How A High AOV Impacts Google Ads

AOV + GOOGLE ADS

Running Google ads is simply a whirlwind of click here, add this, post there. I mean, store owners are always looking for that next big thing and must-try strategies for how to increase your reach and revenue. 

But how often do you actually see results from all the effort you put out?

By this point in time, most eCommerce businesses understand that Google ads is an integral part of consistent success for their brand. And most consumers live digitally and spend money on products and services that they see when searching on Google.

As a result, these e-commerce businesses spend money and time on campaign after campaign because they “have to” without fully understanding how to optimize the campaign or other digital resources to their full potential. 

If a multitude of eCommerce brands continue to operate in this way with little or no results, what is the answer? 

The reality is, there’s an easier and less expensive way to reach and engage with your potential audience.

To get more sales. To convert more users.

While running Google ads campaigns the right way can result in a lot of success, they can’t work miracles alone unfortunately. Data analysis and other key elements of your sales funnel are crucial counterparts needed to make paid media work to the best of their ability. 

If you can understand your audience and their behaviors, you can make optimal decisions that increase all metrics ranging from clicks to CTR to conversion rates to revenue. 

How to Make the Most of Your Google Ads Campaigns

The big picture, which is realized less often than not, is that Google Ads works well when other aspects of your eCom business are thought out and working in conjunction with the ads.

Components like your website, product images, keywords, and the product itself all work together to enhance campaign optimization and effectiveness. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars creating twenty campaigns. 

In fact, based on my own experience of spending over $1M just testing things out, I’ve seen a lower number of campaigns provide better results.

But only when all external factors are working together does this happen.

When a potential customer finds their way to the website, they often see poor image quality and an unacceptable layout. 

Not only does this behavior decrease Google rankings, but it also detracts consumers from seeing credibility with the brand and continuing to engage with other products and resources on the website. 

From this example, we can see that there are many layers to optimizing your website that lead to optimizing your Google ads strategy. Here are the top six elements you must incorporate into your digital marketing to increase campaign reach and overall profits.

Images 

Images are more than just a visual aid. A good image can entice and improve Google rankings. The image you use for your Google Ad is the first contact potential leads have with your brand. A good ad image has the power to increase not only metrics like click rates but orders as well. 

What are the qualifications for a good product image? 

Standard practice dictates that a quality product image should be clear, convey its use, and, if possible, represent a real person or person associated with the brand. 

Why are these elements important? 

When a shopping ad image displays a real person or the product being used, it adds a layer of authenticity. There are tons of online retailers that sell the same products and services. 

What makes you different? 

Based on my experience, it’s simply the value you add to the consumer. 

The same can be said for images. When potential customers see a genuine interaction with the product or service and how you, as the seller, incorporate it into your life, it creates value and often ends in successful conversions.

But don’t just always assume that the image with a person using the product or a ‘lifestyle’ image will do the trick. You always want to stand out of the crowd.

How do you know your images will positively impact Google Ads?

Having a great image is the first step. The next step is to determine what its impact will be.

When it comes to Google ads, the more users that engage with your product on shopping ads, the more the product is served to people of similar behaviors and beyond. 

Likewise, when users don’t engage with your products or, worse, they report your product images, Google lessens your ad viewership. And the worst-case scenario would be that Google stops serving your products altogether, completely minimizing revenue.

All this makes it essential that you focus on the quality score of your campaigns. And this brings us to the next factors of quality score.

Website Credibility 

Images and SEO keywords aren’t the only components of optimal optimization and ranking of your products. Superior website quality filled with relevant, high-intent SEO keywords is another critical factor. 

What is a credible website? 

A credible website, in its simplest terms, is a high quality website with all the essential parts. 

Quality websites have specific characteristics attributed to current and acceptable designs and trends. Right now, current web design trends are:

• Optimal white space
• Interactive fonts and animation 
• Trust inducing factors (badges, chat icons, etc.)
• Colors 

How does a credible website affect your Google Ads?

Believe it or not, having a credible website makes a BIG impact on your performance with Google Ads.

Along with the algorithm itself, the consumers are taking a mental note of how your website is layed out. Whether it follows general guidelines. If they can actually trust you.

