Here are 10 things SaaS CMO’s should know about Google Ads:
#1: Ad position is the #1 predictor of click rate. Ads that show near the top of the page get 8-15x as many clicks as ads near the bottom.
#2: Ad position is based on your bid x your Quality Score.
#3: Traffic is non linear – if you double your bids, you’ll usually 5x or 10x your traffic.
#4: The 3 simplest ways to improve Quality Score are to improve your ad text and landing page relevance, split-test ads to increase click rate, and fix any site speed issues.
#5: PPC profits = clicks x (value of a visitor – cost per click). The easiest of these three metrics to influence is the value of a visitor – but that’s the one PPC managers spend the least time on.
#6: It’s not essential to have a USP in your ads, but it really helps your clickrate – especially if you’re not the top ad.
#7: Different keywords will produce different signup rates, different trialist-to-paid rates, and different customer LTV. You need to factor that into your bids. So, if your allowable CPA is the same across all your ad groups, you’re probably making a big mistake
#8: There will usually be a correlation between cost per trialist and the value of those trialists. Or, to put it another way, in Google search, cheap clicks are usually cheap for a reason.
#9: In Google Ads, whoever does the best job of turning ad impressions into money, can outbid everyone else and dominate the market.
#10: And turning ad impressions into money means fixing/improving every step in your funnel.
The good news is that a typical SaaS company might only get one paying customer for every few thousand searches for their non-brand keywords. With hard work – and a modicum of skill – it’s not hard to become well above average.
All the best,
Steve Gibson
