Optimization Tips: The Ad to Landing Page to Conversion Flow

Written by Zaki Hussain on June 20, 2015.

Original post available at visualpopmarketing.com/blog.

The Facebook Ad Entry Point

It's amazing how much you can learn about your marketing optimization needs by

evaluating another company's marketing campaign. Recently I was surfing my

Facebook news feed and came across an ad that caught my attention. It was the

third time I saw a Facebook Ad from SWASH, a 10-minute clothing care product.

I had ignored the previous two, but found the headline below intriguing and was

curious because of the high number of likes and comments. I clicked through to

learn more about their product and their marketing pitch.

3 Things SWASH did well with this Facebook Ad:

1. Good headline: "Oh you don't have one yet?" got me to click-through.

o Successful because it evokes a fear of missing out on something

(FOMO).

2. Good engagement: The number of likes and comments made me more

curious.

o It’s interesting than an ad can have negative comments, but someone

casually scrolling their Facebook feed may be impressed by the

number of comments without looking into the discussion. This is a

good example of “any news is good news”... which is not a saying you

want to live by unless you work in the world of celebrity gossip!

3. Consistent look and feel: The transition between the Facebook Ad and the

SWASH landing page, which in this case is their website homepage, felt

natural and consistent with what I was expecting to see.

6 quick tips for your Facebook Ads:

1. Create ads like this one from SWASH that allow for people to ‘Like’ your

brand on Facebook, even if they don’t click-through the ad.

2. Test various versions of your ads to see what generates the greatest

engagement and best Cost Per Click (CPC). Items to test:

o Headline. Successful headlines evoke curiosity, intrigue, urgency, or

fear of missing out on something.

o Image. Show your product. Show someone using your product.

Visually highlight a problem or solution your target audience has.

o Tagline. Test various copy under the image. Taglines should

complement your headlines.

Pro Tip #1: Make a small change on each ad version you’re

testing. If you have better results on one version but made

multiple changes, you aren't able to attribute the reason for an

increase in click-throughs with certainty. This may mean you

have many versions of your ad, but you’ll soon find your

winners and run with those.

Pro Tip #2: Your Facebook Ad and landing page copy and

imagery should be similar for a consistent user experience. If

you surprise your users with messaging they aren’t expecting,

you can expect a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rate.

3. Set your ad frequency to allow your target audience to see your ad multiple

times. You may find higher click-throughs after the first impression because

people take time to respond and need to be reminded. 49% of all website

buyers make their purchase between their 2nd and 4th visit (AdRoll).

4. If you’re marketing a high-priced product, you’ll want to segment your

campaigns based on location, income demographics, and more advanced

filtering.

5. If you’re marketing multiple products, the Facebook multi-product ad has

been yielding some great results for businesses.

6. Use Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes to track your Facebook Ad

traffic in Google Analytics. Give each ad a unique UTM code so you can

track unique ad performance. Use Google's URL Builder for help creating

UTM codes.

Website Optimization: Don’t Overlook the Details

The SWASH Facebook Ad brought me to their homepage, and the URL contained

a dedicated UTM code. The website layout and design have some good elements,

but a close look at their site reveals some areas of friction. SWASH is also losing

out on a lot of leads and sales.

Is your company’s website a victim of any of these areas?

Using UTM codes on the website. The Watch Now button linked to a video and

the URL contained a UTM code. Avoid using UTM codes on your website because

every time a UTM code is clicked, Google Analytics treats it as a new website

session instead of the continuation of a session. The purpose of UTM codes is to

track how visitors get to your website, not to track activity within your website. So

how can you track activity within your website?

Here’s your solution: Use Google Analytics instead of UTM codes on your website

to track page paths. There are multiple ways to do this:

In Audience > Users Flow

In Behavior > Behavior Flow

In Behavior > Site Content > All Pages, select a webpage of your website

and click Navigation Summary. Scroll down and you’ll see previous and

next page paths. This shows you which page visitors came from and where

they went next.

Pro Tip: Segment your audience view in Google Analytics to learn what your

website visitors from various marketing channels are doing on your website, what

pages they’re looking at, what they buy, and even compare audience segments.

Slice and dice your data in many ways.

Hidden call-to-action (CTA) buttons kill conversion rates. Conversions are

desired goals for your visitors: click-throughs, form submissions, and purchases.

The SWASH website was designed to encourage visitors to use the numbered

scrolling. However, the CTA buttons are not shown when using the numbered

scrolling:

They are only shown when manually scrolling the website:

With this one issue, roughly 50% of SWASH's website visitors aren't seeing the

risk-free trial offer!

Here’s another example when using numbered scrolling:

The Sign Up lead generation CTA was hidden above, but here it is visible using

manual scrolling:

It’s very important to have CTA buttons that stand out regardless of how visitors

interact with your website.

Effective Messaging Essentials

Your headlines and messaging should evoke curiosity, intrigue, and/or

urgency. Recall the headline on the SWASH homepage.

“Clothing care revolutionized” — this headline can be improved. The purpose of

a headline is to:

1. Capture the reader’s curiosity, intrigue, and/or urgency.

o This can be done by identifying cost-saving or time-saving,

convenience, or addressing a pain point with a solution.