Have the wrong elements and your potential customer will leave to shop somewhere else. As a result, your ‘avg session time’ metric will be impacted, causing the quality score to plunge.

This devastating effect will ripple through your campaigns as well. If consumers click back to a site with poor quality and content, they will leave. As a result, your orders and revenue will suffer. 

Google also self-checks landing pages and websites. If Google deems a website unauthentic, low quality, or potentially harmful, you can pretty much kiss optimized and successful Google Ads campaigns goodbye. 

SEO Keywords

Of course, you can’t speak about optimization and Google Ads without SEO keywords. Most people believe that SEO keywords are only essential for organic traffic and those who don’t care much about it shouldn’t bother with SEO.

What most people don’t realize is the right SEO keywords must be used to ensure the best campaign results. This translates into ad relevance. Ad relevance is utilizing not only researched keywords but keywords that fit the specifications of the product or service. 

Be intentional and precise when using SEO keywords. Here’s an example:

Wrong: 3D Printer

Right: small office laser 3D printer 

Why is the term ‘3D printer’ incorrect? 

Simply put, it’s way too broad. And this is going to result in broad search terms, which are essentially a money pit for products.

On the other hand, the term ‘small office laser 3D printer’ works on two levels.

First, it specifically pinpoints the 3D printer a potential customer might be searching for. This makes it easy for Google to serve your ad to the right person.

Second, it is properly search engine optimizied, making it not only professional, but also easily readable and understandable.

Relatable but not relevant SEO keywords may seem like a good idea, but broad keywords do not always equate to more reach and sales. This type of rationalization can be extremely damaging to businesses.  

If SEO keywords don’t match search terms and parameters, consumers won’t engage. As a result, your ad ranking and other factors will most likely decrease because you provide irrelevant information.

Lets take a look at everything we discussed earlier and connect the dots.

Quality Score 

The first three elements of optimization, which include images, websites, and SEO keywords, boil down to the three main determinants for your Google Ads quality score. These determinants are click-through rates, conversion rates, and ad relevance. 

The quality score is used to rate the effectiveness of the ads and how high or low the placements of the products will be. This number ranges on a scale of one to ten.

Why should you pay attention to your quality score?

Although Google doesn’t necessarily tell you what your quality score is exactly for shopping campaigns, its still an extremely important metric.

In fact, a high quality score conveys other major factors as well indirectly. 

Higher scores mean that one or all of the other elements, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, or ad relevance, are each operating well and at high levels. A lower or median score can let you know there’s still room for improvement. 

Google Search and Impression

As previously stated, factors of your quality score, like engagement rates and conversion rates or landing page quality, contribute a lot to the functionality of your Google Ads campaigns. 

When methods to increase click-through rates and conversion rates are put into place, an increase in clicks, searches, and impressions can occur by default. These increases often result in higher levels of traffic and typically turn into an increase in profits not only from the website but the ads. 

But lets move onto the major contributing factor of Google ads success; average order value.

Upsells and Downsells 

The final factors associated with optimization are upsells and downsells. We’re talking about these here because they’re the easiest ways to influence the average order values.

Upsells and downsells are opposite versions of pricing techniques. 

For those eCommerce store owners that don’t necessarily know what these are, upsells are when you offer another complementary item to a customer after purchase for them to also buy. 

On the other hand, a downsell is often presented when the customer declines the upsell. This product can be the same item as the upsell or a complementary one at a higher discount.

They have proven to increase overall revenue and profits by about 10% to 30%!

Why are upsells and downsells important?

Don’t get me wrong, everything I’ve been talking about so far holds a lot of value and importance.

But I personally believe that nothing exists without a strong AOV.

They’re the main driving force behind our decisions for the Google ads campaigns. For the overall results we get.

But why are they influencing our Google ads campaigns so much?

If you know the average amount an order needs to be, you know what KPIs you need to be aiming at.

Higher AOV numbers let you spend just a bit more money to get that customer through the door. It also often means your profits are higher.

With this, it’s almost crucial that you increase your AOV as that can directly ease the tension on your shoulders when it comes to getting revenue and profits.

Increase Your Revenue through High Average Order Values 

As mentioned, each factor plays a role in the success of Google Ads and the profitability of your business. However, effective pricing strategies like upselling have the largest impact on large order amounts that add increasingly to your revenue.

