About This Episode:

Not all online businesses need the same amount of traffic. In this episode, Jon and Ryan discuss how consideration, target market, and budget impact traffic for both startups and industry leaders.

Check out the full episode to learn:

• What a traffic moat is, and why established brands want to create them.
• What startups should focus on when it comes to generating traffic.

If you have questions, ideas, or feedback to share, connect with us on LinkedIn. We’re Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

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Episode Transcript:

Announcer: [00:00:00] You’re listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast about helping online brands to build a better e-commerce growth engine with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Jon MacDonald: Hey, Ryan, I assume that our listeners are aware, but not all businesses online need the same traffic. So surprise, surprise. So much depends on consideration, target market budgets.

All right. So. If you’re selling a 35 watch band, your conversion paths are pretty likely to be short, but if you’re selling a 25,000 B2B server, or maybe even a SAS product of all things, we haven’t talked a lot about here, but I have a feeling we will do more. You most likely have some complicated paths to conversion.

And I think, you know, we really have not spent a whole lot of time tackling these issues. And I think there’s potentially a more unique [00:01:00] traffic source and pattern there that that we should discuss.

Ryan Garrow: I agree. And I think it seems logical that when you’re looking to drive traffic in a High consideration industry with high dollar value deals or lots of margin in those product sales.

It really still does, when you boil it all down, come a lot of times down to just budget, which in turn comes down to, were you already successful before you started spending money? or where you’re at now. Like it’s difficult unless you have an investor with really deep pockets willing to blow a bunch of money on the internet to hopefully win to be able to compete sometimes when you’ve got a large incumbent brand there.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah.

Ryan Garrow: I just got the call this morning actually with a company that’s launching into a B2B space. They’re only going to have a couple thousand dollars of budget and they’re competing against It’s the web stronts and the Grangers of the world with essentially the same products in their little small slice of the industry there.

I mean, I, I painted a pretty bleak picture for them. I was like, it’s going to be tough. Your competition is already spending six, [00:02:00] seven figures a month on Google capturing demand. You’re going to be priced out of the ad auctions in just a thousand dollars. It’s like. You know, a pea shooter against a tank to a degree.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. Why even bother in those cases?

Ryan Garrow: Yeah. And I tell them most of the time, don’t, I was like, you can pay me and you know, I’d have no problem taking money, but you’re not going to be happy. So there’s probably better places to spend your money. You know, startups in these spaces have to get somewhat creative for their traffic and lead flow while larger businesses or industry leaders really have to focus on creating traffic moats around what they’re doing.

Jon MacDonald: Interesting. So. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that term traffic moat before what what do you mean by that because I don’t even know how an industry leader would create one. What is that? What are we talking about here ?

Ryan Garrow: Before today? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it. But I was sitting down creating notes.

I was like, how do you explain some of these strategies I would talk about? I’m like, I think of it as like, okay, you’ve got this castle, you know, And you’re, Oh, you’ve got, you can build a moat around it and it helps protect you. And we talk in business around, you know, how do you build moats or, you know, be in blue oceans and keep out the bloody [00:03:00] waters.

If you consider your traffic, your advantage on as a B2B large sales product or a SAS product, then you want to protect that. You don’t want to just make it easy to, to steal that traffic from you. That’s what I think you’re trying to accomplish in a perfect world. And you’re always going to have people trying to take it from you because they’re going to see your size.

They can estimate your profit. You know, we know a lot of what SAS margin products look like. You can see their traffic and do backup math and calculations and be like, Hey, I want some of that profit. To start creating this mode, you got to think through your search funnel and then at each layer, figure out kind of how you’re going to protect yourself.

What’s going to keep the startups from coming in? I usually start with Google Bing and say, okay, you’re capturing demand. And if it was me, I would almost do the opposite of what a lot of e com brands get advised to do. But I would say increase your bids, increase your CPA goals, meaning like be willing to pay more for a CPA than maybe what you can actually capture.

Okay. If you can get a CPA of, let’s say 80 on Google and Bing, [00:04:00] and I can handle 120, 130, I might go up there anyway. Just because it’s going to make it that much more difficult for a startup with less money than me to compete and I’m playing the long game.

Jon MacDonald: Well, it’s almost like that story you were just talking about, right?

In the sense that somebody new who’s entering that marketplace can’t possibly compete spending a couple grand when their competitors are spending tens of thousands.

Ryan Garrow: Google many times will set a minimum CPC in a lot of industries to help give you that moat to a degree. But like I might be bidding a hundred even though I know I can handle.

I can take it for 50 or do really well there just because I’m competitive and I want to win. And I want a monopoly if I can get it, but I want to keep them out. And I want to focus really hyper focus on quality score because that’s the area that small competitors can jump into these auctions and beat you.

You know, if you’ve got a very large Google ads account, that’s not getting a lot of attention in many areas, you may have three to five out of 10 scores. Meaning that if I’m a small competitor, I’m going to get hyper focused on that. I can get a [00:05:00] 10 out of 10 and outbid you for less money. You might be bidding 100, but I might be able to get that same click for only 30 because I’ve got a much better quality score.

Large brands can’t take their foot off the gas and allow for those creaks to come in. So you really do have to pay attention to those details. If I’m advising an aggressive business, you know, somebody like myself. I might say you need to find a way to get a second entity in that auction That you own and control not something that you you don’t break any rules by doing it, by the way It’s just you have to be very clean about it.

Jon MacDonald: Okay,

Ryan Garrow: you can’t have the same credit card on there You can’t have the same billing address You need to make sure google sees that second entity bidding in that auction as a Second entity as a competitor to you, even though the ladies may be flowing up to you at the end of the day So some of them might be that you create a best of list We had a client that did this in a much simpler industry He was selling t shirts based undershirts and he created this huge ecosystem where he became a like a t shirt guy And was like doing all of these reviews of undershirts funny [00:06:00] enough, he won every best of list.

He’s like, Oh, that’s got the best quality. It’s got the highest thread count. It’s all these things.

Jon MacDonald: This is the old mattress play. All the online mattress brands done this for years.

Ryan Garrow: Yes. And it, I think it gets overlooked in its simplicity. Like you’re just going to create this entity that you like, but it can bid because it’s Collecting review. And you might even set up, realistically, you might set up affiliates, affiliate links to your competitors.

Jon MacDonald: Why not make something off of it?

Ryan Garrow: Yeah. You send them traffic, you might as well at least make some money off it. Yeah. And so, but you’re gonna win most of the awards on there. So that could be one way to do it.

Sometimes you will acquire or create a reseller of your product so that you know, if you’re selling this piece of sass and this. Ryan’s, you know, store is going to be one of the resellers of that. I can own that. There’s nothing against that rule. It’s a separate business. Maybe my wife owns that and she’s the reseller on there, but it’s my, I’m controlling the budget goes in and the reseller gets some of the revenue share just like a normal one would.

And then sometimes in the B2B like online sales, you would buy [00:07:00] it. You can buy a competitor and

Jon MacDonald: Oh, that’s a good idea.

Ryan Garrow: control it that way. One of our clients, and we pulled this from Fossil Watches. Where I don’t know, 10 years ago, they, they owned the watch market in the U S I mean, they owned like the top 10 brands.

They made all the watches. They had a fossil. They had watch station. They had all of, I mean, they could, they basically came to us during certain periods of the year and said, we want to own watches, wallets, and belts for men. I’m like, well, what do you, what do you mean own it? We don’t want to see any competitors anywhere in the auction on text ads or shopping.

