Drive Successful Finance Acquisition Through Paid Search
Paid advertising has long been part of nearly every marketer’s strategy. It’s an excellent way to raise brand awareness and build trust while increasing digital traffic to your website. Using paid search campaigns, you can drive successful acquisitions while monitoring campaign performance and ROI.
In this article, we will:
- Briefly review what PPC is and includes.
- Explain why paid search is a vital outreach channel for finance customer acquisition.
- Note the legalities regarding financial businesses and PPC advertising.
If you intend to use PPC advertising to promote your financial business, then you must know how to use it effectively.
What is finance PPC?
In a nutshell, PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, means using the advertising services of engines like Google and Bing. These platforms allow businesses to bid on top positions on their search results pages, generating exposure and qualified leads to your website.
How PPC can help financial businesses with customer acquisition
Paid search can help financial businesses drive acquisition by targeting search intent while measuring ROI and managing ad spend. Here’s how:
Control your messaging and use keywords to target warm leads
Search advertising platforms are continually altering their algorithms to focus on intent. For what are consumers looking? Do they need information, or are they looking to act? These questions consider “search intent,” and it’s the most critical factor financial marketers need to consider when planning their paid search campaigns.
By understanding search intent, you’ll be able to adjust your messaging and targeted keywords to improve acquisition rates. Without refining your targeting accordingly, you may be wasting a significant amount of time and money.
It may be tempting to target as many keywords as possible to reach a broader audience. While this tactic may provide some results, it won’t drive successful acquisition. Typically, only 6% of keywords drive conversions, making the other 94% almost entirely useless. Keep in mind that every additional keyword also drives up your ad spend.
Instead of targeting a wide range of keywords and phrases, try to learn more about your potential clients and their searches. If you can understand their search intent and set up your paid search advertisements accordingly, you will have much greater success in driving acquisitions.
Setting budgets and ad spend to measure ROI and conversions
A significant benefit of using paid search is that it gives you great control over your ad spend and budget. Microsoft and Google Ads give you several ways to manage your spending, from setting limits at the campaign level to altering bids at the keyword level.
You also receive tools that help you measure your ROI, acquisitions and conversions. However, this is only effective if you have the proper tracking, keywords and limits in place. They are vital to creating and managing successful paid search campaigns.
A factor that may be having a significant impact on your budget are keywords. The correct keywords can boost ROI, while the incorrect ones can consume your ad budget.
As we mentioned above, only 6% of keywords drive conversions. The average click-through rate in the financial industry is 2.91%, and each of those acquired visitors cost an average of £2.47. Of that, only 5.10% converts. According to the global financial industry estimates, each conversion costs £58.93 on average.
Understanding these averages can help you get the most out of your advertising budget. Use the available tools to measure your ROI and see where you need to make improvements to continue driving acquisitions without wasting valuable money.
Trust and credibility
Building trust is more critical today than ever before. A staggering 81% of consumers will buy services and products based on trust, regardless of the market. However, establishing that relationship in the financial industry is no easy feat.
Consumers are very protective of their pennies, and they’re not likely to entrust their money to just anyone. Consequently, businesses in the finance industry need to invest additional time and effort to build brand awareness and trust through paid search.
Brand awareness can play a significant role in how potential clients view your business and services. If your ads are consistently at the top of the page, people will be more likely to recognize and, eventually, trust you. After all, if the search engines consider you trustworthy, perhaps customers might as well.
The legalities
While paid search ads can significantly benefit your businesses, it’s vital to understand how effective they will be. Consider how the rules and restrictions regarding the financial industry will impact your business.
As you might imagine, the ads policies for the financial industry are almost as regulated as financial services themselves. Both Microsoft (Bing) and Google have strict terms to ensure that any financial business remains compliant with local laws.
For example, Bing requires any financial advertiser in the United Kingdom to comply with the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) and the FSMA Financial Promotion Order. All businesses must also be authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), regardless of what kind of financial services they provide. Investment policies may be even stricter.
Google has similarly stringent policies, which even limit some financial industries from advertising entirely. The company doesn’t just evaluate your ads but also the landing pages you provide. If the page doesn’t comply with the rules, your ads will still be disapproved.
Ensure that your business is compliant, your team is familiar with provider policies and follow all the relevant rules.
Conclusion
There are many benefits to using paid search in your advertising strategy. However, it’s important to use the right messaging to drive customer acquisition, target the appropriate keywords, and build trust through continual advertising.
Ensure that you track your conversions so that you can accurately measure your ROI and control your budget. It’s also critical to understand Google and Bing’s ad policies so that you can ensure your finance business remains compliant.
