TABLE OF CONTENTS

Every Tweet Sends Signals: How to Tap Into Intent on Twitter

Fill the Form: Driving Quality Leads and Delivering Results

PPC Heroes' Favorite Excel Hacks

Your Brand in Visuals: Retargeting with Display Advertising

Selling Better: PPC Strategies for Ecommerce and Call Extensions

Transforming Tweets into Closed Deals

Advanced Conversion Optimization for High Traffic Websites and Mobile Devices

From Target CPA to Maximizing Clicks: Using Google Bid Management Tools

The Chemistry of Landing Pages with Live Critiques

How Smart Marketers Bridge Content and PPC Marketing

Every Tweet Sends Signals: How to Tap Into Intent on Twitter

Bryan Sise, @bryansise

Product Marketing Team Lead & Sr. Mgr., Twitter

You can detect emerging intent on Twitter because tweets send signals.

The Opportunity

When moments happen in the real world they happen on Twitter
500 millions tweets a day
Half a billion “moments”
People often think of large televised events as those moments, like the Superbowl, which saw 28.4 million tweets
World Cup 35.6 million tweets - 580k tweets per minute at peak

For us marketers there’s other moments that are much more relevant

everyday moments
e.g. Sophie is checking out Twitter in a cafe

Sophie tweets about looking forward to her coffee

When you look at data on Twitter, what you might think is unrelated, is actually predictable

Back to our example, we’re a competing coffee shop trying to market to Sophie when it’s most relevant
Lets use keywords to target Sophie
Seconds after Sophie tweets about her love of coffee, our promoted tweet pops into Sophie’s timeline (automatically served based on her everyday moment)

Active Intent

There are only so many people who are actively telling you they’re looking for
Your audience may be larger than you think:

active intent might be where you focussed:

+emerging intent

+influenceable

Example: Home Buying

Active intent - search “mortgage pre-approval
Emerging intent - tweet “which neighbourhood have good schools in Portland?”
Influenceable - tweet “it’s a boy”

Example: Running Shoes

Active intent - search “Nike Lunarglide”
Emerging intent - tweet “going for a run”

Quite likely in the near future they’ll be in need of new running shoes

Influenceable - tweet “Nike”

Lots of people like the Nike brand

Twitter worked with Nike to identify trends of when people were going for a run to target people in the personal moment and engage with them in a meaningful way

Richer Moments

80% of users access Twitter on mobile
Photos and videos are now easily accessible for users

Your Objective

We all want to scale up our campaigns to drive conversions
When creating a twitter campaign the first thing you do is set an objective
When you you select conversion as your goal, Twitter will tailor (swift) the workflow and distill the analytics

To Drive Website Conversions

1. Creative

Promote Your Content

You can target anyone on Twitter you want with promoted tweets, not just your followers

Website card

Ad type to maximize site traffic

e.g. Toms, Sainsbury’s

Users see a preview of the product advertised and a strong call to action

Photo Card

Image is front and centre

Gallery Card

Represent a collection of images in a single tweet

2. Targeting

Keyword targeting allows you to reach users who recently used your keywords

Interest targeting is based on who the user follows on Twitter

e.g. you could target based on star snowboard Shaun White to target snowboarders

Keyword Targeting

Many of the same best practices from search
Precision tool that allows you to hone in to the right people at the right time
Who AND when
Every tweet contains signals of intent

Match Types

Same match types from search

Overlays

Geography, gender, device, language

e.g. spanish speaking women on android phones who recently tweeted or engaged with the phase “leche”

Twitter’s Website Tag

Conversion tracking
Remarketing
Track all conversion paths
View conversion analytics

Best Practices

Use what you learned from search ...but Twitter is a different bird (do you see what I did there?!)

Test high-performing keywords from search

Mine the long tail

requires a time investment to find the less frequent, niche keywords, but those are likely to drive especially high engagement

Use tightly-themed keyword groups

Optimize with keyword analytics

remove low performing keywords
TEST TEST TEST

Use always-on campaigns

You don’t know when a user’s “everyday moment” will happen so this allows you to be ready and waiting

Twitter is a Different Animal

People don’t tweet the same way they search
When people search, they know they’re talking to a machine, but with tweets, they’re talking to people
Come at it from a different angle

e.g. search: “boy infant clothes” vs. tweet: “his first birthday”

e.g. search: “attorney auto accident” vs. tweet: “hit my car”

e.g. search: “continuing education florida” vs. tweet: “a job i love”