You have all of our properties. Go make that happen. Like, okay. So if you weren’t organic top three on any of those during holiday, you were not getting traffic for those. It was going to be painful competing with our team on that space. So it’s, it’s thinking big,

Jon MacDonald: interesting,

Ryan Garrow: but really focusing on some of those details within the space. Okay.

Jon MacDonald: So I think everyone right now knows that you’re super competitive. So this doesn’t surprise me, but I love that tactic. You know, it’s [00:08:00] taking something that is legit, Google lets you do it and using it towards your advantage. And I love the buying a small competitor up to be able to do that. I think that’s a great idea.

Okay. So I get that you can create this mode around demand capture and properties like Google and Bing, but so many SAS or software as a service clients that we work with at the good have massive amounts of traffic coming from sources like affiliates or LinkedIn is huge now. How do you put a moat around those?

Ryan Garrow: Well, of course, it’s usually, it’s usually not as simple as controlling Google and Bing because that’s a very direct spend a dollar, get this relationship. But again, I think as long as you’re thinking within the details and minutia of those areas of the traffic, I think you can find ways to really Corner the market and keep small competitors out, even big competitors sometimes depending, but like, for example, affiliates are big in the SAS space.

Many of the tech players in my space have affiliate programs and they’re, they’re nice, but they’re almost table stakes for playing. Like if you don’t have an affiliate program or a partner [00:09:00] program that pays me a rev share, it’s like, yeah, are you, are you even trying to a degree? If I were to create a moat in affiliates for a big SAS company, Or a large player in the B2B space.

I would want to create tiers that, you know, a small competitor just can’t play it. And so aggressive pricing is one thing. So if standard in your industry is 15 to 20 percent of the SAS revenue to a partner, go 30%, I mean, make it uncomfortable for a small company without much money to be like, how would we pay 30 percent or more?

If you’re smaller, oftentimes you have to overshoot the incumbent. to take that partner away. Aggressive pricing can be one thing. It doesn’t have to be an all the time thing, right? You could just be like, I know this guy over there or girl over there is starting to start up a competitor of mine. I’m going to make sure they don’t get off the ground.

Small competitors usually lack a few things, money, time, and clients. And so if they don’t have all of those that you have an abundance of, or at least more than they do, as an affiliate, you want to provide those things to your partners or your affiliates that you know your small competitors can’t do.

You’ve [00:10:00] got the clients they don’t, you can provide leads. For your partners, find a way to engage your clients. Find some needs that your partners that are sending you business will like, I mean, everybody in the partner space loves reciprocal lead flow.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a key, right? It’s gotta be reciprocal, but 30 percent is intriguing.

Ryan Garrow: Yeah. I mean, so I have some competitors that will just do it for Revshare and that’s fine. You know, there’s many agency owners that will take, you know, 15, 20 grand a month in rev share from partners. That’s great because that’s going right to the owner’s bottom line or affording employees that maybe you’re trying to build up when you’re as big as LP 10, 15, 20 grand.

It really doesn’t. It’s not bad. We’re not going to turn it down. Don’t get me. Don’t hear me to say that.

Jon MacDonald: Shop in the bucket. I get it. Yeah.

Ryan Garrow: It’s a drop in the bucket for us. But so it’s when you can give leads that keeps me from saying, Hey, all things being equal and you’re giving me leads, guess who’s going to stay the predominant partner for us.

You know, there may, if you’ve got more cash, you could provide cash for a certain tiers that you hit. You know, we’re working with a partner right now to try to do some of that for some of our employees. Like, Hey, we’re going to do a set of incentive trip for some of the [00:11:00] lead flow that they’re going to be getting.

Well, that’s unique enough that a small competitor to them is not gonna be able to come to me and be like. Yeah, we’d like to, you know, give your employee a 100 gift card. Cute, not gonna turn it down, but at the day, they’re probably not gonna pay attention because they have this big cruise trip coming up with this partner.

Inviting them to events with your client. So if you’re already doing some events with your clients, where they’re just gonna be in the same spot. Invite a partner that you like, that you want to keep from going to a smaller competitor. Just getting them in the room with your clients is going to be valuable to them.

Again, if you’re inviting me to just meet with your clients because you’re there and you’re saying that Ryan’s valuable and logical position does good stuff.

Jon MacDonald: I mean, I feel like that’s the only time we see each other face to face anymore since COVID is like those events, right? Come see our clients. That’s an interesting one too.

Ryan Garrow: LinkedIn is tough because I feel like it’s been evolving a lot and it seems to be, it’s a pretty even playing field. Anybody can post anything they want. There’s no restrictions to being able to post a piece of content there. You don’t have to pay to play there. And so it is fairly [00:12:00] flat, democratic, even playing field space.

Most bigger businesses though will have a content team to help. And I think that’s the resource that becomes more valuable is if you have a solid content team regularly posting. The key is engaging thought leadership pieces. And this is going to take some work because there’s a lot of garbage on LinkedIn.

Like it’s just I don’t want to see another case study. I I don’t I just don’t care great You have a business you’ve probably done something good and you can spin the numbers most case studies when I get in them It’s even some of our partners I’ll go into the case and be like don’t you want to put this in front of your clients?

I’m, like no your case study is garbage because you one partner in particular talk about How they increase conversion rates. I can increase conversion rates. Like we talked about, like, not, and it wasn’t you, it wasn’t Jon, by the way, but it was like, I could just cut off your non brand traffic and conversion rate goes up.

So how can you tell me that making this little change just magically increased conversion rates across 5, 000 clients? Maybe, but you’ve got to give me some real data there and your case studies are fluffy. So,

Jon MacDonald: yeah, I think, you know, LinkedIn’s becoming more like, in some ways, like Reddit, where the community will come after [00:13:00] you in a way, they’ll call you out.

If you do things like that, and it used to be that you could post whatever you wanted to LinkedIn and everybody was kumbaya. Everyone was great with it. And, you know, high fives and likes and thumbs up everywhere. And I’m noticing as a lot of folks who were on Twitter left Twitter wanted something more business minded as Twitter has gotten away from business have really come on and said, you know, like, I love this, but you got to bring value.

And if you’re not bringing value, then I’m Or you’re trying to fake bringing that value, then I’m going to call you out on it. And I think that’s fair. And I love seeing that. And I think there’s a lot of ways to make LinkedIn work for brands. But you’re right. It’s tough because anyone can post anything.

And you are at the whim of the likes and follows, if you will, that are on there. And you got to deliver value. It’s the only way to do it.

Ryan Garrow: Yep, giving me a picture of you and partners at happy hour.

Jon MacDonald: [00:14:00] Like, yeah, this isn’t Facebook.

Ryan Garrow: I mean, no, it’s like that. There’s a time and place for that. And I get it. And you want to call them out, but it becomes the easy button.

I think it’d be like, I’m going to go to face facing and I tagged you and it’s great. And yes, you need to tag partners and give them some of that. Especially if you’re a leader in the space, your team does a phenomenal job at this. I mean, there’s so many times that we come across clients, we share, they’re like, yeah, Jon is everywhere.

He’s such a big deal. And I’m like, he is. Yes. But I also know that he’s got a great team behind him, you know, pushing that out there. Like it doesn’t just happen by accident. There’s a lot of intentionality with what your team does and how you’re repurposing content. You write books. To give yourself more things to talk about and do so.

I think Jon MacDonald is a great person to go if you’re trying to think about LinkedIn. And he does it from, yes, he’s a leader, but he does it with a very small team. So you can adopt Jon’s strategy as the market leader. But also maybe think about it too, as an incumbent, like you just have to be very intentional. So LinkedIn is somewhat challenging as the market leader because of that.

