Use PPC To Improve Your Sales Team’s Close Rate

PPC advertising is an excellent source of sales leads in and of itself, but it has even more value for sales-driven companies: Data from PPC campaigns helps sales personnel identify the best closing tactics.

PPC Identifies Strong Offers

Three aspects of PPC explain why it can help improve your sales team’s close rate:

  1. Offers

  2. Testing

  3. Data

Offers. Most PPC ads include an offer, something to tempt the search engine user to click on the ad. The better the offer, the higher the click-through rate.

Testing. PPC campaigns continuously split test the offer (and other aspects of the campaign). If a better offer is found — that is, one that produces a higher click-through rate — it becomes the new standard until an even better offer is created.

Data. Whereas the effectiveness of sales offers within a sales department is often based on anecdotal evidence or sketchy data, PPC campaigns always produce accurate data — and a lot of it if the campaign is large enough. An ad that displays, say, 10,000 times and produces 25 click-throughs for offer “A” and 200 click-throughs for offer “B” provides meaningful perspective to sales reps searching for the right approach to wrap up the sale.

PPC offers will help your sales team solve perplexing issues about offers, such as:

  • Which is better, a percentage off list price or a set dollar amount off list price?
  • At what dollar amount does a discount start getting people’s attention?
  • At what percentage does a discount start getting people’s attention?
  • Which is better, an extended warranty or a discount on hourly service rates?
  • Which is better, a free “A” or free “B” with the initial order?

Wait — There’s More!


Insight on offers is obviously valuable to the sales team, but PPC may be able to help the sales close rate in other ways. For instance:

  • Effective PPC campaigns incorporate a customized landing page that search engine users land on after they click on the ad. The landing page explains the offer and essentially delivers a sales pitch to the user. Landing page elements are rigorously tested during a campaign to identify the right messaging (and other factors). Data from landing page tests tells the sales team what to say, what not to say, and how to say it.

  • PPC campaigns and campaign data can be segmented geographically. Thus, a PPC campaign may be able to tell the sales team which offer works well, say, in the Midwest and which works well on the West Coast.

Communicate Results

Whether you’re running a PPC campaign now or are contemplating one to help your sales team as described here, it’s obviously important to communicate internally. Companies sometimes make the mistake of operating in silos, with the PPC campaign manager and sales manager unaware of what the other is doing.

Just as PPC data helps the sales department, sales department data helps the PPC campaign. For instance:

  • Perhaps a sales rep discovers an unusual and highly effective offer — does the PPC campaign know about it?

  • Perhaps sales leads generated by PPC offer “A” never pan out — does the PPC campaign manager know about it?

Sharing market intelligence internally always improves lead generation. Looking for ways to leverage PPC in your organization? Contact us now to discuss options.

Ready to Make Every Click Count?