How to Prequalify Traffic
using PPC ads

Landing Pages are the place to get your conversion. The traffic you acquire needs to be prequalified, meaning – the intent of the user needs to be defined for the method of acquisition. A great way to acquire prequalified traffic is to run paid search ads aka PPC ads or SEM Marketing.

For the example of paid search traffic, let’s focus on your SEM Campaign. To prequalify the traffic is to acquire the people who are most likely to convert on your landing page.

Step #1

Create an AdWords campaign

Assuming the end goal is to acquire a lead for your product, create a campaign with the following attributes:

– Highly relevant Ad Groups

• A campaign can have many ad groups
• Pay attention to the relevance of the groups

– Each Ad Group assumes a theme

• Keywords in each ad group are closely aligned with one another
• Use modified broad match or exact match keywords only
• No more than 10 keywords per Ad Group to start
• Avoid branded keywords, use non-branded keywords

– Create highly relevant Ads for each Ad Group

• Highly relevant = Using similar or same keyword themes in Ad Copy
• One or two Keywords per Ad
• Try DKI or dynamic keyword insertion for your ads
• Create 2 ads for each Ad Group, always test your ad copy for the winner
• Use display URLs associated with the keywords

– Use persuasive action verbs, create an urgency with users

• Use terms like Buy Now, Buy Today, Download Now
• Sprinkle keywords into ad copy
• Use an exclamation point after CTAs
• Create as close to a full sentence as you can

Step #2

Create a Landing Page

– Create Landing Pages aligned with the intent of the Ad Copy

• Spend the most time on creating the right Headline
• Where possible, create a landing page for each keyword
• This might seem like too much work however, when you create a landing page for a specific keyword, your relevancy score is higher. In AdWords, higher the relevancy across all parts of a campaign, the higher the quality score (QS). If your quality score is 8-10, it tells Google that you have a highly optimized campaign and your average CPC, which helps your overall return on investment (ROI)
• Or create a landing page that is optimized for an ad group
• This page needs to appeal to the theme of each ad group
• Don’t over use the keywords in the landing page, use them organically
• Create copy that appeals to all personality types
• Embed videos that are relevant, create separate videos when possible for each product/service
• Avoid stock images, showing pictures of yourself or employees leads to higher conversions
• Use appropriate and customized CTAs

– Use a custom domain name for each landing associated with the PPC SEM account’s website

• Not doing so will mean that your Landing Page will be disapproved by Google AdWords
• The custom domain is not to be confused by the Ad’s display URL