Announcer: You’re [00:15:00] listening to Drive and Convert, a podcast focused on e-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of the The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with e-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers.

And Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, a digital marketing agency offering pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes.

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Jon MacDonald: I think it is, and I think too many people lean on the business instead of the individual, but LinkedIn. nobody follows businesses. They follow people on LinkedIn. And so you can’t just post from your company account and ask your team to like it. Not going to do anything. You really have to engage and be part of the community.

Similar to Reddit, as I mentioned, where you have to be part of the community. You can’t just pop in and promote yourself. Doesn’t work.

Ryan Garrow: Yeah, [00:16:00] I wouldn’t even go to those stories I have there with I was trying to solve some Amazon problems. I went in there and I could see people doing I’m like, Oh, this is Stay away from that part of Reddit.

Yeah. But yeah, another example to look at too is Barb Brewis from No Commerce. I think he does a great job of being really authentic on LinkedIn. Yeah. Historically, he’s really built up a good following, and so you can duplicate what he’s doing. And No Commerce, I would argue, is one of the, one of the market leaders in the post purchase survey space.

Yeah. So they’re trying to keep their selves insulated, and so the whole team has to be going. Like, if you don’t have, I’ll say this, if you’re a large entity, In the B2B, SaaS space, and you don’t have a LinkedIn strategy for your organization, I think you have a problem.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah.

Ryan Garrow: Because it’s not like your business needs to post. Again, like you said, nobody cares. But your C level VPs, directors all have something that they are strategically posting about. And you have to be willing, I think as a big company, to let your people become elevated. There’s a lot of leadership, I think, to get worried like, Oh, if they get too big for me, they’re going to demand more [00:17:00] pay, or they’re going to get recruited.

I’m like, well, anybody can recruit anybody on LinkedIn. I know who the best people in e com are across the board. It’s not a question. If you want to hire the best here, here, here. I know who it is. It’s, it’s more about, are you going to create some value and encourage them to be part of your company is how you should be thinking, not like afraid of them getting picked off because they’re being helped in their LinkedIn strategy.

Jon MacDonald: You have to understand that you’re going to be helping people with their personal brands and that’s okay. You want that. And yeah, they take that when they, when they move on. Hey, at the same time, I think that obviously we do it. So I think it can be fairly, really valuable. And any other points for like a large brand wanting to create a moat around their traffic? You mentioned a few large names earlier, but

Ryan Garrow: Yeah, I would say events can be a great moat for trackers. If you’re in the SaaS or B2B space, you’re probably involved in events, or there are industry events that you probably need to be at if you’re not. That is a great source of traffic and lead flow and you need to create a mode around that.

I don’t think it needs to be a booth at every event because I think a lot of times that’s [00:18:00] a waste of space. The expo, we rarely do, and I can’t say logical position is perfect at this, but we rarely have a booth because that’s not often where the money’s made. Sometimes you have to have a booth and that’s fine, but even just making sure your logos on the event guide.

So you have some branding and awareness and you have a person there that is willing to go out and meet people. So when I’m going to events. I find that the the companies that are most successful have the right person at the right event. I often don’t like multiple people at events if I’m the same company. Just a personal preference of mine.

Jon MacDonald: Okay.

Ryan Garrow: Because I find that they, you’ll have maybe one person that’s good at events and they put somebody else to tag along. They end up latching on and not covering double the space. They cover maybe less space than one person would alone. And so one person that really understands how to just network. And I’ll say this. If I go into an event not knowing if it’s going to be good, it’s already failed.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah.

Ryan Garrow: Like your event is made the two weeks to a month before you even show up. Where you’ve got meetings already [00:19:00] booked. You’ve got partners already engaged. You’ve got events outside of it that you’re attending.

Like we have a person or he loves conferences. Like he, it is hands down. He loves it more than anybody else on the planet. And he wants to meet every single person. He’s phenomenal at these, but he, he doesn’t plan yet. He like, it’s like two days before he’s like, Ooh, I got to get to a happier on Tuesday because I don’t have one yet.

And then what am I doing after happy hour? So he’ll do it. But he does it in much more condensed than I would prefer, but he, after every event, so that’s one of the people I will go to an event with because he’s fully autonomous, but I, and he stays out later, like my bedtime, usually in an event about nine o’clock and I’m done. You’ll take the early morning coffee.

Yeah. He handles the 9am to 4am or 9pm to 4am shift and it’s great, but we leave an event and Everybody knows it’s amazing if you’re going to do an event, you don’t necessarily need to do all of you know what he does and stays up late, but he has an impact. And so if you’re going to be in an industry leader and keep those away, you need to have some of that.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. And I think, you know, you have to have the right personality for that, right? If [00:20:00] you’re just a by nature and introvert. And don’t really like those things, then don’t, don’t go because you have to engage.

Ryan Garrow: Yeah, don’t force yourself into that.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah.

Ryan Garrow: Yeah. You’ve got to be willing to sit down at a bar with a beer and talk to somebody you’ve never heard or, you know, even a glass of water.

You don’t know them. You’re going to meet them and they may be a prospect. They may not, doesn’t matter. And the final point, I think for large brands. is going to be you need to have great relationships with the other top companies in an industry. And so if you have the, like the top three companies in an industry solving problems together for the same group of clients, you’ve essentially created an unbreakable cartel scenario.

Like always one of my goals, you know, there’s like, I want to be able to have a cartel or I kind of friend, lead it up to a syndicate. Now you get the best of the best. And once you get them together and then they’re solving problems for these clients, those clients are not going to leave, right? A group that’s working really well together to help them grow.

And so when you have the scale to be able to pick up the phone or email The other really large company helping them and say hey, we’d like to help [00:21:00] solve this problem with you And we’re going to we have the resources just to give you and not ask for anything in return We just want to make sure this client’s taken care of that goes a long way And that’s going to come back and create this circular system of referrals Which will keep going around and around and it makes it very challenging for You know, a competitor, small competitor to try to jump into that flywheel because it just won’t be an entry point.

Jon MacDonald: Well, I’m glad I’m part of your cartel. Excuse me, syndicate. How would you suggest the startup do just that though? I think the vast majority of brands are chasing the market leader, right? So if you’re not part of that market leader cartel, how do you make that happen? What do you, what do you think you need to do?

Ryan Garrow: It’s obviously tough as you would see, like the reason the big companies are big is because they’ve done some things right. And so you’re trying to undo something that’s been done very well. And so I think against the grain, probably I would tell a smaller brand to think small, not as in you don’t want to take down a big competitor of lofty goals for your business. But you need to get very specific and targeted.

Jon MacDonald: Okay.

Ryan Garrow: And I have this [00:22:00] conversation regularly with partners trying to partner with me at logical position saying, you know, we want to partner with you. I’m like, okay, great. Yeah. Everybody wants to, cause we have a lot of clients and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you can’t come to me and say, well, we can’t, we built this tech to do all of these things that probably take place.

Or of 10 of your partners. I’m like, well, you’re not going to replace 10 of my partners. You have 50 clients I can’t afford to do that. Number one, you might be the best and i’ll need to pay attention to that And help you along the way if you are the actual best in certain niches, but be hyper specific around what problem you solve for my clients that I can go to them with My account teams and say hey i’ve got this partner That’s going to solve a very specific problem that is not probably being solved as well by other partners More specific is more better because you can always expand on that.

