OK, so you’ve got your PPC campaign all figured out. You’ve budgeted for each click you’re likely to get based on keyword search volume, and you’re comfortable using this targeted advertising approach. Now here’s one more thing to consider. What landing page have you selected for your PPC ads? If the landing page doesn’t match the ad, your chances of a conversion plummet.
Here’s an example of a website that’s doing it right, http://www.teamlogo.com. I recently searched for “directors chair” you know, the wooden folding chairs with canvas seats and back. The number one sponsored link was for an ad touting “folding chairs in a bag”. While a director’s chair does fold, it’s not normally found in a bag. Sure enough, one look at their website told me they were selling camping chairs. Close, but no sale. I moved on to TeamLogo. Yes! Their ad took me right to the part of their site selling director’s chairs, just what I wanted.
TeamLogo’s site is large. If their ad had linked me to their home page instead, I would have been ticked off and might not have searched for directors chairs. So TeamLogo is drawing people right where they want them, and not making them work twice.
Back to the ads. Number three is for Sears, and took me to their patio furniture. Again, not what I want. Number four is for JC Penneys, and also links to their patio furniture department. Three of the next four ads were for outdoor chairs, and the ad for “folding chair” was for the uncomfortable metal kind you sit on at graduations. Not even close. StacksAndStacks.com bids on “directors chair”, but they don’t have any. TeamLogo wins!
In an unrelated search, I was surfing for information about natural flea control. I sought information about “pyrethrins”, a class of toxic organic compounds with insecticidal properties. Well, http://www.cedarcide.com bids on the term. From the looks of the ad, this company has information about pyrethrins on their website. However, if you click on the ad, you go to their home page and it’s nowhere to be found. So they’re drawing people to their site, right? Not really. A visitor to their site expecting to see information about pyrethrins would be disappointed, and most likely click the back button. Had they pointed the visitor to their article, which I found by making a game out of it and searching their site map, the visitor could read what they said, and if they liked the article maybe buy some of their products.
This is an Aesop’s fable with a moral. Make it easy for visitors to find what they want. Landing them directly onto your home page and making them search again is not the way to maximize conversions.
Posted on August 20th, 2007 by Vanessa
Filed under: Marketing and Promotion
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