2. Keep the reader engaged and increase the likelihood of CTA click-throughs.

Pro Tip: When writing headlines, write for your reader as opposed to talking

about your brand or product. “People don’t buy products; they buy better versions

of themselves.”

3 alternative headlines that SWASH could use instead:

1. Clean clothes in 10 minutes. Less trips to the cleaners.

o Convenience, addresses a pain point

2. Your Laundry Life Hack Has Arrived.

o Convenience, positions product as being new/trendy, written for the

reader

3. Clean Your Clothes While You Shower

o Intrigue, convenience

Writing headlines is both an art and a science. The art is about appealing to your

reader, and the science is testing to see which headline is most effective. So how

do you measure the science behind which headline to use?

1. Run user tests on your target audience and learn which headline best

resonates with them.

2. If your headline has a CTA button, you can do some quick math to calculate

and compare your click-through rates for the various headlines you’ve used

on your website. Use Google Analytics to get your website stats.

o Numerator: The number of unique clicks on your CTA button during

the date range a headline was active.

o Denominator: Total webpage traffic during that date range.

o Compare your click-through rates to see which headline is most

effective at getting people to click-through.

Next, take a look at SWASH’s messaging for their newsletter sign up, a lead

generation vehicle.

Current headline is about SWASH: “Stay in the loop on the latest SWASH brand

news and announcements.”

Your headline is generally more impactful when it focuses on your prospective

customer. For example: “Learn more about the convenience of your new laundry

life hack.” The email field should be shown for simple, increased opt-ins to the

email list.

Along with testing your headlines, you can also test the text of your CTA buttons

to try increasing click-through rates.

Lead Generation: Are Your Forms Killing Your Conversion Rate?

The SWASH signup form is killing conversions. The form is so lengthy that it

doesn’t fit on my MacBook screen unless I zoom out.

The required fields include gender, zip code, and birthday. Additional questions

ask the reader why they’re interested and which features are most important. This

is a lot to ask of someone who is simply considering opting in to an email list to

learn more about a product. I’m surprised I’m not being asked for my mother’s

maiden name!

Creepy, isn’t it?

7 tips for your website forms, a major destination of your lead generation

efforts:

1. Creating a simple opt-in that only asks for the reader’s email address would

dramatically boost form completions, resulting in more leads that can be

emailed. At most ask for two to three fields of information. This is general

advice; there could be exceptions based on your business and your lead

generation goals.

2. Avoid long, wide forms on desktop and especially on mobile because they

seem daunting to fill out.

3. Design your form page to be visually appealing.

4. Let the reader know that you will never sell or give their email to a third

party, otherwise there is a hesitation to fill out this form.

5. Let the reader know that they won’t be receiving any spam from you.

6. If you’re trying to figure out why people want to join your mailing list,

collect this information through user testing and not through your lead

generation form.

7. Answer this question on your form page for your visitors: Why do I want to

join this email list, and what will I get out of it? Answering this question

effectively will help decrease abandonment rates and increase conversions.

Remove Design & Messaging Friction

Design and messaging friction confuses website visitors and also kills

conversions. Here are some examples:

The automated email from SWASH after submitting a form is confusing. Is the

product not for sale yet? “You’ll be among the first to know when SWASH is

available for purchase and other exclusive news.” Messaging like this makes

prospective customers think that the product is not yet for sale, and that they will

be notified when it is for sale—but the product can currently be purchased on the

website…?

Are sign in (top-left) and sign up (bottom-right) the same options? What is the site

visitor supposed to do?

The social media buttons are gray on a gray background. These buttons should be

moved down or to the side of the website, and should have some color so people

can follow the brand on social media. Colored buttons in the homepage header

would increase bounce rates, so you generally want to avoid that.

Below are 4 links to videos that are approximately 10 seconds each. This is taking

up a full section of precious real estate on the website homepage; instead it should

be combined into 1 video. It’s unlikely that a person cares about restoring their

clothes and not preserving their clothes, so there’s no reason to separate these

videos.

Am I going to receive more information after clicking on this link below, or be

prompted to buy the product? The caption doesn’t match the button, so the visitor

isn’t certain what to expect next. The button should say something like View Specs

& Pricing for increased click-throughs.

Is this a 10-minute YouTube video? I thought it would be, which was confusing. I

asked others and they were under the same impression.

After clicking the free trial button and landing on the product page, there is an

FAQ, but no mention of whether there are free returns or not, or how much returns

cost. This is crucial information for someone considering a free-trial purchase.

The photo gallery doesn’t show close-up imagery of the products, and there’s no

caption for what you’re looking at. This makes a visual connection difficult.

Highlight Value & Understand Price Psychology

Highlight the value of the product you’re selling. To sell your product

effectively, you need to think like a consumer. SWASH compares their product to

laundry and dry cleaning. When I think of laundry, I think of inserting quarters into

a machine. When I think of dry cleaning, I think of the $1.50 per shirt cost, or $15

total bill. The price anchors in the target audience’s mind are low, whereas the

SWASH machine costs $499. Let your consumers know how and why your

products have value and are well worth the cost.

A detailed look at your various marketing channels can reveal a lot about your

business and the opportunities you’re missing out on. After reading this post on

Facebook Advertising, website optimization, conversion messaging, and design

friction, did you have any realizations about your business, or realize anything

from other companies' marketing campaigns?