On the surface, your usual Pay-Per-Click marketing is running out of steam. The entire market is getting saturated, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to make a PPC campaign profitable.
Ad campaigns and their management are being outsourced to multiple agencies, promises of exponential increase in revenue are being made to the clients, and business owners are investing more and more, yet getting consistent results continues to be a problem.
However, the question beckons that despite high CPAs and rising Ad Costs, small to midsize businesses (SMBs) continue to spend $9,000-$10,000 a month on PPC campaigns, believing that makeshift ninja ad hacks will make them profitable.
But the answer lies in Landing Pages or, rather, adequately optimized Landing Pages that allow business owners to gain more control over what they are selling while simultaneously cutting down on costs. They allow you the freedom to alter your communication to suit the best interests of your end-user.
Landing pages are the unsung heroes of any successful PPC campaign. They are like your point guards in basketball, guiding visitors, facilitating conversions, and orchestrating the flow of the web traffic to ensure that your campaigns win every time by turning prospects into customers.
According to Omnisend, Landing Pages make up only 5.1% of the signup forms, yet they boast the highest conversion rate among all the signup forms-be it, pop-ups, signup boxes, etc.
Landing pages serve as the bridge between your ad and the conversion action– be it a purchase, lead generation, or signup. To illustrate their understated significance, let’s dive in a little deeper:
Why Landing Pages Are a Must for PPC Campaigns
Landing pages are all about turning prospective leads into definitive customers for your business. Once your leads have been informed about your business through emails, social channels, and landing pages will do the job of making them more comfortable with your business and facilitating conversion. Landing Pages feature in the middle of your marketing funnel.
And because they act as the proverbial point guard, the anchors dictating the success of your PPC campaigns, here’s why they are of utmost importance:
- Enhanced User Experience: Beyond ensuring visitors find what they were promised, landing pages contribute to a seamless user journey. They provide a focused and coherent message, reducing confusion and frustration. However, things can easily go down south when it comes to user experience. A mere one-second delay in load time can decrease conversions by 7%, thus denying the promised customer-first experience.
- Improved Ad Relevance: Landing pages play a critical role in maintaining ad relevance. When your landing page closely aligns with your ad’s message and keywords, it can lead to higher Quality Scores, lowering your advertising costs. It also implies that your landing page should have human relevance as well as connection. Chartmogul’s analysis of 40+ SaaS landing pages is a case in point, with 44% of SaaS landing pages that feature images of people converting higher than the rest.
- Adaptation to Ad Variations: A well-structured PPC campaign often includes multiple ad variations. Landing pages can be tailored to match these variations, creating a more personalized experience for different audience segments. Get this: personalized CTAs convert leads into customers by a staggering 202% better than a normal CTA.
- Mobile Optimization: With the growing use of mobile devices, optimizing landing pages for mobile responsiveness is crucial. A study by Nifty Marketing says that 86% of the top landing pages are mobile-friendly. A responsive design ensures that users on smartphones and tablets have a positive experience, potentially increasing conversions from mobile traffic.
- Message Consistency: Consistency between your ad and landing page is paramount. The landing page should echo the ad’s message, ensuring visitors feel reassured that they’re in the right place. Keeping this in mind, Copyblogger posits that 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, and only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.
The Landing Page Building Reference Sheet
However, a mindful glance at some of the exemplary Landing Pages and why replicating their style could be the game-changing moment for your PPC campaigns as well as for your upcoming business prospects.
Let’s have a look at some of them:
- Compelling Headline: In the digital landscape, where attention spans are fleeting, your headline is the first point of contact with visitors. It’s the digital equivalent of a firm handshake or an enticing storefront. And the headline on the landing page of The Ridge’s website, a producer of minimalist wallets, accomplishes just that. It grabs the user’s attention from the first minute and then, later on, breaks that headline down and deconstructs its premise. Perfect Hook.
- Engaging Visuals: Engaging visuals break up the text and make the page more visually appealing and less overwhelming. Well-placed visuals can guide visitors’ eyes to key sections of the landing page, such as the headline, call to action (CTA), and key benefits. Just look at Get Response, an email marketing platform that allows you to grow your list and automate communication. Get Response features a load of friendly faces on their landing page, which helps to build an instant emotional connection with customers.
- Minimalist Design: By eliminating distractions and focusing on essential elements, minimalist design enhances user experience, ensures clarity and readability, and speeds up page loading. This design approach directs visitors’ attention to critical components such as the headline and call to action, making it easier for them to understand and engage with your message. Slack’s landing page executes minimalist design to perfection. The page design is clean and uncluttered. It avoids distractions and focuses the visitor’s attention on the key message and the call to action (CTA).
- Benefits-Oriented Content: The driving force behind conversions. It succinctly highlights the tangible advantages that visitors will gain from engaging with your product or service. By clearly outlining these benefits, you answer the crucial question, “What’s in it for me?” Zoho’s landing page is a prime example of all-out gungho messaging. Despite being a little text-heavy, it doesn’t let users second-guess how their software is unique. In fact, it focuses on the benefits and draws comparison tables to show how it outdoes the rest. It clearly persuades them to try their software.
- Social Proof: A trust-building element that validates your product or service. It leverages the influence of others to assure potential customers that they’re making a wise choice. This can take the form of testimonials from satisfied clients, user reviews, ratings, or mentions of notable customers or partners. Meet ClickFunnels, or rather their landing page. Every element on the page is dedicated to showing how seamless it is to get going and what you can achieve with the software. There are a plethora of testimonials of big-name salespeople who have made serious cash with the software.
- Powerful CTAs: CTAs serve as clear, compelling instructions that prompt visitors to take the next step, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up, or downloading. A well-crafted CTA uses persuasive language, stands out visually, and creates a sense of urgency or benefit, encouraging visitors to engage and convert.Shopify Plus (example below) knows what they are doing when it goes about a landing page that boasts CTAs that are direct, clear, and actionable. They understand that enterprise customers rarely make a purchase straight away. Hence, Shopify Plus’ CTAs encourage the customers to do what is right and contact the sales team instead of booking a demo directly.
The lesson is clear: landing pages are the unsung heroes that ensure your PPC campaigns win every time by turning prospects into customers. And if you’re looking for detailed insights into how to make the best of your Landing Pages, check out our latest webinar, where we cover the ins and outs of building an ultimate Landing Page experience.
