Getting Clicks but No Customers? Where Your Marketing Funnel Could Be Going Wrong

Your advert is running. People are clicking. Visitors are arriving on your website, but the enquiries, bookings or sales aren't happening.

It's easy to assume that means the advertising isn't working or it's a bad advert. Sometimes that's true, but not always.

The problem could be happening after someone clicks your advert.

Getting someone onto your website is only one part of the journey. What happens next can make the difference between somebody becoming a customer and disappearing without taking any further action.

Here are five things worth checking before deciding that your advertising is the problem.

1. Does your advert match the page you're sending people to?

Imagine seeing an advert for a weekend break in a glamping pod. You click it and land on the homepage of a large holiday website containing cottages, touring pitches, camping, glamping and several other options.

Now you've got to find the offer that interested you in the first place. Some people will. Others won't bother, so you're already creating a big gap in potential.

The page somebody reaches after clicking your advert is known as a landing page. It doesn't necessarily need to be a specially created page, but it should make sense as the next step from the advert.

If you're advertising a particular service, offer or product, try to take people somewhere that continues that conversation without confusion.

Try this:

Open one of your adverts and click through as if you were a potential customer. Don't think about it a way that you know where everything is on your website. Do it as if it's the fit time you've visited.

Ask yourself:

Is what I am looking for immediately obvious when I arrive?

If you have to hunt for it, your customer probably does too, which just adds an unwanted objection in their mind.

2. Is it obvious what you want the visitor to do?

You've got somebody onto the right page, but what now?

Book Now.

Get a Quote.

Check Availability.

Call Us.

Send an Enquiry.

Buy Now.

Whatever the next step is, don't make people work it out for themselves.

A website can look excellent while still making it surprisingly difficult for someone to become a customer. Your main action shouldn't be buried at the bottom of a page or competing with several other things asking for attention.

Try this:

Look at the page on your phone, not just your computer. Within a few seconds of opening it, can you tell:

What's the offer?

Why should I be interested?

What should I do next?

If one of those answers isn't clear, that's something worth addressing.

3. Check what the experience is actually like on a mobile

This deserves its own check because businesses often work on their websites from a laptop. Customers don't necessarily do the same, in fact most people are probably scrolling Facebook and Instagram on their phone when they find your advert.

That means their first experience of your website could be on a relatively small screen. Check for things such as difficult navigation, tiny text, buttons that are hard to press, intrusive pop-ups, slow-loading images and forms that require far too much information.

Don't just check whether the website technically works or looks nice on mobile. Actually try to use it, in the same way a customer would. You could even ask your partner or a friend to do a real life check on it.

Try this:

Pick up your phone and complete the same journey you'd like a customer to complete.

If you want enquiries, submit an enquiry. If you take bookings, go through the booking process as far as you reasonably can. If you sell online, add something to the basket and proceed towards checkout.

Count how many steps it takes and notice anything that feels awkward or unnecessary. Every additional frustration gives somebody another opportunity to leave.

The more clicks that are needed, the more pages that are loaded, giving the customer more potential objection points and more oppportunity to step away.

4. Are you looking at the right numbers?

Suppose Campaign A generates 500 website visits for £100.

Campaign B generates only 250 visits for the same £100.

Campaign A looks like the obvious winner.

But what if Campaign A generates two enquiries and Campaign B generates twelve? Suddenly those cheap clicks don't look quite so impressive.

Measures such as reach, impressions, clicks and cost per click can all tell you useful things about an advertising campaign. But they don't tell you the whole story.

If the purpose of your advertising is to generate enquiries, bookings or sales, you need to look as far down the customer journey as possible.

Try this:

Take one of your current or recent advertising campaigns and write down:

Advertising spend → Clicks → Website visits → Enquiries / bookings / sales

You might not currently have every one of those numbers. That's useful information in itself because it shows you where your measurement could be improved.

The objective isn't simply to get the cheapest possible traffic. It's to generate valuable customer actions at a cost that makes sense for your business.

5. Could people simply need more time?

Not everybody who visits your website today is ready to buy today.

Consider how you behave when making a larger purchase or booking a holiday. You might discover a business on Facebook, look at their website, leave, mention it to somebody else, read its reviews, search for it on Google a few days later and finally make the purchase.

From the business's perspective, that first website visit might initially look like it achieved nothing. Whereas in reality, it was just the beginning of the customer's journey.

This is one reason businesses use things such as retargeting, email marketing and regular social media content to remain visible to people who have already shown an interest.

It doesn't mean you should chase somebody around the internet endlessly. It means recognising that not every buying decision happens during the first visit....or even the second or third visit sometimes.

The fortune, is in the follow up!

Try this:

Think about what happens to somebody who visits your website but isn't ready to buy.

Is that genuinely the end of your relationship with them?

Could they follow your social channels?

Could they join an email list because you're offering something useful?

Could advertising appropriately reach previous visitors again?

Giving potential customers another way to stay connected can be particularly valuable when the buying decision takes time.

Do a 10 minute customer journey check

Here's a simple exercise you can do now.

Choose one advert, social post or Google search result that currently sends people to your website. Then follow it yourself from beginning to end.

Check:

1. Did I arrive on the page I expected?

2. Is the next action immediately obvious?

3. Is the experience easy on my phone?

4. Can I measure whether people are taking the action I actually want?

5. What happens if I'm interested but not ready to buy today?

Like I said, you could also ask somebody who isn't involved in your business to try it, just don't tell them where to click.

Give them a simple task such as:

“Imagine you wanted to book this. Show me what you'd do.”

Then just watch.

You may discover things that are completely invisible to you because you already know how your website works.

Don't automatically blame the advert

Advertising absolutely can be the problem. The wrong audience, poor targeting, weak creative, an unsuitable offer or the wrong search terms can all result in clicks that never had much chance of becoming customers.

But if people are showing enough interest to click, it's worth investigating what happens next before simply switching the campaign off.

Think of your marketing as a journey:

Advert → Click → Website → Action → Customer

The numbers at the beginning matter. But ultimately, it's what happens at the other end that pays the bills.

To chat about how I can help, just book a FREE consultation call here or by using the contact form.