Convert More Paid Traffic—9 Strategies That Always Work (eCommerce)

While paid ads have proven successful in driving traffic to websites, leads from paid traffic tend to be a lot more hesitant when compared to other channels. This is because they might be skeptical about your brand, product, or even pricing. 

In this article, we’ll be sharing nine strategies you can implement in your next campaign. 

Here are 9 ways you can get more paid traffic to convert on your eCommerce store.

9 Paid Traffic eCommerce Strategies for Repeat Conversions

1. Align your ads with your landing pages

The typical bounce rate for landing pages is between 60-80% and that’s because 77% of these landing pages are homepages. 

Put simply, each landing page should uniquely reflect what a paid ad states in the Google search results. 

Here are a few things you’ll have to watch out for:

✅ How well the meta description and meta tag capture the landing page’s content

✅ How well the meta description captures the USP of your brand/ product & sets it apart

✅ How well the landing page delivers on the overall experience for visitors to convert

When we were looking for “athleisure on sale” to explore paid traffic eCommerce, we found (and felt excited about the deal): 

But when we went into the landing page, all we found was the following with no iteration of the flash sale or the discount that may be automatically applied:

What we’d have liked to see:

✅ Flash sale info in the first fold

✅ Any discount code that may be applicable 

✅ Any other ongoing offers in the 2nd or 3rd scroll to keep us on the site

Pro Tip: If your product ad is about a specific product, ensure the landing page is the product page—similarly, your discount ads need to be connected to pages where microcopy states the discount is auto-applied. 

2. Make paid copy target high user intent

Across the internet, you’ll find advice like “write killer headlines” or “talk about your USP” to guide how copy under eCommerce PPC management should flow. 

However, it’s not as simple and we’ve got three paid ad results from the same search term “best vegan lipstick in UK” to elaborate on:

For each, a different set of factors is working to convert—but look carefully and you’ll see the third result serves TG intent the best:

✅ It assures shoppers the brand’s products are “always vegan…”

✅ It talks more about the brand—and in effect is able to relay to users what they can expect on-site

✅ Microcopy drives confidence in the business’ authenticity as well as offers links that can be off assistance to people ready to buy

3. Offer “more” on the landing page than the ad

While alignment between paid ad and landing page is absolutely essential for paid traffic marketing success, enriching the latter with savings, quizzes or even urgency nudges could inspire more conversions. 

When we went looking for “ best portable cooking stoves in the US,” the following popped up:

So we were definitely prepared for a lot of variety when we got to the category page that was serving as the paid ad landing page. What we didn’t expect was:

✅ Social proof labels to drive confidence

✅ Great price slashes on some of their bestsellers

✅ Free shipping nudges applicable on several products

4.  On-site UX that delivers the brand promise

In your eCommerce PPC strategy, you’re likely to forget on-site UX to enable paid traffic conversions. 

But what the visitor is able to see and do to make sense of your brand, will decide if they’ll convert. 

When we looked for “handcrafted fine rings in the US” and came across Misahara’s landing page, we saw how many UX aspects this eCommerce jewelry brand had gotten right:

✅ Easy filtering and sorting methods (especially if your landing page is also a category page)

✅ Limited navigation links in the main menu (Misahara centralizes their “about us” and “stories” pages to create customer trust

✅ Live chat that answers several questions a first-time customer may have 

✅ A social wall for visitors who’d rather get into micro-conversions before converting

Other UX aspects that your eCommerce brand will need to convert paid traffic:

✅ Few distractions—this includes too many deals set up as categories

✅ Long-term benefits—highlighting membership rewards is a good way to go

✅ Review snapshot panel—even third-party review validation from names like TrustPilot works, having mentioned the total number of reviews your brand has received

You might also like: 26 Secrets to Running Successful Facebook Ads (For eCommerce Stores)

5. Prioritize UVP as much as USP

If you say “skincare made from the most natural ingredients, sourced only locally and authentically,” you’re leaving it at the USP—but if you say something like “naturally good skincare tested to give you maximum nourishment through the seasons,” you’ve moved a few notches up to the UVP. 

Highlighting the UVP in your eCommerce paid search begins with how your Google or Facebook ads read. 

The next step is to optimize the copy the visitors first see when they arrive on your site. 

When we went looking for “outdoor gear for dry cold in US,” we found Truma’s paid search listing clearly elaborate the UVP:

What’s better, when we reached their site, it reiterated the UVP to create greater assurance for us to scroll and explore:

You might like to read: eCommerce copywriting: 22 inspiring examples from the US

6. Get your retargeting strategy sorted

For your paid traffic marketing to work after visitors land up on your site, the ad they see should have been worthwhile. 

