I am now spending a good bit of money each day on AdWords. We sell high dollar items and are doing well, but my bounce rate is around 43%. I have done lots of A/B testing and have stuck with the one that has consistently made me the most money. Even though I am making money, that darn bounce rate is so high. I know if I could get it down sales would improve even more, but I am afraid to make changes to the campaign, as it is doing great saleswise. Should I ignore it?
Well, people have to leave your site eventually. I assume your bounce rate is 43% on your landing page. That's not so bad. But if you want them to stick around, give them a good reason to. That's where content comes in.
43% bounce rate really isn't that bad. If you want to improve you really have to evaluate your keywords and think "if I was searching this keyword and landed on this page, would it solve my problem?". If you are providing a solution to the persons problem you should be doing fine. You also should make sure everything is functional on your site and nothing frustrates the visitor enough to leave.
Think from your visitor's point of view. Does your landing page give them what your Ad promised? If it doesn't then that will be one reason. Is there too much text on the landing page, so people are leaving as they can't be bothered to read it all? Is it user friendly, or are half the people leaving because their browser doesn't support your website? You are making sales, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be testing. You test what's currently getting you sales, against something new.
Look at the site as well as your campaign for bettering bounce rate. 43% isnt a disaster. Do people have a reason to look at more than 1 page on your site i.e. if your landing page has all the info they need and they dont need to look elsewhere on your site then you will have a high bounce rate but then thats ok. If people need to go through a few pages to get to the buying/enquiry stage and your landing page has a high bounce rate THEN id be concerned.