But if you’re telling me you can solve all my problems I’m just not going to listen, it’s not going to help. And another thing I would do is if you’re a small business at startup, you’ve got some clients that are probably pretty passionate about you, they’ve taken the gamble on you and they like your tech, [00:23:00] usually you’ve started that because of relationships, double down on those, follow those customers to their events.

Doesn’t really matter what event it is, you want to be by their side. Number one, you’re playing defense to keep in front of them and build a relationship, keep the competitors out, but you also want to see who else is there and what’s the potential. You know, a great example was early on in my partnership career.

I followed one of our clients to outdoor retailer, which is a, that’s an amazing event. I love it. Everybody listening should try to get to outdoor retailer because it’s just super cool.

Jon MacDonald: The kegs come out at like two, it ends up being a party.

Ryan Garrow: and there’s all the coolest stuff coming out next season is there.

Like you can see all the new shoes, all the new stuff going on trucks. You see, you know, vehicles that haven’t come out yet because they’re outfitting them for products. Just do it. It’s super cool. And it’s in Denver, usually, which I like, I think they started moving it around, but it’s just a cool spot.

When I went there with this client, number one, we had a ton of fun. We rented an Airbnb with. They’re they’re team and I stayed with them. I kept them and deep in the relationship, but I also leveraged that relationship to open up new doors and outdoor retail. So I was just [00:24:00] walking the floor saying, Hey, how you doing?

What are you doing for marketing? What’s going here? I saw, you know, opportunities for clients or new companies come on board, but also I was like, Hey, you service the same companies I’m trying to talk to, and we don’t compete. I’m going to partner with you. Yeah. So I created some great partnerships there and I wasn’t supposed to be there.

So they don’t allow agencies in Dow to a retailer unless you, you might be able to, if you spent a disgusting amount of money at the time though, they were like specifically. No agencies.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. And so the hack for us was we would go every year and speak there and we would have a client speak with us. And that was always the hack to get into those conferences because if we can have a client get us a badge and a speaking slot and then we would do it with them and we would basically turn it into a case study and they would talk about their experience and we would provide value. Right. Of how to do something and how it turned out for this brand out there. Retailer love that.

Ryan Garrow: Oh, yeah.

Jon MacDonald: [00:25:00] They always loved it.

Ryan Garrow: And it’s unique enough because your competitors weren’t thinking like that because there was, there was a wall around that event saying it’s really difficult for an agency to get in.

So don’t try. I was like, well, I’m not going to, I usually don’t take no for an answer. So I’m like, what can I do? And great. So think through things like that, where it is a walled garden, keeping in mind. You out on purpose along with your competitors, no matter how big they are, then figure out what can I do?

Sometimes it’s just, Hey, I’ve got clients there. I’m going to have, find some, look at the list of sponsors and be like, Hey, I see you’re going to be there. I’d love to throw an event for you and some of your clients. I’ll cover the costs and we’re just going to do. A happy hour across the street. Yeah, you know, I did that at, it used to be called IRCE.

Jon MacDonald: Oh, yeah.

Ryan Garrow: It used to be good. Now it’s garbage. I don’t even know what it’s called now, but it’s, I don’t even, don’t even waste the time going at this point. And IRCE, if you’re listening or whatever you’re called now, you can call me and we can talk through it. But it’s not great. But then it was, and I said, I had Brent Baum, Ross, the CEO of Listrack.

I had one or two people from Google on stage. And I just opened up a [00:26:00] bar across the street from McCormick Place over there in Chicago and just said, Hey, invite some of your friends and come on in. I literally whoever who cares that I had some budget spend. It wasn’t a ton, but it was great. Met some phenomenal companies, but I had to think outside the box of how to get companies outside of the event that I couldn’t pay for because I was small at the time.

I couldn’t make it happen. Love that. And I think you need to think through partnerships. You know, big competitors can really do more in partnerships. Then you can, if you’re small, but partnerships becomes a way that you can level the playing field. If you focus more on the relationship piece. I think a lot of large brands that I see in the SAS space gets large enough that the partner team isn’t maybe necessarily as important as some of the other things in the organization.

And so it doesn’t get the attention and therefore they don’t attract the top talent into the partner space. Not always, but many times. And so their partnerships in that ecosystem become more of just an affiliate relationship essentially, where you get a, you’re a number and you get a newsletter and commission payouts.

But if you have somebody that’s really good in partnerships and building relationships where they come into your [00:27:00] organization with existing relationships, that can do a lot to move the needle because I will often do more for a partner that is just a good person and have a good relationship, even if I could make more money from a payout or something from a larger partner in their space.

I think you just have to get a little more creative in that space. And then I would say when you’re looking at the search, you are going to look at marketing online. And I think you have to play a spot in that to a degree. But if your budget is such a small magnitude, it’s hyper focused. And so you might only attack a small sliver of the market.

And, you know, if you have a tenth of a percent of the market right now, getting to two and three percent would be huge anyway. Yeah. Very targeted landing pages. And think through the entire search funnel, because you don’t have the shotgun blast to hit everything in the funnel. Across all search terms and so you need to think kind of that ClickFunnel, like if they need to see this piece of content on LinkedIn, then how do I get them in?

A first party list of remarketing, so I can say, then I get them on, you [00:28:00] know, meta and then I can get them on the display network around Google and then I can get a YouTube video in front of them. You can be big to a very small group of people with the, with the budget, but doesn’t even have to be big.

Yeah. You just have to be highly intentional and that’s where you’re thinking small. Like if I’m going to create a POS system for aftermarket auto, that’s a massive mark. You cannot spend enough money at SEMA to have an impact for that as you launch. And so what you need to do is say, I’m going to be aftermarket for this particular subset of products.

Maybe it’s going to be chrome wheels for cars between the sixties and seventies. And those are one really good at, and I will know the product better than any other partner trying to service them. So when I get in front of them or get on a phone call, they know that There will be nobody that knows the products I’m trying to sell better than them and you land and expand from that say, okay, I’m the best at this.

Now I’m going to add on the ancillary products that maybe they have or spend this other retailer that’s trying to sell those. Similar enough things will look at them and say, Oh, you [00:29:00] do work with them. I know them and you’re doing really well. Great. Let’s try that as well.

Jon MacDonald: I love it. It all comes down to face time, right? Being willing to have that conversation, meet up with them in person and share the love, right?

Ryan Garrow: Yeah. Well, and just making sure that you’re not, you know, once people are getting insight, like you’re taking advantage of, you know, like Jon’s team and making sure the conversions are good because it’s, you offline around, The SAS product, the conversion doesn’t happen on the site necessarily, like getting somebody to sign up for free.

I do that all the time. I have so many emails with free Adobe. Don’t tell Adobe, Jon. I know you’re looking at Adobe things that I had to edit a PDF. So I’m like, God, I got to get another email address because I just need to edit this one thing.

Jon MacDonald: Stop killing our conversion right over there.

Ryan Garrow: But it’s, it’s after the fact. So you guys make sure you’re, you are thinking through that full funnel, not just. Oh, we got a free trial. Therefore, we’re done now.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah hundred percent.

Ryan Garrow: Don’t ignore that.

Jon MacDonald: Awesome. Well, this has been enlightening to talk about more traffic for larger brands and how that complicates things and how to build that moat of the traffic moat, thinking about all the other ways you can, you can make [00:30:00] this work. So I appreciate your time today.

Ryan Garrow: No, thank you, Jon. Maybe I’ll have to trademark that traffic mode thing.

Jon MacDonald: Love it. Have at it.

Ryan Garrow: Thank you.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.