Twitter user open to message from a higher education advertiser

Brainstorm moments when a person might be open to your message
Identify moments of emerging intent

Add Value to Everyday Moments

A good example is Lowe’s - serving up solutions to every problems like a stripped screw
Users love it when brands add value to their everyday lives

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Fill the Form: Driving Quality Leads and Delivering Results

Kristina McLane

Account Manager, Hanapin Marketing

Alexa Feckanin, @AlexaFeck

Paid Search Strategist, Fathom

Recipe for a successful lead gen campaign

1 part source (Google, Bing)
1 part landing page
time

Landing Page 101

Custom forms

Alexa’s had clients that want super long forms, but they see shorter forms having more success

Call To Action (should not be SUBMIT)
Keep it simple - no excess navigation
Testimonials
Location-specific landing page for relevance if you have the option
Awards and accreditations help build credibility even in your ad copy
Phone number in the top right - NEVER VIA AN IMAGE
Every campaign should have its own landing page (NSAMCWADLP)

Now that you have the perfect landing page, let’s get your paid search on

The more you know about your customer, the more targeted and strategic you can be
Who are they?
What are their pain points?
Where do they get their information?
What do they want?

Quality Users with Keywords

Include several variations (including plurals of everything)
Target keywords to the solution, not just the problem
A good negative will help deter low quality traffic

Have a “vulgar” list for all accounts

Ad Copy

Always look at what your competitors are doing

Share with a client and ask what they’re doing that’s better

Extensions

Prove credibility - review extensions help drive leads

Clients may be nervous

Call Tracking

Use 3rd party tools for monitoring phone calls

listen in and find out what the pain points are
also WHY they called
match the message to the why

Use information for landing page copy, ad copy, etc

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads

great tool for nurturing
negating those that have converted
use general keywords now that searchers are more qualified
provide different messaging based on actions

Dynamic Search

Great for expanding reach and identifying new keyword themes
You can leverage remarketing list of all site visitors to help control cost
Use general, but relevant ad copy since the URL and headline will be dynamically generated

Gmail Sponsored Ads

Conversion-wise they work really well
Take a long time started out
You can put in competitor domains so that anyone opening an email from your competitor will see your ad there
⅔ of active Gmail users access their email on mobile

Negate Bad Leads

Exclude Bing Ads syndicated partners
Google Display Network is a poor lead source

if you want to use it try “layered targeting”

- Google Search Partners might work for some

- Integrate a CRM system

CRM Benefits

Decrease manual lead management
Decrease CPL once implemented

Pull reports on which keywords actually convert, optimize based on that
In an example client decreased cost by 30%

Key Takeaways

Landing page optimization << DO THIS
Know your customers
If you don’t have a CRM use a negate bad leads strategy
CRM is your friend - SO MUCH DATA

The Conversion Journey (between the click and the money)

How do you deal with all the metrics?

Cupcake Logic (Huzzah!)

You want a fancy cupcake not a couple of Hostess ones

ie. maybe you pay a little more for a lead, but if you get more revenue on the back end it’s worth it

Best way to just lead quality is a CRM

Sometimes what looks great isn’t
If your goal is only to decrease CPL, you might not be attracting the right type of person
Optimize for ROAS, not CPL

What do I do?

Download the CRM data
Copy and paste into a campaign report
PIVOT

How can you cut the crappy leads?

Match types

80% of the time you can trust your match type CPLs within the same campaigns
Optimize for match type based on ROAS
Campaigns will vary

Search vs. Display

Display tends to take longer to close
Display still contributes to the conversion journey

Budgeting and account structure

The more specific the campaign is, the better ROAS
Optimize for ROAS

GETTING BETTER NUMBERS ON THE BACK END IS WHAT MATTERS

Excel Solver by closing lead rate

Helpful when you have strict monthly budgets - prioritizes what’s working
There’s a how-to video on PPC Hero (don’t forget to substitute your own closing lead rate)
Solves the best budget placement for you based on how much you can still spend - it’ll tell you where to place your budget to get the best return
Assumes CPL is static

Questions Answered

How do you get CRM data?

Client sends daily spreadsheet with specific fields (not all personal data)

How granular is too granular for optimizing your campaigns?

Depends on the account, but the more quick the campaign, the more often, even daily for a high traffic campaign

Is there a difference in lead quality between content vs. free trial?

