Conversions/Revenue/Sales/Leads – Whose Responsibility Is It?

I read loads of great blogs across the PPC industry providing the latest news on new functionality and insights to help increase the performance of a PPC account. However I find it surprising there are few blogs that discuss post click optimization.

Whose responsibility is site conversion? The client, web developer, SEO agency, PPC agency? The client pays an agency to direct traffic to their website in order to achieve their business goals e.g. generate more business.

Once the visitor has been delivered to the most relevant page of the website it is the websites responsibility to satisfy the visitors need and channel them into taking the desired goal e.g. purchase, sign up etc.

An agency can gain monstrous CTR’s, 10/10 quality scores, record low CPC’s however these aren’t as important as conversions/goals, as clients will be measuring the success of their campaign by revenue, leads, inquiries etc.

The typical client will not continue to spend money with an online marketing agency based on gaining 25% CTR’s week in week out and delivering no conversions/goals. It is in the best interest of both parties measure the success of their campaigns by the clients receivables e.g. revenue, leads, inquiries etc;

Client – Happy because they are gaining more business.

Agency – Happy as client will stay & continue to spend money with the agency.

I’m in no way saying that optimizing PPC accounts for optimum CTR’s, quality scores, minimum CPC costs isn’t important – however this is only part of the strategy for achieving your clients’ desired goals.

Pay Per Click (PPC) & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

PPC and CRO should work hand in hand across all client campaigns as it does here at Vertical Leap.

This involves providing consultancy based on the clients site good/bad to help them maximise ROI from the quality PPC traffic an agency is delivering to their site.

A decent amount of time should be spent optimizing for conversions/goals as well as quality scores, CPC’s etc.

Whilst not all online marketing agencies like Vertical Leap have the ability to produce content, landing pages, banners, I believe it is still the agencies responsibility to be recommending on-site updates to help increase conversion rates to maximize ROI from the PPC traffic being delivered.

(Please note that not all client goals are as simple as increasing revenue, inquiries, leads, downloads etc. Brand awareness is a big goal for a lot of larger clients who are happy to spend a lot of money to get their brand to their target audience at whatever cost. Other clients will also look at the lifetime value of acquiring a customer, therefore revenue, inquiries etc. will not be their primary focus for measuring the success of a campaign.)