THE COST OF A CLICK

Diane Birch talks to Jonathan Slobom on how to increase your marketing conversion rate, and why paying for clicks might not be a bargain

Although the cost of ‘pay-per-click’ advertising had a wobbly start in 2020, it has only grown in popularity over the last year. One guess as to why that might be! However, simply investing in pay-per-click, might not be the best place to put your money, especially if you don’t have the staff, time and expertise to back it up. Peppered Moth Marketing joined the BITA community in 2021, and given my own marketing background I was excited to talk to their founder, Jonathan Slobom, about his experience in this area, and where he thinks the solutions might lie.

Pay-Per-Click

Thousands of businesses rushed online in 2020, to counter the negative effects of Covid. Many of these invested more time and attention into already-established sales channels in order to convert extra online sales, filling the gap left by in-store spending. Many others hastily erected new platforms and channels online, where they had previously had no, or a minimal presence.

They urgently needed traffic.

Many of these businesses lacked the deep digital marketing experience required to establish and grow these channels themselves and were willing to pay for those coveted online clicks. This resulted in a smaller market share, and an everincreasing cost per click to these digital newcomers.

“The issue is that many of the companies we saw weren’t putting in enough of the quality groundwork” says Jonathan; “they weren’t improving their SEO which meant that the holy grail of online marketing – organic reach and conversions – weren’t materialising”.

It would be reasonable to assume that with the relaxation of lock-down and successful vaccine drive, the costs would soon start going down. Not so says Jonathan.

“Many of these businesses are desperate to recover their losses and may have let go or downsized their ‘bricks and mortar’ stores. These will be driving their sales through paid clicks and other online marketing.”

In my experience as a marketing strategist, I have seen many businesses rely solely on the bottom-line figures – outlay and outcomes – whilst failing to investigate their pipelines for insights and sales advantages that could help them expand. Jonathan confirms that this holds true for businesses online as well. “Even businesses that are sophisticated enough to effectively measure their analytics and growth opportunities aren’t immune to the pressure to hit sales targets. They often succumb to the temptation of spending all their budget increasing traffic and sales but spend little to no time or money increasing their conversion rate or retention”.

Why is this so difficult?

People who work in this area are often very detail oriented and have a head for strategy and analysis – spotting chokepoints in your pipeline and hurdles to converting a follower to a customer. Even if the staff have these skills, it can still prove difficult.

“The problem with improving conversion rates quickly is a lack of data” Jonathan explains. “To be successful, businesses need to run many tests concurrently and harvest enough data to make statistically robust decisions. This requires intelligent software, highly experienced people, relentless focus and of course, hours of effort.”

These difficulties are why it pays to bring in an expert. There are many specialist agencies or individuals that operate exclusively in the online area, and who are never happier than when sifting through vast piles of data that would daunt even the most stalwart employee that isn’t an expert in this field.

Even better, there are now agencies that only charge for successful campaigns! “Demonstrable, measurable outcomes form the basis of their remuneration” explains Jonathan. “Many so-called CRO (Click Rate Optimisation) specialists ask to be paid upfront on the hope of a positive outcome. Some even ask for a long-term contract before they have proven ability to increase your sales. Of course, every business needs to find the right solution for them but working with an agency that operates with a ‘no win, no fee’ model can mean that everyone is a winner.”

The idea of hiring experts and only paying a fee if they are successful will definitely sound enticing to many businesses, and it is a great way of ensuring you don’t spend your entire budget in an area that gets you nothing in return. Perhaps even more importantly from my point of view, is that when you work with experts, you will be able to access those insights that help you increase conversion rates, create more loyal customers, target new customers, and find new markets for your product. Doing this risk free? Sounds like a no-brainer!