMoon

When it comes to landing pages, either our clients or their web developers tend to make the landing pages. – @marccxmedia

Q2: wish upon a CROwn jewel: what CRO tests or activities would you run if nothing stood in your way?

We usually like to slap Hotjar on there, do some A/B tests, and make sure conversion tracking is set up thoroughly. Amazing what a couple weeks of solid data can do! – @gilgildner

Not much stands in our way since we’ve brought on a CRO guru to the team, aside from bandwidth. However, AI will be better and faster at doing CRO than any of us can. We’re looking forward to how that technology could benefit smaller accounts like ours in the future. – @CallRail

My biggest wish is to implement the tests faster. I have a test in the pipeline that won’t launch until October. – @TheSteve_Slater

When I was in an agency, my biggest wants were brand positioning sessions with the clients to pull out of them what made their sprockets better than the guy’s down the street. So few companies, especially advertising online, care about having differentiation. – @ferkungamaboobo

In the past, I did a lot of CRO with Optimizely & Unbounce, haven’t as much lately. But I would love a piece of software like Optimizely that I could use internally as an agency partner, wherein, I could control LP A/B tests & get clear results quickly (& CHEAPLY). We like to subsidize those types of softwares for our clients but it need to have a net positive effect and it’s hard to justify the costs of the upper tier of CRO software. Especially as an exclusively PPC agency. – @timmhalloran

Endless, infinite iterations done by machine learning will be the future of CRO. We’re getting better at doing it ourselves, and AI is getting better as well, but it’s hard to implement at a smaller scale/with a smaller account. – @zackbedingfield

I would love to test bigger things more frequently, not just slightly different wording, but majorly different pages – long vs. short, etc. – @NeptuneMoon

Likely A/B testing landing pages. We’ve tried something akin to A/B testing but with two pages on different domains, which Ads/AdWords doesn’t like too much. – @marccxmedia

mine are boring, we do the old follow the drop off path to tweak pages to see if we can stop it. That and the standard a/b experience – @JonKagan

Q3: what ppc platform do you find easiest for testing ads and traffic?

Testing Video ads… would have to say YouTube. Too much you can learn in the first thirty seconds. Search, AdWords ofcourse and for imagery Facebook. FBads offers different platforms (FB, IG, AN) as well as a plethora (10+) placements & Ad Types. – @coryhenke

The built-in testing in Analytics/AdWords is extremely solid and if configured well, gives you just about all the data you need. Paired with Hotjar and you’ve covered about everything. – @gilgildner

Google Analytics and AdWords data is always a good start. I also love Google Optimize for running the tests and declaring a winner. It’s free and easy. Also a big fan of @unbounce – @TheSteve_Slater

I like testing things on FB better, because you have a much better sense of the demographic makeup of who is seeing and interacting w/ your ads (and therefore LPs). – @NeptuneMoon

We’ve primarily worked within Ads/AdWords, and testing ads has worked relatively well there. It’s also a matter of traffic and actionable clicks. – @marccxmedia

I will flip this, who is actually using a platform that can’t do that? If so, feel shame. I am pleased with DoubleClick (or whatever they call themselves these days) – @JonKagan

Q4: what AI gets the CROwn? What can bots do that we can’t, conversely, what is still best done by humans?

So far, AI in pay-per-click is still sort of just a fancy word for simple automation. It will one day be better than anything we can do, but for now, I think an attentive human is better at almost everything CRO. Intuition goes a long way!  – @gilgildner

AI vs human in PPC is situational, if you have the data and the volume, AI can often outperform, despite how passionately you feel about your ad copy. That said, it’s going to still vary by industry/product and a myriad of other variables. – @zackbedingfield

Handling some aspects of bidding … but there are times when manually set bidding strategies work more in our favor. – @marccxmedia

the bots give me the data, but they can’t give me the emotional experience that is becoming so much more important these days – @JonKagan

this relates to something that @schmidtdisturbr talked about. @unbounce is starting to get strong data on AIs that can actually adjust landing pages and give suggestions. Did anyone try their Marketer v Machine test a while back? – @JuliaVyse

