Ben Page is joined by Ray Sawvell to discuss the tradeoff between hitting CPA (cost per acquisition) goals versus hitting MQL (marketing-qualified lead) goals in PPC campaigns. They explain how optimizing for efficiency can cause businesses to miss out on revenue opportunities, limit testing, choke off funnel growth, and fail to factor in lead quality. Instead, they recommend having different conversions defined and optimizing different campaigns for various objectives to determine which conversion actions work best. They also stress the importance of understanding marketing-qualified close rates by conversion action in finding campaign types with higher close rates or allocating more budget to the best-performing campaigns.

They further define terms such as CPA and MQL, discuss the importance of data and technology in evolving PPC strategies beyond what can be seen in Google Ads, and touch on the tradeoff between volume and the stress put on internal teams while qualifying leads. Ray emphasized the importance of having a business intelligence dashboard that combines web analytics and CRM data to surface KPIs, as well as closed-loop tracking (including call tracking) to understand all the paths to conversion and avoid missing out on revenue opportunities. Ben stressed the need to optimize campaigns for the right conversion action (such as MQLs) to achieve business outcomes, balance growth with efficiency, and align incentives to achieve business goals.

Overall, Ben and Ray provide valuable insights for marketers looking to improve their PPC campaigns and make data-driven decisions to drive business growth. Don't miss out on valuable insights and practical advice for improving your PPC campaigns in this episode! Tune in to learn the importance of hitting MQL goals, optimizing for different conversion actions, and the role of data in decision-making. Plus, learn how to balance growth and efficiency and align incentives to achieve your business goals.

Episode Highlights

01:53 - The biggest thing that I tend to think of is you're optimizing for efficiency versus growth. So the numbers that the platforms give you might be lying. They may not be telling you the entire story. So a good example here is you could be leaving revenue on the table. So Google Ads might be giving you one number where you're getting a ton of conversions. Whether that's a form fill if you're a lead gen business or E-com. But obviously we're talking about legion. So you may be optimizing for just as many conversions as possible versus qualified ones. That's why you need some type of data connector like Salesforce or HubSpot to really understand down funnel, what those marketing qualified leads look like.

13:38 - I'm sure many listeners have ran Facebook lead ads, for example, and they're like, oh man, my agency or my team delivered so many junk Facebook lead ads because it's low quality or it's garbage and it’s like, well, how do you optimize better? And it's like a different conversation, but it falls directly in line with marketing qualified leads. Like are they qualified? Are they not? Where do you put the budget? And that's kind of like how is the buy happening? Like, where are you putting your dollars to work most efficiently for you?

21:14 - Yeah, I mean, depending on the vertical you're in, it's key that you measure your online and offline conversions. So if you're only looking at online, you're definitely missing a major piece of the pie. So really, looking at online and offline and understanding what percentage goes towards online and offline, it will help you a ton.

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Ray Sawvell

Blake John

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