SFMF PRO | I did everything right. My Google Display Ad is running; I should be getting results. How come I am not getting results ???

The Google Display Ad training is very detailed that there is nothing we do not cover.

So when there is a problem and you are not getting results; then something along the lines of what I taught you how to do is broken.

Now if everything "relating to campaign and website" are literally done perfectly with no issues and also assuming you did not miss a thing by accident; and you are still not getting results; then it can be because of outside factors that were overlooked. So it is never something new I am hiding from you.

It is always the same set of rules and things you need to look at and make sure they're all in alignment.

So here is a quick rundown of how you should look at things in the right order and then analyze:

First thing people see is your 

  • Display banner ad
  • Then landing page
  • Then if they optin;
  • They then start receiving your email followups.

If this is the hierarchy; then this makes it easy to take it one step at a time and realize where the problem is.

If you are getting lots of impressions but no clicks; then we cannot say it's the landing page's fault. Even though your landing page may not be good enough but we cannot assume that because no one clicked over to see it yet.

So we must first work on fixing the display ad itself.

If you are getting impressions and clicks to your landing page but no one is opting in; then it could be one of two things:

1. Your landing page is not good enough. Meaning your landing page is either not user friendly; or did not re-affirm/carry over the same message of that in the copy of your display banner ad.

2. OR maybe it could be that your display banner ad and your landing page are 100% aligned; but the keyword/audience/custom segment you are using that is getting you all that traffic is the problem. It could be that the keyword/audience/custom segment does not relate to your message. YES even if the keyword/audience/custom segment your are targeting is the same name as the company you are promoting as an affiliate. As this means nothing.

At this phase of anyone's business; is why most people fail here in any business because this is the part that requires ongoing testing till you get it right. Life draining; but worth it once you figure it out. And you will. This is where you need to hold the line.

Let's continue...

Now on to the next phase:

Lets say your keyword/audience/custom segment is good; your display banner ad is good; your landing page is good. So you are getting impressions, clicks, and lead conversions. However you are not making sales/commissions.

1. At this point the issue could be as simple as you are not getting enough conversions to justify the speed in which you want to start seeing results. Remember it is all about the numbers. And how much you spend on ads is irrelevant. It is about conversions at this point.

So if you are getting 1 lead a day; you cannot expect sales in 3 days. That is only 3 leads in your funnel and they barely received any email follow-ups from you so far. So this could be one issue where the speed in which you perceive an outcome is not justifiable by your current numbers. Which means more patience is needed.

2. OR; at this point it could be an issue with your email followups. Maybe they are not being received; maybe the campaign is not activated. Maybe the links in the followups are not pointing to your affiliate links properly; etc etc.

Constantly checking all these things and making sure they are in place will ensure you get results. There is nothing outside of that.

Whenever there are no results, and you may think you did all of the above; then think again. Because There is nothing outside of everything here that is not mentioned that could be the issue and I am not telling you about it.

Again; if no results; then something from the mentioned list of things above or even below as we continue; is broken.

Lastly; the one last piece to the puzzle:

This goes back to your display banner ad.

Your display banner ad could be great and the message/ad copy could be great. However people do not resonate with it for some reason. This part no one knows and no one can ever pinpoint exactly why unless it is super obvious.

Could be the headline of the banner ad; could be the the description part of the copy. Could be a spelling mistake that you overlooked. Yes I know it sounds silly; but these things matter.

This is why when I get my message in my banner ad "RIGHT ON" after countless attempts and trying countless banner ad copy variations, (usually bout 30-50 variations over time); once I get it right; I just leave it be and let it run and getting me results. Once I get it; I stop testing.

There comes a point where you just need to give it a rest and be happy with the results once they start coming in. Playing with your campaign in a any way all the time once you get it working; is a very, very bad idea. Not even Google recommends it.

So this would be the last piece to the puzzle. But I recommend you do not go this far until everything above we talked about is aligned first.

When all that is set and done; metrics wise; a good banner ad to shoot for is an ad that gets anywhere above or close to 1% click through rate (CTR). And this is data driven. So when measuring, it must be at least over a period of 14 days if not longer.

Once there, you can then start fixing your landing page if needs fixing.

Here is another great article to read from Google about budget and optimization:

https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10546923?hl=en