The post Drive and Convert (Ep. 125): Larger the Brand, More Complicated the Traffic appeared first on The Good.

The link sends you to a product page on an ecommerce website. You see the same binoculars but no mention of birds. It seems like a great device, but you wonder what makes them suited for bird watching.

Since you only visited the site to learn about the binoculars’ bird-watching advantages, you leave the page in frustration.

This misalignment between the marketing campaign and the destination page happens all the time. Shoppers often fail to find what they expect because a traditional product detail page is simply too general.

For these cases, we need landing pages. They’re similar to product detail pages, but they have a different purpose. They certainly don’t replace the product page. Both of these pages work together to create a high-converting digital experience.

Landing Page vs. Product Page

Landing pages and product detail pages are both important parts of your digital experience. This is true whether you run an ecommerce store, media platform, SaaS, or any digital product where you want visitors to take some kind of action.

However, these tools each serve different purposes, so they shouldn’t be used interchangeably. Knowing when to use each in the customer journey will make all the difference.

What is a Product Detail Page?

A product detail page (PDP) is the page of an ecommerce website where individual products are showcased in detail. The content of this page is designed to educate the customer on this specific product and provide all the information they need to make a purchase decision.

A well-optimized PDP is an important part of the marketing funnel. It builds trust, eliminates friction, and makes shoppers more comfortable about buying. It also improves the shopping experience and encourages repeat visits.

In our experience, the best PDPs include the following key elements:

• Clear and concise name of the product.
• A description of the product, highlighting its key features, benefits, and unique selling points.
• High-quality images from multiple angles.
• Videos demonstrating the product’s use or its features.
• The price of the product, including any discounts or special offers.
• Ratings and reviews from other customers.
• Technical specifications such as size, weight, color options, and materials.
• Information on product variants (e.g., different colors or sizes).
• Real-time stock status.
• Prominent buttons like “Add to Cart,” “Buy Now,” or “Add to Wishlist” to encourage conversions.
• Suggestions for similar or complementary products.

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a page designed to complement a marketing campaign. It’s where visitors land after interacting with off-site marketing techniques like ads, affiliate links, and social media posts.

A landing page is focused on driving customers further down the funnel and may not be geared toward one product. They provide education and information in the context of the marketing campaign.

For instance, if the campaign is directed at dog lovers, the landing page should speak directly to dog lovers, even if the product is applicable to different kinds of pets.

Oura Rings is a great example of a product landing page. It’s informational and targeted toward tech enthusiasts who also care about style. (They have traditional product detail pages as well.)

What is the Difference Between a Landing Page and a Product Detail Page?

The major difference between a product detail page (PDP) and a landing page is context.

Visitors usually arrive on a product detail page from a category page. There’s a heavy shopping mindset at play here. Visitors are specifically looking for products and comparing options. It doesn’t align with a specific campaign, so it doesn’t target a specific audience segment or problem.

A landing page, however, is “landed on” from an external site (or email). Since visitors will view the content through the lens of the marketing campaign that brought them to the page (usually reading from top to bottom), it should match the campaign in terms of target audience, tone, and offer.

This means you can customize the content of a landing page based on visitors’ reasons for arriving. You can lean in on whatever angle you used to get people to the page in the first place.

Landing Page vs. Product Page Comparison Chart

Do Landing Pages Convert Better Than Product Pages?

The trend we have seen across our clients is that sending traffic to a landing page is better for the user journey and, therefore, a strong tactic to increase conversions.

This is due to the alignment between the landing page and the marketing campaign. If a paid ad claims the product helps busy parents save time, and the landing page says the same, the visitor is reassured that the product meets the ad’s promise.

Conversely, product detail pages have lower conversions because there’s little connection between a paid ad and the page’s content. The visitor is left to figure it out for themselves.

“It’s all around context for the visitor,” says Jon McDonald, founder of The Good. “The visitor is not going to know everything about your product or your brand as well as you do. Sending them to the product detail page is making too many assumptions. [You’re assuming] that the consumer will figure everything out for themselves, and that’s just not true. So sending them to a dedicated landing page will increase your conversion rates.”

Can I Use a Product Page as a Landing Page?

Yes, but we wouldn’t recommend it. It’s best to have unique, dedicated landing pages for specific marketing efforts. This lets you align the landing page with the campaign’s goals and the customer’s journey.

Should I Drive Traffic to a PDP or a Landing Page?

Typically, you should drive traffic to a landing page. This lets you align the page with the audience who sees the off-site message. This connection improves the odds that the visitor will be educated and properly primed by the landing page content and purchase the product.

Even so, there are exceptions to every rule. You may choose to send traffic to a product-specific landing page or a product page based on what a shopper is searching for.

For instance, suppose a shopper searches for a “podcasting microphone.” In this case, the shopper needs education because they don’t know what they want to buy yet, so you should link them to a landing page that’s optimized for “podcasting microphones.”

But if the shopper searches for “Shure SM7dB Dynamic Microphone,” it’s a safe bet that they’re past the need for information and are ready to buy. You can send them right to the product page.

The same is true if someone searches for a model number. That person knows what they need, so it’s best to get out of their way by putting as few barriers between them and the sale as possible.

As you can see, it is all about creating a seamless customer journey and moving shoppers through your funnel. In most cases, that means sending paid traffic to a landing page.

How to Create and Optimize Landing Pages

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of driving paid traffic to landing pages let’s walk through some best practices to help you craft landing page designs that create a great user experience and push your visitors down the sales funnel. We’ll also show off some landing page examples.

Define Your Goals and Target Audience

Before you start building a landing page, it’s important to understand exactly who you’re creating the page for and what you want to achieve.

Keep in mind that a dedicated landing page doesn’t just sell products. It can capture leads through an ebook, webinar, or demo sign-up or thank visitors after they make a purchase or subscribe to your email list. Define what your page should accomplish before you build anything.

Note: For the sake of this article, we use a lot of product-focused landing page examples, but your goals may vary.

Then, consider your audience. This target audience might include your entire customer base or just a segment of it. This should be the same audience you use in the aligned off-site marketing campaign.

Refer to your internal data to familiarize yourself with the page’s audience. Make sure you understand the types of words and images that are most effective for those people.

Create a Benefit-Focused Headline

Without a doubt, a compelling headline is the most important element on your landing page. This bit of copy should focus on benefits, not features. You aren’t necessarily describing the product; you’re explaining how the visitor’s life will be better with it.

Again, refer to your repository of knowledge about your customer to find the perfect words to suit their unique situation for your landing page headline.

Creatorpreneur is an effective product landing page example here. Notice how it uses specific words in the headline and subheading that appeal to its audience, like “creative,” “scale up,” and “sustainable growth.”

Match Images and Copy to Your Audience

Unlike a product detail page, where you show stark images of your product, your landing page offers the freedom and space to get more creative.

This is the place to use images and video to form a human connection. Use big lifestyle photos, explainer videos, and full-width hero images. A relevant video can increase your conversions by 86%.

Most importantly, match your media to your copy. If your headline and supporting text refer to athletes, your pictures and videos should include them as well.

It’s no surprise that Apple’s MacBook Air landing page is top-notch. It’s full of large, powerful images and clear language that appeals to tech-loving creatives. An image doesn’t do this page justice, so make sure to visit to explore the interactive elements.

Keep the Important Information Above the Fold

Visitors are more likely to stay with your page if they see the most important information right away without having to scroll. We refer to this section using an old newspaper phrase: “above the fold.”

What goes above the fold? Your headline, value proposition, clear call-to-action (which could be a button or form), and usually some kind of media that helps the visitors connect with the content.

