In the digital marketing landscape, Google Ads is a powerful tool many businesses use to drive traffic and generate leads. However, there’s a common misconception that the sole purpose of Google Ads is to get clicks. While this is partly true, it overlooks the diverse objectives and strategies that can be utilised within a Google Ads campaign.
Understanding why people might not be clicking on your ads and how to adapt your approach is crucial for maximising the effectiveness of your efforts.
What’s the perception of organic search vs paid Google Ads?
One of the primary reasons people might not be clicking on your Google Ads is the perception of organic versus paid results. Users tend to trust organic search results more than paid results because they believe these positions are earned through merit rather than purchased.
Users often click on the organic link when a brand appears in both the top organic and paid positions.
This trust in organic results highlights the importance of a robust SEO strategy. By ensuring that your website ranks highly in organic search results, you can build credibility and trust with your audience. Additionally, appearing in both organic and paid positions can reinforce your brand's authority and credibility, ultimately driving more traffic and conversions.
With this in mind, it's important to look at your traffic channels and compare. Your ads may have 100 impressions but only 2 clicks, but then you have a peek at your web traffic and there is a 50% increase in organic traffic compared to last month. Wonder where that came from?
The evolving website strategy with SGE
The introduction of Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE) (which is now called AI Answer) has significantly altered the landscape of search results. AI Answer changes how search results are presented, making it easier to push competitors down the page with excellent organic content. With better organic visibility, there is less need to rely solely on paid ads.
High-quality, relevant content is more likely to be rewarded by AI Answer, pushing a new focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that meets user intent and leveraging SEO best practices to improve organic rankings.
This brings us back to the never-ending SEO or SEM argument. Ultimately, our answer is you should be implementing both.
Page one on Google makes a comeback
You might’ve noticed recently that page one of Google has made a return. This means the fight to stay on page one, and more importantly, push your competitors off page one is back. Up until recently, Google made the switch to a continuous scroll, which technically still exists on mobile.
“According to Google, the change is about being able to serve results faster on more searches, instead of automatically loading results that haven't been requested. The company also said that continuous scrolling didn't lead to "significantly higher" user satisfaction with Google Search.”
- Mashable, 2024
Research shows that only 0.44% of searchers go to the second page of Google’s search results, which makes the fight for page one even more crucial.
So you’ve got the clicks, but no conversions?
The primary job of a Google Ad is to attract the user to click. Once the click is achieved, the role of the landing page or website is to convert the visitor into a customer.
It’s important to ensure that you’re sending the user to an excellent destination, meaning your landing pages are optimised to convert the user. To do this you must create engaging content that is relevant to the needs and expectations of your target audience.
A great and promising ad followed by a poor destination is not going to convert the user to a customer.
Another thing to consider is the world of internet bots, depending on where your ads are being shown, there is a chance some of the clicks your ads are generating may not be real. 🥲 Here are a few tips for identifying fraudulent clicks.
But what is the purpose of your Google Ads?
Take time to consider the purpose of your ads, and how that impacts what ad formats you might use. Google Ads aren’t just search and display ads, there are a wide variety of formats you can use, such as video, shopping, hotel, maps and more.
And then there's how you deploy these ads. Retargeting may present a great option for keeping your brand front of mind using display ads, by retargeting people who have interacted with your website or content elsewhere.
The main focus should be on creating engaging, visually appealing display ads, increasing brand visibility and driving more traffic and conversions; but make sure that the ads you’re using make sense for your business and product.. If you’d like to find out more, Google Ads has an awesome variety of resources in their help centre.
Still, feeling lost? Banter can guide the way
To maximise the effectiveness of your Google Ads, it's important to understand user behaviours and clearly understand what you’re measuring. Evaluating your current strategies with these insights can lead to better performance and a better understanding of your success.
But, if you’re looking for help with your Google Ads, get in touch with us. We can provide tailored insights and strategies to meet your specific business needs. We’d love to work together to make your ads work. ☺️
