How to Lower Cost Per Click

I audited $10M+ worth of monthly paid marketing spend in 2024. The truth about marketing in PE port-cos: When you dig into the data, you almost always uncover opportunities to cut CPA and increase conversion volume. But the real aha here is that it’s usually easily fixable issues, not super complex stuff: 1. Port-cos often spend on 'button clickers' instead of 'hand raisers.' Saved one port-co $100k/month by shifting conversion to form completion AFTER watching demos (instead of initial CTA click). 2. Multiple port-cos ran six-figure campaigns on autopilot. No A/B testing, no adjustments, just spend reliant on Google’s algo to make the right decisions. 3. Basic campaign fixes could slash costs in half. Most port-cos pay 2-3x more per click simply due to messy account structure and low quality scores. 4. Most companies try to target too many search terms at once. Almost always, you find that real sales come from a small core set of keywords.  Double down on these. 5. Companies waste money advertising to all regions at once. Focusing on fewer locations (with higher spend) typically improves performance by 20-40%. 6. Basic creative quality control is rare. One company spent $75k monthly on LinkedIn ad creative where half the text was cut off. 7. Marketing teams often throw money at their own brand name in search. That budget is usually less incremental than you think - and better spent reaching new customers. 8. Port-cos focus on ads but ignore where they lead. Better landing pages immediately lower costs and lift sales. 9. You see a lot of money going to channels that don't work. One team cut their cost per lead by 90% just by shifting all ad budget to a single platform (Google). 10. Marketing teams celebrate high MQL conversion rates, but sales can't trace a single closed deal back to those "successful" campaigns. Truth is, most of these issues are fixable. The hard part is finding them. Want to audit your own marketing? Start here: □ Can you link your ad spend to actual closed/won? □ Which campaigns drive real pipeline? □ What are your campaigns actually optimizing for? □ Do marketing and sales measure success the same way? □ Are you paying for traffic you would have already gotten? Otherwise, AMA in the comments. Happy to help!

One of the BIGGEST weaknesses I see while auditing PPC accounts "Toothpaste" VS "Toothpaste for Sensitive Teeth and Cavity Prevention" Which term should you bid on?  Which term should get the majority of your budget? Most brands take a top-down approach when targeting keywords. They invest the majority of their budget into the 5-10 keywords that are the most common sense. “Toothpaste”  “Mascara”  “Mouthwash”  “Deodorant” What’s the problem with this strategy? Well, you are not the only one with the common sense to bid on these terms. And when you are competing for real estate through an auction model, the more bidders you have, the higher the CPC’s will most likely be. In order to avoid having to constantly “Pay to play” for our top traffic, we invest in deep keyword research for every product we advertise. Instead of trying to compete directly on “Toothpaste” we are looking for all of the different ways a customer could be led to our listing. “Toothpaste for Sensitive Teeth and Cavity Prevention”  “Whitening toothpaste for sensitive teeth”  “Toothpaste with sensitivity protection and whitening” These long tail terms allow us to drive more incrementality for two reasons. 1. The more detailed the customer search is, the more likely they are to buy our product. (Higher CVR) Someone typing in ‘toothpaste” may want cheap toothpaste, whitening toothpaste, mint toothpaste, or charcoal toothpaste….we don't actually know, and yet we are having to compete against all of these products in search. Someone typing in “Toothpaste for sensitive teeth” knows exactly what they are looking for, and lucky enough, we have just the product for them! We have seen CVR being as much as 3x higher on our longtail terms due to this. 2. The more detailed the customer search is, the less likely it is that our competitors have thought to bid on this term. (Lower CPC) Everyone knows to bid on their top 3-5 terms. And everyone assumes that running their top terms in broad and phrase will also give them the coverage they want for all of their long tail searches. This is not the case. Most brands do not have the budget to afford their top terms AND their long tail terms in one campaign. We segment our campaigns for this reason. We want direct control over the budget going to our top terms, and our long-tail terms, so that we can adjust the budget based on performance. Higher CVR + Lower CPC = Much improved RoAS. This flexibility allows us to quickly react to the market and adjust profitability and scalability on an ongoing basis. ——— Why don't more brands do this? 🔶Top-down pressure from their leadership teams who only want to see their products showing up for their “top” keywords. 🔶 Lack of good keyword harvesting / bid management / budget distribution systems to make this scaleable. 🔶 Limited budgets and fear of NOT investing that whole budget into the top 4-5 keywords.

At Directive, we’ve audited over $145M in Google Ads for SaaS companies. Here’s how we can find any Google Ad problem (in under 15 minutes): 1. Offline Conversion Tracking Is Not Setup (or worse, setup incorrectly) Without offline conversion you’re trusting Google’s dashboards to tell you what’s working (they'll always tell you to spend more). Actual bookings are priority, but we need enough volume for the algorithm to properly optimize. Here’s a traditional setup we would follow (Lead > MQL > Demo > Closed Won) and the math behind it. Start with the value per deal (expected or actual) and multiply it by your close rate. So, 75k ACV * 25% close rate = $18,750 cost per demo. Then, $18,750* 50% MQL > Demo = $9,375 MQL And finally, $9,375 MQL * 5% Lead > MQL = $468 cost per form conversion. 2. Majority of Budget on Informational Intent Search Terms We often find accounts spending > 75% on search terms that have no commercial intent and massive differences when it comes to cost per demo. Go into the search terms report and filter non brand keywords. Then, filter to look at "keyword text contains" and input informational modifiers: - Software - Services - Provider - Companies - Vendor - Solution - System - Best - Tool - Platform - Reviews Now, compare these informational keywords to "keyword text does not contain". More than 75% in the informational group? Time to start cutting. Lastly, segment your campaigns so commercial and non commercial keywords aren't in the same campaign (e.g. don't have "employee recognition" in the same campaign as "employee recognition software"). Commercial intent keywords will fight lower intent keywords with more search volume that take the majority of budget. 3. Maximizing Search Impression Share vs. Top Campaigns Almost every Google Ad account has top performing campaigns limited by budget. Boiling the ocean with impression share will make your blended cost pers skyrocket. Quickly clean up wasted spend and re-allocate + focus funds into top performing campaigns (and immediately lift conversion volume and reduce CPAs). 4. Device and Demographic Optimizations If you haven't optimized the mobile buying experience you’ll be burning budget on mobile/tablet clicks. Seems obvious, but gets missed frequently by teams + agencies. Look at the demographics report for a mismatch in your buyer profile. Are you trying to sell to Directors, VPs, and C-Suite, but the vast majority of your budget is going to 18-24 year olds and 25-34 year olds? Keep cutting. TAKEAWAY: Don't get distracted by platform reports and ask yourself: Have I connected my CRM to my ad account to optimize for down funnel conversions? Is my budget going to search terms that have commercial intent? Am I maxing out my spend on my top performing campaigns? Our team does dozens of these audits per month, and we make sure you never have to worry about this again. Get in touch -> https://lnkd.in/epFi8gRb