PPC Glossary Terms: Conversion

Measuring the performance of a PPC campaign is an essential step and as well as considering the level of CTR, or Click Through Rate, you should consider the conversion rate of the resulting traffic. While factors other than your actual PPC campaign can combine to determine the conversion rate of the traffic, it does help identify poor performing ad campaigns and potential methods to improve them.

The conversion rate of a page is something that all website owners should be tracking already. It helps to identify when traffic sources are not targeted enough or when on page content might require rewriting or improving. It can certainly be an indication that a page needs a more clearly defined Call To Action.

In PPC terms, measuring conversion rates may indicate that your ad is not relevant enough to the content of the page. This can often happen when, for example, a single campaign is used to target a long list of keywords. Some PPC keywords will inevitably prove more effective than others and this is the reason why the most effective PPC should use a single campaign for one or two keywords only.

Another reason for the conversion of PPC traffic is that the content on the landing page requires more work. In this case we refer to the landing page copy as needing to be optimised for conversions. Using the same keywords in the content, defining a Call to Action and highlighting your Unique Selling Proposition are all methods of optimising a landing page that may benefit your conversion rates.