Peloton smartly keeps all of the important information right at the top. The call-to-action sends you to a product detail page (that’s also worth checking out).

Let Them Buy If They Want

The call-to-action on a landing page typically links to a product detail page, but some visitors may decide to buy while they are still on the landing page. For these people, it’s smart to give them a shortcut by offering an “add to cart” button somewhere on the page.

Generally, it’s best to keep this option out of the way, perhaps in a sticky bar at the top or bottom or a slide-out sidebar. Notice how the landing page for Cowboy e-bikes has a sticky section at the bottom so visitors always have a path toward conversion.

Of course, this is only relevant if the page’s goal is to sell something. If you have some other goal, a link to purchase might be a distraction.

Include Social Proof

People prefer to buy from brands they trust, which is why social proof is such an important part of marketing. Case studies, testimonials, ratings, reviews, and even an indicator of the number of times a page was shared on Facebook can make people feel better about your products.

But not all social proof is equal. Some are more powerful, depending on the product and the audience. For instance, an endorsement from a basketball player on basketball sneakers is always going to ring louder than an endorsement from, well, anyone else.

The Dyson Corrale is a great landing page example. Notice how it uses three kinds of social proof: a rating system, customer reviews, and user-generated content from social media.

Remove Navigation and Distractions

Typically, a landing page is not for browsing. The purpose is for the visitor to consume the content and then move forward in the predetermined direction via the call-to-action.

This means any other opportunities on the page to navigate somewhere else are simple distractions. It’s best to eliminate or minimize them.

This means no header, footer, sidebar, or navigation menu. You might decide to make your logo clickable on your homepage so visitors don’t get stuck, but otherwise, only the call-to-action should be clickable.

Use Straight-Forward Calls-to-Action

Your landing page should provide plenty of information for visitors, but ultimately its goal is to encourage them to take the next step. This means you need a call-to-action.

Your call-to-action will depend on the purpose of the page. Landing pages generally don’t sell products, but they can. In most cases, your landing page will send the visitor to a product detail page, capture their email address, encourage them to share, etc.

For the best conversion rates, use simple and clear language for your calls to action. Don’t try to make them clever or witty. Get right to the point. For instance, Medik8’s regime-builder uses a simple, clear, and impossible-to-miss call to action.

We also find it helpful to use the first person in your calls to action. It helps the visitor identify with the action better. Here are some examples:

• Download My Free Guide
• Grab My Webinar Seat
• Choose My Subscription Tier

Finally, make sure your call to action fulfills its promise. If you promise a guide on the next screen, it must be there. Otherwise, you’ll lose all credibility.

Optimize for Search Engines and Google Shopping

Good SEO helps people find your pages through search engines. This is an important way to bring people to your page organically without spending money on ads.

Even better, you should optimize your pages specifically for Google Shopping. This can enhance your visibility and attract more potential customers to your site. Combined with a robust product feed, Google is more likely to display your products in their search results.

Here are some strategies to ensure your landing page is optimized for Google Shopping:

• Include relevant keywords and key attributes (brand, product type, color, size) in your product titles and product descriptions.
• Use high-resolution images that meet Google’s specifications.
• Implement structured data markup to provide Google with detailed information about your products, including price, availability, and reviews.
• Ensure that the information on your landing page matches the information in your Google Shopping product feed.
• Design your landing page to be clean, attractive, and easy to navigate.
• Ensure your landing page is device-friendly and mobile-friendly.
• Optimize your page for quick loading.
• Use clear, descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords.
• Optimize meta titles and descriptions to improve click-through rates from search results.
• Ensure your product feed is regularly updated to reflect accurate information.
• Use tools like Google Merchant Center to identify and fix any errors in your product feed.

Test and Optimize Your Page

It’s important to optimize your landing page over time through iterative testing. Use A/B testing or rapid tests to determine which elements are working/not working and how your page can better reach its customers and goals.

Testing can also benefit more than a specific landing page, as you can apply what you learn to other pages on your site or your organization as a whole.

Consider Your User to Deliver the Right Digital Journey

When deciding whether to drive traffic to a landing page for a product detail page, it’s important to think about the user and their journey. Landing pages are the right choice when paired with marketing campaigns—such as paid ads—because they create a seamless experience for the user.

We typically recommend driving traffic to a landing page for a better, tailored customer journey. However, there are a few niche cases where it’s right to send traffic directly to a product detail page.

If you aren’t sure which is right for your unique situation, connect with us. We can help you optimize your visitor’s digital experience by building an optimization program that keeps you focused on what is proven to move the needle.

Learn more about our Digital Experience Optimization Program.

The post Driving Paid Traffic To A Landing Page vs. Product Page: What Is Better? appeared first on The Good.

Why does this happen? Well, in the case of Google Shopping, those users are often in a comparison mode. When the product page was invented, the only way to get there was via the homepage and global navigation on your site.

But, users are now going straight to the product without even walking in your proverbial front door.

When our team looks at data and runs interviews with prospects, we hear that they are often net-new and they are trying to maximize by comparing your products to others.

So they are comparison shopping, and that can cause you to lose sales.

But, you can stand out from competitors and turn the challenges caused by users landing on PDPs into a strength.

This is the recipe for success to convert more of your product page traffic and make the most of the holiday visitors.

Step 1: Understand your customers

Before you do anything, you have to build your understanding of your audience through user insights. That means figuring out where they are coming from, how they are behaving, and what is important to them.

We categorize user insights into three buckets:

Foundational (Observation): Foundational user insights are observations, or facts about behavior that are foundational to understanding the user journey. On their own, they do not signify challenges or blockers to conversion, but they give context that is important to understanding the user and painting a fuller picture of a user experience.

Often, these are discovered through tools like Google Analytics and can help us understand:

• How the users are behaving on site
• What content they engage with
• Truths about users like age and location

Foundational insights will only shift slowly over time or with new campaigns.

Situational (UX Challenges): Situational insights are pain points that impede the user’s ability to navigate the site and reach their goals. While users are not necessarily aware of these UX challenges, the issues can delay or prevent positive outcomes like task completion, conversion, or user satisfaction.

These insights can help you understand:

• What works on your site
• How much effort it takes a user to convert
• If users are satisfied with their experience

These show if users can complete a task to their satisfaction when given a context and an interface.

Motivational: These largely qualitative insights are about mindset. Users may experience apprehension or lack motivation when the product or experience does not align with their wants, needs, or commitment level. So, motivational insights give us context to how we might better understand users.

Issues of motivation or apprehension represent a disconnect between what users want, the effort they are willing to expel, and the perceived payoff of that effort.

Motivational insights answer questions like:

• What motivates users to purchase?
• Are users connecting to our product?
• What is holding users back from purchasing today?

Conducting regular research to understand your users will help you pinpoint why users aren’t buying from you today and build a better shopping experience tomorrow. Beyond Google Analytics, use the below tools to collect user insights:  

• User testing
• Heat mapping
• Observational analysis
• Surveys

Step 2: Define the Opportunities and Solutions

After step 1, we should understand our users. We know:

• Foundationally, who they are and how they are behaving on-site
• If users complete desired tasks and if they are satisfied with their experience
• What motivates users and what demotivates them

But it’s one thing to have that insight; it’s another to know what to do with it.

Every site is different, but let’s take a look at some treatments that all aim to solve similar problems.

We mentioned that for Google Shopping or other paid traffic, the product page is likely one of the top entry points to your site. Let’s imagine that 60% of your sessions start on a product page and that you have a high bounce rate.