The beauty of pricing strategies like upselling and downselling are that the differing price points don’t have to occur simultaneously across all platforms. High-value orders only need a solid strategy to be successful as a general rule. 

One might ask, isn’t upselling a pricing strategy on its own? Upselling is a pricing strategy in its own right. However, an overall marketing pricing strategy and pricing platform are needed to execute the best results. 

Boosting Average Order Value

What is the secret to boosting average order value? In my experience, nothing beats post purchase upsells with AfterSell! 

A combination of personal value and convenience make the AfterSell post purchase upsell the magic sales technique any ecommerce business needs to supercharge AOV. 

The best part of this powerful sales technique is that it can be automated by building it into your customers’ checkout experience.

What is a post-purchase upsell?

Lets take a step back and understand exactly what a post purchase upsell really is.

As the name suggests, these are upsells presented after the customer has made a purchase. As soon as the customer completes their initial purchase, they are immediately presented with the opportunity to purchase a special offer with one click.

There are a variety of ways to approach creating these upsells. 

You can offer more of the same product at a discounted rate (buy a second razor), a purchase of a subscription (purchase monthly refills), or a cross-sell option (purchase this carrying case to compliment the laptop you just bought). 

These offers should add value to the customer’s initial order.

Why are post-purchase upsells better than pre-purchase upsells?

How many times have you been shopping online where you have been greeted with so many popups, discounts, and offers that it just feels like too much? 

This is a real problem and leads customers to abandoning their cart. With post purchase offers, you eliminate that risk as the purchase has already been made. 

Ultimately, you end up reducing friction in the buyer’s journey.

You allow the customer to do what they came to your site to do without interruption. You have an opportunity to learn about their needs and spending habits before you present the upsell. Since they’ve already entered their shipping and payment information making the additional purchase becomes as easy as possible for them. 

Things to think about when setting up AfterSell

There are a lot of products that can be presented as upsells post-purchase, but what makes the upsell appeal to your buyer?

As you work to build an AfterSell funnel you want to consider a few things. 

The goal of every offer is to increase revenue which only happens with a successful conversion. You know these offers have a high conversion rate, but in order to capitalize on that you want your funnel to be built on a few principles.

• Optimize for conversions
• Find actionable insights
• Customize your thank you page

Optimize for conversions

When creating your AfterSell offers, make sure to add both Upsells and Downsells. What happens if the customer declines the first upsell? 

Most eCommerce store owners would give up at this point however, with Aftersell, you can actually just show them a second offer they’ll love.

Plus, you can add countdown timers for urgency, customer reviews for social proof, and custom copy to convey the product’s benefits. 

The more you customize your AfterSell pages, the better your conversion rate.

Find actionable insights

You might be asking yourself, how do I know which product or offer will convert the best? The best way to know is to test, and with AfterSell you can do just that! Set up an A/B test to find your best performing offers.

Customize your thank you page

AfterSell also allows you to edit the thank you page (order confirmation page). Add reviews, FAQs, product recommendations, and other widgets to your thank you page to reduce buyer’s remorse, reduce customer support ticket volume, and start converting shoppers to lifetime customers.

Taking advantage of post-purchase upsells can boost your average order value by up to 18%. Applied at scale, that conversion rate can have huge implications on your revenue. 

Even if the customer purchases an offer at a lower price point, those sales add up. With a little bit of initial effort, your ecommerce store can start converting more for you on autopilot. 

Really… It’s the closest thing to actual magic! 

Do your eCommerce brand a favor and dive deep into the world of post purchase upsells and downsells – especially if you run Google ads.

They’ll end up changing the results your getting forever.

How To Move Forward From Here

At this point, not only do you know what things impact the success of your Google ads campaigns, but also how to improve all of the necessary factors.

It’s common to feel overwhelmed as there’s just so much that can be done and so much that can be improved.

But it’s important to take it one a time.

If you’d rather just have someone else do important things like scaling your Google ads campaigns for you and you’re doing over $30,000 per month or more in sales, contact us to see if we can possibly work together.

Not only will you get insight into where the leaks in your ads are, but we’ll also provide a FREE strategy report.

Lets scale together.