The New Click? Quality not Quantity.
The click and the click metric have certainly changed both for marketers and for platforms like Google and LinkedIn. In the past, we would build campaigns that placed a similar value on both a click and a conversion. The discussion typically revolved around volume with the assumption that getting lots of clicks equated to an effective campaign. The optics on the numbers needed to be high or success would be in question.
What's changed?
Over the past couple of years , these platforms have refined their ability to allow us to understand demographics, segment and refine exactly who sees and subsequently clicks our content. We need to change our metric and KPI measurements to reflect the understanding that clicks may be lower, but this is a good thing as potential conversions should be higher!
Click Focus
Facebook set the benchmark for targeting and allowing for marketers to choose interests, behaviour etc., allowing companies to access the right customers and the right clicks. LinkedIn is now doing this for B2B, providing the opportunity to choose specific audiences – ranging from individual companies, job function and title to a wide range of other demographic data collected on the network to really drill into that exact match. If you are aligning your potential clicks so directly with the correct customer, your advertising numbers will be lower, but much more valuable.
Click Cost
Facebook has spoiled us; we have run successful campaigns targeting very specific audiences with $1.00 clicks. The prices have since come up slightly, but if the product or service is right for Facebook and Instagram you need to be advertising here. The click will be cheap, focused and seen by thousands.
LinkedIn has certainly forced us to rethink the price you pay for a click with our campaigns running anywhere from $8 to $17 per click depending on the depth of targeting and industry. But once you understand that this should already be warm, or qualified lead then that costs seems reasonable.
The bidding landscape for clicks has always been competitive on Google pushing the cost up. But with enhanced demographic targeting and tonnes of data on each of us, Google can certainly focus that ad on the right individual and get enable you to get your money’s worth in exchange for a successful conversion.
Websites and Conversion
As you may have guessed, sending the right customers directly to you puts a bunch of pressure on your website to convert - which I think is a good thing. Instead of just shotgun firing people at your site and hoping someone sticks, optimizing the user journey to increase conversions requires thought on the user experience, possible content personalization and tailored messaging per audience segment.
So, What Does It Mean?
The cost per click on your ads may tend to be more expensive than you’re used to - but the return on investment could be greater if you are reaching the right audience on the platform they are most active. Seeing click costs increase while knowing more and more about those who can potentially convert, and continuously refining as campaigns roll should tell marketers to tailor their metrics and KPIs to reflect this new reality. And clients will need to get back to conversions as the measure of success.