We know why: many users who land on your site from a Google product listing will be comparison shopping. They likely have multiple tabs open and they are going tab to tab comparing products.

So, the opportunity is to increase intentional browsing. It’s not enough to just slap a product page up with some generic copy and call it a day. What you want to do is encourage users to browse the parent category and explore more products rather than abandoning the site if the product doesn’t meet their needs.

You want them to stay on your website instead of going to your competitor’s site which sells the same or a very similar product.

A few ways you’ll notice brands encourage users to stay on-site include:

• Adding breadcrumbs that allow for easy on-site navigation
• Featuring more shopping pathways in the buy box area
• Show recommended products above the fold
• Establish trust and authority on the PDP

All of this increases the likelihood that even if shoppers don’t land on the perfect product, they can explore more like it.

Step 3: Validate Your Solutions

You’ve done steps 1 and 2: understand users and conversion barriers and define the opportunities and solutions. Now it’s time to validate your solutions.

We’ve gathered all this great data, and I recommend you don’t stop there. There’s a difference between being data-informed and actually data-driven.

That’s the real secret to leveling up against your competition: validate

Taking good ideas to your designers and throwing them on your site is a shotgun or spray-and-pray approach. Some of the ideas will work, and some won’t. Industry-wide, that percentage is only 10-20% of ideas actually convert better, so up to 90% of development effort is totally wasted.

So, instead of shotgunning, we recommend a systematic approach. Strategically validate some of the riskier decisions with rapid prototyping and tactics, including:

• A/B Testing
• Task Completion Analysis
• Sentiment Testing

There you have it. You’re losing sales to competitors on traffic you paid for because the users are comparison shopping. You can fix it by following our three-step approach: understand your users, identify opportunities and solutions, and validate your ideas.

Dig Deeper

• Dive into the evaluative research methods you can use to support your effort to be a data-driven organization: What is Rapid Testing and How is it Different from A/B Testing?
• Explore strategies to convert comparison shoppers on your site and make the most of Google Shopping traffic: How to Optimize Your Google Shopping Traffic and Improve Your Ecommerce Bounce Rate  

The post Why am I losing sales to competitors on paid traffic? And how do I fix it? appeared first on The Good.

Studies show that 68% of online shoppers search Google when they’re considering the purchase of a specific product. Users are information hunting, but when they see the variety of results and prices, they quickly go into comparison mode.

Our own research and user testing for clients confirm that the majority of users browsing the Google Shopping product listing ads are comparison shopping.

But your ecommerce business doesn’t have to be just a research pitstop before users go back to their Google search results, Amazon, or a competitor site to purchase.

In this guide, we’re sharing how you can optimize your Google shopping traffic. 

Our 7 strategies will help you better connect with shoppers to lower your bounce rate and help them find what they’re looking for.

7 strategies to optimize your Google Shopping traffic

If you are spending money on product listing ads in your Google Ads account, here are some strategies you can use to increase your conversion rate and return on ad spend (ROAS).

1. Understand what is important to your audience

While it might be tempting to start running Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords) without doing any customer interviews and user testing, that’s a guaranteed way to:

• Create a subpar bid strategy
• Waste a lot of your ad budget
• Have underwhelming metrics, like a low target ROAS

Conducting customer interviews and doing user testing allows you to pinpoint why users aren’t buying from you today and build a better shopping experience.

At The Good, we use Think Aloud protocol in our user testing. We find users with similar characteristics to the ideal customer profile, and ask them to talk us through their shopping experience. So, they might enter a specific search query, browse the Google Shopping results, and click through to a product page.

In this process, we can identify pain points, confusion, and anything standing in the way between desire and conversion.

For a more in-depth analysis of your customers’ journey, check out this video:

2. Use breadcrumbs to give users another place to go

Most people who land on your site through a Google Shopping ad will land on a product page. That means they aren’t familiar with your brand, your site navigation, or how to find other products you might sell.

Sites will often try to encourage people to continue shopping by adding breadcrumbs at the top of the product page. However, that doesn’t help people achieve what they really want, which is typically to go to the main related category.

In this chair example, Target creates more emphasis on site hierarchy and current product’s brand through font weight/proximity to product title. Providing better visibility into the breadcrumbs for a site with a large product catalog may help improve navigation for users landing on a product page.

‘Shop all Sierra Designs’ provides better information scent for users looking to shop more from that brand.

3. Run the “Etsy” test to offer meaningful alternatives

Remember: most people who land on your site from a Google product listing will be comparison shopping. They know the product they are looking for, but don’t necessarily know or care about your brand at this point.  

This means the standard practice of surfacing add-ons on the product page to increase average order value won’t be relevant to their needs.

Instead, aim to keep people on your site by surfacing appealing alternatives to the product they are already viewing. Let them comparison shop the products on your own site rather than comparing your brand to other Google Shopping listings.

One test that we run for brands doing a lot of paid search is the Etsy Test. Show similar products or “other customers also viewed” items to inspire on-site comparison.

Etsy displays similar items above the fold to encourage shoppers to stay on-site even if the product they landed on wasn’t quite the right fit.

4. Improve site speed and UX

Most people landing on your site from paid search won’t know a lot about your brand, so making a good first impression and matching user expectations can do a lot to decrease the likelihood that users will bounce from your site. Make sure the content in navigation aligns with user expectations, loads quickly, is scannable, and is easy to understand.  

This is particularly important for mobile. Review your Google Analytics, product data, and heat maps to see what users are doing on your online store:

• What content are they actually engaging with on your product landing pages?
• When was the last time you updated your Google Shopping feed to ensure the most up-to-date local inventory and prices are showing up?
• Are you using negative keywords? Hopefully! If so, when was the last time you reviewed your negative keywords list?
• Are they scrolling and seeing all of your product attributes and reading through reviews?
• Are there any key browsing differences between people who find this product from organic SEO vs. paid search ads vs. remarketing ad campaigns?

If most shoppers only see what’s above the fold, you may want to maximize above-the-fold visibility of the essentials like product name, price, any savings, star ratings, number of reviews, and images.

5. Display social proof to build trust

If you’re a lesser-known brand, you need to establish trust with shoppers immediately. Product ratings and reviews right on the product page are a great way to do this because they:

• Allow shoppers to see what customers think about the product and shopping experience—in their own words
• Prove this is a legitimate brand, not just a great product
• Demonstrate why people should buy from your site vs. a competitor

In the example above, Leatherman features a review snippet below the product image to improve visibility and draw attention to review highlights and star rating.

6. Incentivize folks to purchase from you through meaningful differentiation

Another key to converting more Google Shopping traffic is emphasizing meaningful differentiation through incentives.

Make it clear why shoppers should buy from you. This could be by making the quality clear, offering lowest price guarantees, longer warranties, priority support, etc. If not, they may use your site as a research guide, and ultimately buy a similar product on Amazon.

Backcountry counters this objection by offering a lowest price guarantee right at the top of the product page.

Pro Tip: While price matching or price guarantees can work well, you don’t have to always compete on price. You can also use special offers like free shipping, free gift with purchase, loyalty programs, or priority support. 

7. Demonstrate shared values

What’s your secret sauce?

Do you have a specific mission that your company stands for?

And why should people buy from your brand instead of from Amazon or a competitor?

Getting clear on your unique value proposition and then surfacing that strategically on your website, including in your product page copy, can help you convert more visitors into paying customers.

Ten Trees uses tiles and copy on the category page to demonstrate shared values (e.g. sustainable essentials, goodbye fast fashion), which activate in-group bias and reciprocity bias.

