Conversion “Path” Optimization: A Key to Pay Per Click Performance Improvement
By Sage Peterson
November 2004
In a previous column, we talked about how pay per click advertising and conversion enhancement are necessarily related. Your ability to bid in search advertising auctions in Google AdWords and Overture is directly related to your Web site’s conversion rate.
Which brings us to “landing page optimization.”
Landing page optimization is the practice of sending clicks from paid search advertisements to a customized page. This customized landing page is designed to answer the call-to-action posed in the pay per click ad. Over time, the marketer constantly improves that page to increase its conversion rate to drive the campaign’s ROI.
Landing page optimization is not unique to pay per click advertising. Email marketers, and even banner advertisers, know the value in a landing page that is carefully crafted to speak to its target audience. The more specific the page is to the audience and to the offer that produced the click, the more likely that visitor will convert. Right?
Yes, but only in the case of:
low consideration purchases or conversions – products or services that are inexpensive or that are already well known to prospective customer
search click-throughs on keywords that indicate the prospective customer is late in the buying cycle and ready to purchase
However, what about products that are new, or that occupy new categories for which the customer doesn’t yet have a budget or is not yet comfortable with a particular approach to solving that problem? What about prospects who are technically qualified (right age, demographic and have a need as evidenced by their query), but they don’t yet understand what products or services are necessary to solve their problem? What about prospects who are familiar with the category, but not with you as a vendor?
Someone suffering from a terrible, persistent cough may have a home filled with mold or mildew – but their query “mold allergy” may deliver a highly qualified prospective customer who needs to learn a lot more before they buy or schedule a mold test and ultimately pay for mold remediation. Often, when these clicks don’t convert, the advertiser abandons them quickly – but is that the right strategy?
Some of these searchers need an education, not a landing page. They need some convincing, not an offer. However, most Web sites have a “buy it now” problem. They are designed almost entirely for that rare visitor who arrives ready to make a purchase.
Landing page optimization amplifies this problem by focusing even more on trying to push the visitor to a decision after their first click. Some searchers on some queries are interested, but not yet ready to buy. Because marketers are ill-prepared to speak to these prospective customers who are earlier in the buying cycle, or who are investigating high-consideration products, many advertisers cannot justify their investments in paid search.
The answer? Conversion “path” optimization, not conversion “page” optimization.
Design a landing path scenario for each of your audience segments can be an important strategy in PPC search advertising for high consideration products because it walks each audience member through a persuasive buying process that leads them closer to a conversion outcome. This is the best way to increase the conversion rate for customers who require additional education or persuasion
The first step in the conversion path optimization process is to re-define the “conversion event.” The conversion event may not be a purchase or transaction, and it may be that the conversion needs to be re-defined as:
a substantial interaction with the website (for some kinds of brands, e.g., pharmaceuticals) evidenced by the visitor viewing a series of pages in succession and ending at a page that provides information that could only have been digested if the visitor had read the other pages that preceded it.
a prospect identifying himself to the Web site by subscribing to a newsletter, downloading a white paper, or filling out a form.
Each of these conversion events can be categorized as lead generating events, in which these individuals can be expected to have a subsequent interaction with the brand in the future, followed by conversion. In the case of high-consideration products, few visitors are likely to buy on their first visit, nor will any single page persuade most to convert.
As you consider a “landing path” optimization, remember that your site likely has several audiences. Each path should address a different “persona (an archetype that describes the motivations and interests of an audience segment that you use to understand them).” You must also develop creative for your pay per click ads that speak to each persona and is correlated with keywords that reflect location in the buying cycle.
The higher the price of the product you sell, the less well known, or generally the more consideration required to purchase it, the more important it is to engage in a conversion enhancement-based search engine marketing strategy based on persona-driven pathways.
In general, no Web site visitor is more qualified than a searcher, but in some categories marketers must focus not on an instant conversion, but a landing path optimization strategy that leads prospective customers to their ultimate conversion with a more thoughtful, and steady approach.
