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Getting clicks on your ad can be exciting, but a savvy marketer knows that a click isn’t too impressive on its own – it’s conversions that really count. That said, it is a necessary stepping stone: the moment a customer enters or moves along the sales funnel. A click is a good thing because it represents a consumer willing to take action… or at least it can. Some are better than others, and if you want to get conversions, you need to make sure you’re getting the right kind of clicks.
The Wrong Clicks Can Hurt Your Business
We live in a world where the average person sees over 4,000 advertisements every day. Ad impressions don’t mean as much as they used to and the attention has turned to clicks, giving rise to clickbait and other deceptive or borderline fraudulent tactics. Some may brag about a low cost-per-click, but cheap clicks like these can quickly drain your budget if they’re not ultimately leading to conversions:
Accidental Clicks on Pop-up Ads
It’s frustrating for a customer to click on something they didn’t mean to, and even more so when it feels like they were tricked into it. A massive rich-media image that interrupts their content and flings them onto a landing page they weren’t asking for; it’s not exactly a healthy engagement.
More often than not, consumers are left disgusted with any brand or imagery the experience provided. Be wary of tantalizing stats telling you that “pop-ups get 6x the clicks as banner ads.” Yeah, you got your “engagement”, but likely at the cost of a future conversion.
“Fat Finger” Clicks On In-app Ads
In-app ads are tricky, since space is already at a premium on a mobile device screen. The user naturally wants to remove whatever is blocking their content, but miss the tiny “X” symbol by a few pixels. This is a “fat finger” click, and largely results in the same outcome as pop-up ads. Giving the user a clear – if hard to accurately hit – exit doesn’t stop them from resenting the experience.
Children Clicking On In-Game Ads
An extension of the previous section, specifically putting ads into games geared toward children can get cutesy and deceptive really quick. Well over half the children in the world used their parent’s device to play games in 2021, and colorful, misleading advertisements for other games or services are frighteningly common.
Clint Ethington, CEO of Genius Monkey, said “These clicks are so bad because children click on them all the time. Apart from getting children involved with something they might not understand, it’s useless engagement that doesn’t help anyone get closer to conversion.”
Ethington went on to say that “this is the reason Genius Monkey largely avoids advertising in-app unless the particular client’s needs call for it. A lot of self-serve platforms and agencies will push in-app ads for their low CPC… but with that you’re going to get a bunch of junk clicks.”
Disguising Links As Navigation Buttons
However tempting it may be, don’t do this. Not only are you getting cheap engagement, but you’re bumping up to the line on ethical and legal issues. Google and many others have policies against practices like this, and it’s a good way to get yourself sued for damages.
Advertising can be tough, and using tricks like these can seem like an easy way to get a much-needed boost in engagement. But this short-term gain/long-term loss is totally unnecessary; the programmatic experts at Genius Monkey have demonstrated that you can achieve high-quality engagement without resorting to shady tactics, and it starts with working toward the right clicks.
The Right Clicks for a Successful Campaign
The right practices will encourage people to engage not only with your ad, but with your landing page, your social media, and eventually convert. In essence, a good click is a purposeful action taken by a user ready to act on an impression, so it usually happens towards the middle or end of the funnel. Here are few tips for making your clicks count:
A Strong Paid Search Campaign
It doesn’t get much more end-of-funnel than this: when the customer is ready to convert, a good paid search campaign lets them easily find your website. This also works in the research phase as they read up on your services and compare you to your competitors. Either way, clicks from a search campaign have some of the highest conversion rates in digital marketing, and should form an important part of your marketing strategy.
Be Seen in More Places
Genius Monkey has found that it usually takes over 100 impressions to convert a single customer, so getting your ad seen as much as possible is a crucial step to a good click. It may take 20 impressions before they remember the name, 30 before they get the logo, and another 75 for the discount you’re offering to stick – all before they even think about clicking in. That is why smart placement will always be more important than cheap click tactics; instead of frustrating the user, placing your ads wisely will slowly build trust over time.
Expanding into more channels lets those impressions happen more frequently and in different areas of your customer’s life. Social media, radio, podcasts, streaming services, web browser, YouTube ads; all spots for a future customer to learn what you offer a little more, leading to quicker conversion when they take that step and click on your name.
Narrow Down Your Target Audience
The promise of programmatic advertising is serving your ads directly to your target audience, and modern programmatic tools can narrow that audience down dramatically.
Want to reach females in Arizona under 28 years old? You got it. Who have expressed interest in going to college? Easy. Favorite color is blue, comes from a big family, played tennis in high school and is trying to eat less fast food? Done.
Running campaigns THAT narrow isn’t always going to be beneficial, but that degree of flexibility can help you find your audience no matter how niche.
How You Can Get the Best Clicks
The modern reality is that people largely don’t click on ads; our data suggests that it happens less than 1% of the time. It’s much easier to pad your stats with cheap clicks than to create a good plan with engaging content, but the quality of your clicks will always mean more than quantity in the long-term health of your business.
- Avoid tactics designed to trick users into clicking accidently
- Target audiences that may actually turn into a conversion
- Get your ads on as many channels as possible to increase healthy impressions
Genius Monkey has been in the business of making clicks as valuable as possible since 2009. Contact us today to see how our programmatic solutions can evolve your marketing!