If you’ve been running a retargeting campaign, showing the same ad to the same visitors multiple times, it’s time to stop. 

According to research, if a paid eCommerce ad shows up more than 5 times, it becomes annoying and intrusive—more than 10 times, anger becomes the leading emotion. 

Here are a few aspects to remember while setting your retargeting ads in place:

✅ Show a repeat of products not more than thrice 

✅ If you’re retargeting them for cart abandonment, ensure you reach out with a limited time offer

✅ For top of the funnel visitors, keep your retargeting restricted to products similar to the ones they may have searched

✅ For more mature visitors, your retargeting ads can explore limited edition product drops and even exclusive bundling opportunities 

7. Offer more reasons to engage & micro-convert

Sure there’s a kind of pressure to deliver on your paid search optimization efforts, but don’t be in a tearing hurry to convert such traffic. 

This can mislead you to focus on offering only great deals on your website—instead pay attention to what you’re showing them to convert in smaller steps:

✅ How you help them sign up on your email list—the quality of pop-up content will matter a lot

✅ How you help them arrive at a great product or deal—show funnel quizzes that can narrow down their search

✅ How you help them discover all the different ways your brand & products can make a difference—a blog / resources section that builds awareness and deepens understanding can be great

✅ How you help them know how to leverage long-term benefits—a separate website section or page on loyalty programs could set them on the conversion path

8. Collab with influencers in your category

There’s a good reason why 72% of marketers used Instagram for influencer marketing in 2022—and seeing the results, 17% invested in this form of paid promotion in 2023. 

A great example of this is how Caruselle created a partnership between influencers and Radha beauty products. After running traffic-optimized social ads, they were able to exceed their traffic and conversion goals by 15%.

On the other hand, eCommerce brand Mejuri ensures they showcase both major and more micro influencers on Instagram, making their posts shoppable—here’s an example of the singer Reneé Rapp wearing Mejuri products as part of a paid collaboration: 

Here are a few things to remember while trying to convert paid traffic through influencers:

✅ Create relevant #hashtags for wider reach—you can even use these in your social media ads and meta tags to improve recall

✅ Create a separate category page for this influencer on your site—showcase products across price points here

✅ Experiment with “account takeovers” to drive more of the said influencer’s traffic to your site

Don't forget to check out: Influencer Marketing 101: Step-by-Step Strategy For eCommerce Store Owners

9. Make it super easy to move towards checkout

For your eCommerce PPC strategy to fly, it’s important that your paid visitors find least friction on their journey. 

Create a checkout flow that features the following capabilities:

✅ Make it easy to add products across the site—feature “add to cart” buttons right from the homepage

✅ Show a product recommendations pop-up but also make sure there’s a CTA there for visitors to click

✅ Show a secondary CTA of a popular payment method on the product page, cart and checkout

✅  Promote trust badges where they’re easily visible—locking them away in the footer until checkout might be a bad idea

✅ Make forms super short and limited to name, email, phone number and shipping address 

People also ask:

‍1. What is healthy customer acquisition? 

As a general rule of thumb, most businesses use the customer acquisition cost as a yardstick against their CLTV.  

While the ideal ratio is 1:3, it varies by industry. For instance, the CAC for retail is $10 while it's $22 for Consumer industries. 

To determine what’s a sustainable CAC, you need to decide if it’s economical to spend more on acquiring new customers instead of focusing on your existing ones. 

Here’s an extra insight to help you gain some perspective about your eCommerce PPC management:

a. Channel Metrics 

You need to measure the ROI on your acquisition channels. Here’s a list of to-dos for you — 

• Find the profitability of your advertising channel vs affiliate ads 

• When it comes to sub-channel, which gives more returns. Is it Facebook or Google Ads? 
• Which fares better in terms of profitability: Google non-brand advertising vs brand advertising
• Are keyword bids giving rich dividends?

b. Segment Metrics 

Segment metrics are divided on the basis of size, geography, and product. Here are the key things to note:

• Who brings more profits: cart abandoners vs discount-only buyers?
• Which geography is profitable for instance, the USA vs Canada?
• Which product has more sales: Shoes vs Clothes 

Wrapping up, a healthy CAC can only be achieved with growth driven by customer happiness. A growth at all costs is detrimental to your business in the long run. 

You might also want to read: Maximize Your Canada Day eCommerce Sales: 15 Winning Marketing Ideas (+25 Email Subject Lines)

2. Is paid advertising worth it? 

In fact, 50% of users visiting an eCommerce site through a paid ad are more likely to buy as opposed to those who came via organic search. 

Gili Sports generated $2.8 million in revenue from Google Ads with a staggering 6x in ROAS. All this happened during the pandemic. 

