Lazy marketers not linking tailored landing pages to ads
When consumers click on your ads, where do you take them?
Do you direct them to your website's homepage or do you send them to tailored landing pages. A recent study suggests many marketers aren't linking ads to landing pages that will boost conversion.
CrownPeak's recent study, "Holiday PPC Ad Strategies" found that two-thirds (66%) of advertisers aren't making a connection between holiday search ads and the landing pages to which those ads direct consumers.
While around 13% of ads took consumers directly to an advertiser's home page, the remainder led to irrelevant product pages or landing pages that did not reference the ad copy, creative, product or offer/call to action.
"The goal of our study was to determine how smart holiday marketers are being with their online PPC spend, and the results were surprising," said Jim Howard, CEO of CrownPeak. "By driving traffic to irrelevant content or the company's home page, marketers are virtually guaranteeing that they aren't going to convert web visitors to buyers through online ads."
Linking ad campaigns to specific landing pages not only improves conversion rates but also allows more accurate measurement and analysis of response. For consumers, tailored landing pages provide a sense of consistency, relevance and convenience that will drive them further along the sales process.
"Tying campaigns to landing pages with a specific and relevant call to action can improve lift by up to 40% and - given how precious marketing dollars are these days - it's time that holiday marketers get more strategic with their budgets," said Howard.
Ways in which you can improve linked landing page performance include:
- Keep copy and creative across ads and linked landing pages consistent so consumers know they have "landed" in the right place.
- Reinforce the offer or call to action from the ad on the landing page.
- Keep important copy and call to action above the page fold.
- Don't make the landing page a dead end - include links to relevant areas of the website.
by Helen Leggatt