Optimize your Google Shopping traffic and convert comparison shoppers

Most people who come to your site from paid search are comparison shopping.

Their first impression of your brand will most likely come from clicking on one of the Google results and going right to a product page.

This means you need to meet them where they are. Consider ways that you can deliver a better user experience on your landing page to encourage comparison shopping your products rather than leaving to compare with a Google shopping competitor result.

This might include surfacing related products in the same category, displaying social proof, or communicating shared values.

By implementing the right tactics, you can lower your bounce rate and increase the likelihood of shoppers buying from you.

The post How to Optimize Your Google Shopping Traffic and Improve Your Ecommerce Bounce Rate   appeared first on The Good.

Google Ads is a waste of money.

Facebook ads are a rip-off.

Do you harbor any personal resentments against digital advertising platforms? Have you found the ROI from paid traffic sources tends to run on the negative side?

You’re not alone. Many of our clients have felt that way before too.

But there’s a solution.

In this article, we’ll show you how to hack paid traffic, multiply your results exponentially, and begin making sure paid traffic to your website does exactly what it’s supposed to do: increase conversions.

The Problem with Paid Traffic

At The Good, we often speak with ecommerce managers who want more traffic. Many believe increasing the number of visitors will lead to more sales and more profit… and that’s typically true.

If your conversion rate is such that you earn [X] number of dollars for every 1,000 visitors to your website, then doubling the number of visitors will boost earnings to 2X.

It’s simple math, and math is always correct.

In the rush to get traffic, though, many otherwise sharp digital markers miss an important point. Consider this: if each of those 1,000 visitors contributes an average $20 in sales and your paid traffic campaign costs $30 per visitor, you’re on the wrong end of the stick.

In that case, the more traffic you get, the more money you lose.

And that’s when the weeping and howling begins: “Google charges too much for clicks. Facebook draws you in, then raises the price beyond belief. Paid traffic doesn’t work!”

On and on the story goes.

The ecommerce manager will often try one paid platform after another, trying to find the one that will get results… but that happy day seldom arrives.

The problem is that there’s more to paid traffic than just getting traffic.

Much more.

The Two Sides to Paid Traffic

There are two distinct considerations in any paid traffic strategy. We’ve found that many digital marketing managers focus on the first, but neglect the second.

That’s a sure path to financial stress.

You not only need to GET the traffic, but you have to make sure that traffic CONVERTS at a healthy rate.

You not only need to GET traffic but make sure that traffic CONVERTS at a healthy rate
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A site that converts 1,000 visitors at 10 percent ends up with 100 sales. Drop the conversion rate to 1 percent, though, and that same site now needs 10,000 visitors to get 100 sales.

If on average, you need to invest one dollar to get one visitor, then you’ll spend $1,000 on traffic versus $10,000 on traffic – for the same number of sales.

Both sides of the paid traffic equation need to be optimized.

On the “get side” of traffic, you want to be sure you’re targeting the right prospects with the right offer and that the amount you need to pay to get each visitor isn’t more than the value you can expect to gain from each visitor (whether immediately or over the customer lifetime value).

On the “convert side” of traffic, you have to make sure the people you’ve paid to click a link and visit your landing page find sufficient reason to become paying customers. Your sales conversion rate is the number of sales, divided by the number of visitors, multiplied by 100.

Another important formula to know is cost-per-acquisition. It varies inversely with your conversion rate. Double your rate of conversion and you cut your cost per acquisition in half.

Double your rate of conversion and you cut your cost per acquisition in half.
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No matter how much traffic you generate and how much you pay to get it, your business can’t survive without an adequate conversion rate.

You don’t need visitors. You need customers.

Paid Traffic: Here’s What to Do First

We advise our clients not to invest in additional paid traffic UNTIL their ecommerce site is optimized for conversions.

To do otherwise is like trying to carry water in a leaky bucket. You won’t get back home with much left for the family.

Ecommerce site optimization is the master key to exponential gains on your paid traffic investment.

We won’t go into the particulars here since we’ve covered ecommerce website optimization quite well in other articles, but these are the general points you’ll necessarily want to consider:

1. Does the ad or offer you’re using to draw traffic to your site speak to your best audience? Remember: you’re not looking for traffic, you’re looking for customers.
2. Does the landing page you’re directing traffic to deliver on the promise you’ve made in your ad or offer? Congruency between the ad and where the person goes after clicking on the link in the ad is especially important.
3. Does the journey the prospect begins by clicking on the ad or offer guide the visitor smoothly along the path from prospect to customer? Get rid of friction. Build trust and confidence each step of the way. Make the visitor glad to have found your site.
4. Do you have a system in place to track results, and do you have a strategy for continuous testing to get better results? Always be testing.

Online shoppers are a suspicious lot. Their antennae are finely-tuned to that famous station WIFM (“What’s in it for me?”). They’ve been burned too many times to put up with shenanigans. It’s absolutely essential that you respect their time and money.

Don’t play games. Don’t try to trick visitors into clicking. Speak to the right audience and deliver the right goods or services to that audience.

Traffic isn’t your aim.

You need to build your customer base and get more sales.

Resources:

• Winning Big in 2017 – 3 Critical Trends in Conversion Optimization
• Conversion Rate Optimization Essentials: The Master Guide
• How to Lower Your Customer Acquisition Cost and Grow ROI

Two Case Studies: Paid Traffic and Ecommerce Website Optimization

Easton Baseball is the world’s leading supplier of baseball-related gear. When Easton enlisted help from The Good, the company was realizing a reasonable return (450 percent) on its paid traffic investment. Many companies would settle for that, but Easton management wanted to do better.

We used the data from a conversion audit to evaluate the situation. Using that data, along with consumer feedback and user testing, we conducted a website optimization procedure to provide a better user experience and cut back on friction points along the conversion journey.

Consequently, the conversion rate from digital marketing spend doubled, mobile revenue increased by 659 percent, and the work paid for itself within six months of the optimization.

Read more about the Easton Baseball project here: Double Your ROI.

Let’s consider another example.

Diane James Home sells faux flower arrangements. Their products are homemade in the USA and are often said to look more genuine than the real thing.

After a Stuck Score analysis gave them a good look at potential bottlenecks in the customer journey, the company hired The Good to help grow sales.

After several months of working with Diane James Home to optimize the website and convert more of the organic traffic, we referred them to a trusted partner who helps drive traffic.

Consequently, Diane James Home began breaking one previous sales record after another.

The ROI boost quickly produced a 50 percent increase in revenue.

Find out more about the Diane James Home project here: Increase Your Conversion Rate.

Conversion Optimization Can Provide Exponential ROI Growth

More traffic means more return on investment ONLY when the cost of getting that traffic is less than the revenue produced by it – whether now or in the future.

You can quickly compute your potential ROI from conversion rate optimization by making taking advantage of this simple online calculator: ROI Calculator.

Our ecommerce website optimization clients typically see increases in both sales conversion rate and average order value.

For instance, if your current conversion rate is 2 percent, your average monthly traffic is 100k, and your average order value is $150, then monthly online revenue is $300k.

Let’s say we work together to push conversions up by three percent and boost average order value by $50. Plugging those numbers into the calculator, your monthly revenue is now at one million dollars.

That’s the magic of optimization. Modest increases yield impressive results.

By streamlining both sides of the paid traffic equation, you can justify the spend and leverage that traffic to do what it’s supposed to do: bring in additional sales.

The post Hacking Paid Traffic: How to Multiply Your Results Exponentially appeared first on The Good.