I really think that AI is an anti-aircraft gun to take down mosquitoes in most cases, especially in CRO. – @ferkungamaboobo

The “I” in AI still leaves a lot to be desired if you don’t have massive volume. Also, what I REALLY want is AI Assisted, where I can tell it in more detail what I want/am trying to do and let it help me find better ways to get there. – @NeptuneMoon

AI: I think the grunt CRO work (button colors, headers, layouts, placement of different elements, etc). We can do that but it’s mind-numbing & time consuming. AI could handle the data-heavy lifting and leave the strategizing, ideation to us. Machine learning helps if we know where to tell it too look. If we as PPC’ers can’t see where changes need to take place. The AI won’t either. So I think will be more needed in the future for our experience in analytics and strategy. – @timmhalloran

Q5: bless your public – share an important thing you learned doing CRO testing that new ppcers can use.

If you’re trying new ideas to improve a poorly performing site/page, test REMOVING things rather than ADDING things. So much is lost in clutter, and clients are tempted to just add more widgets. – @gilgildner

Never underestimate how much impact shortening your forms can have for lead gen campaigns. Seriously, if client gives you grief, try to get permission to test shorter forms – they almost always outperform longer ones. Also, CUSTOMIZE YOUR FORMS. – @NeptuneMoon

when leads don’t turn into sales, be nosey! ask for the scripts for the call centre. Ask for the training decks for the sales team. the client might say no, but a lot of the time they want the help. – @JuliaVyse

A/B tests are way-overvalued as a tactic. The math often just doesn’t add up. Don’t pretend to be a statistician when you use them by talking about “confidence” and couch the results in a lot more doubt. – @ferkungamaboobo

Remove barriers to entry. Especially, especially, especially, when you already know your targeting is spot on (think FB, LI, retargeting, affinity audiences layered with keywords). Find ways to make it easy to bring those leads in. You’ve already pre-qualified ’em – @timmhalloran

The second your mobile experience asks for personal/financials, you’re going to see a drop off, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t doing the job – @JonKagan

You’ll get more out of CRO, with a formalized test and a specific hypothesis vs changing button copy, color and sizes willy nilly. Similarly, it’s not necessary to always test subtle nuanced changes. You can often see the biggest gains with bolder testing/ideas – @zackbedingfield

A straight-forward landing page with little clutter and fewer calls to action can go a long way. And there are always small improvements that can be made on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Always be testing! – @marccxmedia

Q6: let’s have fun with royal preferences! Share an objection to CRO you’ve had from clients, and share how you sell CRO.

If we’re seeing great engagement/performance on paid, but a big drop off in sales, we always bring up CRO. If we get friction, it’s because people don’t want to simplify. – @gilgildner

It’s hard to argue against CRO with hypothesized lift and subsequently improved revenue projections. If we tie our testing decisions and ideas back to revenue, it’s going to be difficult to argue against. – @zackbedingfield

Being stubborn about landing pgs. One of the 1st things I get into w/ clients is the concept of not wasting $$ sending people to a pg that will never convert. That has given some pause. It’s important because we are ultimately judged on results. Bad LP= Bad Results. – @NeptuneMoon

the biggest objections I’ve dealt with have to do with resources. no-one has time for lp building, or there isn’t budget for creative, or or or. I just offer to do it as part of the retainer (1st time) and build once there are results. – @JuliaVyse

I’ve had multiple clients not believe the recommendation based on data, and they had a gut feeling otherwise. We are open to your gut feeling, but we also tell them “Don’t bring a gut feeling to a data fight” – @JonKagan

PPCChat Participants:

• Julia Vyse – @JuliaVyse
• Julie F Bacchini – @NeptuneMoon
• Tim Halloran – @timmhalloran
• Zack Bedingfield– @zackbedingfield
• Gil Gildner – @gilgildner
• Steve – @TheSteve_Slater
• Marccx Media – @marccxmedia
• Doug R Thomas – @ferkungamaboobo
• Jon Kagan – @JonKagan
• Glenn Schmelzle – – @heyglenns
• CallRail – @CallRail