The most important thing to do before starting any online advertising campaign is to first make a determination of what the goals are for conversion. Some examples of goals would be to convert a sale, convert a lead, convert a sign up or get the user to share the content or link with his or her friends. All of this can be measured, even for phone calls.
Begin with Advertising
Conversion optimization starts with the advertisement or listing. A website owner needs to ask himself or herself if the ad draws the right type of attention. Is it attracting the right person to the ad? When the person reads the ad are they compelled to click the ad? Finally, does the ad give the user exactly what they expected when they clicked the ad? There needs to be a perfect marriage between the advertisement and the landing page.
Landing Pages
A landing page is the page that the ad takes the customer to when the customer clicks the ad. If the ad tells the customer that the website sells blue widgets, then the link from the ad needs to take the customer to the exact page where they can buy blue widgets. If, instead, the link takes the customer to a page that lists all of the available widgets the conversion optimization rate will be considerably lower.
The reason the conversion rate will be lower is that the customer will click the ad and then have to browse through all of the available widgets in order to find the blue widget. The blue widget might be listed halfway down the page. This is a complete turnoff to most customers because when they click a link to buy blue widgets they expect to be taken to a page where they can buy those blue widgets.
Of course, this is an over-simplified example but the idea is the same when applied to real life. Sometimes a simple word change or two is all that is needed to convert a casual browser into a buyer. In online advertising speak this is referred to as the customer’s user experience. If they saw a compelling ad and clicked on the ad and got exactly what they wanted, then they will most certainly have a better user experience.