79% of marketers opine that paid eCommerce ads are highly beneficial for their business with 62% of them planning to increase their PPC advertising budgets the next year. 

Search ads help increase brand awareness by up to 80%. 

Paid ads can help in product discovery, brand awareness, and new customer acquisition while you are focused on driving organic growth.

Remember, paid ads won’t work alone. A healthy mix of organic and paid ads can improve your paid search optimization efforts in the long run. 

3. What is paid advertising in eCommerce?

Here are the types of ad channels to explore 

a. Paid search traffic 

Paid search accounts for 28% of the search traffic. 63% of the users are 4x likely to click Google search ads compared to others. 

Pro Tip — Including your value proposition in your ad headlines can significantly improve your CTR

b. Social media ads 

Social media ads raked in a mammoth worldwide revenue of $153 billion in 2021 and are projected to reach $262 billion in 2026. 

Instagram ads are anticipated to gross 15.95 billion globally in 2022. 

You can do an Instagram story or do a sponsored post ad.

And its parent company Facebook is still the most used social media platform globally. With an MAU of 3 billion, it’s time eCommerce brands took notice and utilized the opportunity. 

Pro Tip — Including user-generated content in your social media ads sends greater trust signals

c. Native advertising 

If you want your ads to not look like one, native advertising is your best bet. It is considered the least invasive form of advertising. 

With the ability to stir an 18% increase in purchase intent, native advertising is a low hanging fruit. 

Talking about credibility, 68% of customers trust native ads over social media ads. 

 Pro Tip — Click to play video is the most preferred ad format. With 97% of customers confirming the same. 

d. Display advertising 

Display Ads have a gigantic reach with 210 million visitors seeing the ads served by the Google Display Network. 

What’s more interesting is that the display ads appear across 2 million websites and 6,50,000 apps. 

Pro Tip — Using animated images in your display ad banner can increase the CTR. 

e) Youtube video ads

The average conversion rate for Youtube is 14% while ads have a 1.4% conversion rate. 

With over 2 million monthly users, YouTube ads can help you strike gold. 

Pro Tip — Add in-stream and discovery ads in your campaign for increased conversions

f) Influencer advertising

Influencer advertising can help increase brand awareness in untapped markets with the help of influencers. 

While influencer marketing is normally associated with celebrities, not everyone can afford it. 

Micro-influencers and nano-influencers can help do a better job since there are higher trust signals since customers can relate to them. 

Pro Tip — The engagement rate and the audience of the influencers will greatly determine the ROI. So choose wisely. 

4. Why is paid traffic important for your virtual store?

The most important reasons why paid traffic can uplift your eCommerce store include:

✅ Getting higher quality traffic—paid traffic marketing ensures you’re able to target more high intent buyers or shoppers who’re closer to converting on your site

✅ Getting instant visibility—unlike organic search that requires your store to consistently work on SEO to reap rankings, paid search boosts visibility in the moment

✅ Getting real-time data on campaign performance—this is an important way to find out what kind of messaging is receiving clicks, what sort of offers are helping convert etc. 

5. What are the most common mistakes to avoid in paid traffic campaigns for eCommerce?

In working with over 500 businesses across the world, we’ve noticed the following to be the most common paid traffic eCommerce mistakes:

❌ Not differentiating your brand and products from that of competitors’—which means when Google shows up a number of sponsored paid search results, your ad won’t stand out

❌ Not optimizing messaging in the ad and the landing page—this can disorient visitors even if they’re high intent paid eCommerce traffic leading to browse abandonment

❌ Not creating the paid ad based on a very specific need—while this may go to a larger audience, the visitors who are likely to buy won’t find the right reasons to convert

6. Can paid traffic affect my site's SEO?

While paid traffic interactions don’t have a huge positive impact on SEO in your eCommerce store, it is a factor that Google accounts for. Site interaction that a paid ad generates is one of the 230+ factors that Google gives importance to in their ranking algorithms. 

Paid traffic can marginally help SEO if:

✅ The links in your ad are highly compelling to click

✅ The meta tags are highly optimized to draw attention to the brand & products

✅ The ad features helpful content that the visitors can engage with 

Recommended reading:

Convert Organic Traffic Into Customers: 16 Ideas for eCommerce Stores

Getting Traffic But No Sales? 21 Reasons Why (+ How To Solve)

31 Creative (Yet Economical) Ways To Drive Traffic To Your eCommerce Store

UX decides how well paid traffic converts

98% of visitors who visit an eCommerce site—drop off without buying anything.

Why: user experience issues that cause friction for visitors.

And this is the problem Convertcart solves.

We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversions.

How we can help you:

Our conversion experts can audit your site—identify UX issues, and suggest changes to improve conversions.