Free trial is generally further through the funnel, than someone looking for content

Tip: Look at competitor ads to find points of difference you can highlight (Define your USP)

PPC Heroes' Favorite Excel Hacks

Matt Umbro, Diane Anselmo, Kristina McLane, Jacob Brown

Hanapin Marketing

Ad Copy / Landing Page Testing:

Using excel to come up with significant levels
Trying to improve impressions until conversion
Can also do conversions per click or CTR
Get your college on - use the Z-score
In the first week, if it’s 95% or higher, move to next test

Second week 90%, third week 85%

Quick Keyword Tool

Take your categories and modifiers and have it generate keywords for you

Metric Correlations

=CORREL(array 1,array 2)

Highlighting a selection of data, and comparing to another highlighted section of data and seeing if there’s any correlation

1 is an exact correlation

-1 is a negative correlation

0 is no correlation

(above 0.5 either way is significant)

e.g. is there any relationship between my display campaigns and branded conversions?

Download campaign report segmented by network and month (for last 12 months)
Set up the data laid out horizontally
Use correlation equation
If it’s above 0.5 there’s correlation

Uses: avg. position, impressions, clicks, assisted metrics, offline revenue, competitive metrics

Some things will obviously correlate, so don’t bother testing that

Index + Match = Perfect Together

Sometimes V-Lookup just isn’t enough
Index match is great for larger data groups, none horizontal data, etc
It’s a little more complicated, but holds a lot of power

Filters

Easily segment data
Make sense of large amounts of data
Use findings to create new campaigns
Find top (and poor) performing:

keywords
text ads
search queries

e.g. You can find high performing SKUs and create a campaign around them, or the opposite, break out lower performing SKUs and bid lower on those keywords

Questions Answered

How often do you use macros?

Once a month, a way of checking that you’re not missing anything

Any recommended add-ons or plugins?

Bing Ads Intelligence

How do you learn new specific ways to set up your own Excel?

Top tip: you can find lots of great YouTube videos if you search (especially searching from something specific)

PPC Hero’s blog has a whole section dedicated to Excel

What do we do with correlation?

A guide to direct strategy

What are your favourite ways to visualize data?

Heat maps, geography, conversion rate

Hour of day

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Your Brand in Visuals: Retargeting with Display Advertising

Retargeting Across Display Networks: Smart… & Sexy

David Barton

Digital Performance Media Manager, Turner Broadcasting

Typically with PPC you’re tasked with smart and efficient (not sexy)

Retargeting with the Google Display Network

-it’s a lot like paid search

Affinity - Google puts people into groups based on their affinity

e.g. you like documentaries, you might like CNN

Set-top box - targeting based on TV people watch

e.g. if someone watches the food network, you can target them

Keyword - use your paid search keywords

Topic - similar to keyword but more broad

e.g. targeting travel sites

Placement - sneak your ad into other places

Ad units

Pre-roll: in front of video including YouTube (don’t pay unless someone watches 30 seconds)
Text ads
Banner ads
Lightbox ads - similar to banner but instead of clicking you hover on desktop (still have to click on mobile)

-video

GDN Custom Engagement

Pop-up over outside sites

There is a minimum spend
Full tracking of everything in pop-over so you can refine campaign

Lets you sneak ads places you can’t always get them
Fully interactive experience, totally custom
Great for ecommerce

e.g. Anthony Bourdain pop-over geotargetted

Cinemagraph - basically an image that only certain parts of it move

GDN is rolling them out
Test it, likely to improve clicks
No minimum spend

Understanding Motive - The Key To Display

Pete Bahe

Voice Evangelist, DialogTech

“Alright, let’s get weird...” << we’re off to a good start

Why is display advertising so effective?

When you see something, you group memories together with images
3 levels of psychological exposure

Curiosity to recognition to decision

- Creates a time bridge

- People get to think that they’re knowing your brand

Visual modality is dominant for most of you

It’s how we learn, how we intake information
But we have to segment that information
So you align it with a belief filter internally
Creates an internal representation
Marketers leverage that internal representation to inspire action

If you’re showing ads of things that are fleeting… your customer has an opportunity to win - to get some of that

Tips

1. Leverage presuppositions

2. Challenge the buyer

Let them win the game

3. 7 +/- 2

You can only hold 7 pieces of info in your mind at any one time

Custom Audiences

By building super targeted custom lists, you can create a super relevant ad -> MOAR CONVERSIONS

Remarketing Audiences in Google Analytics

Target by demographics
Target by technology (devices, browsers, etc)
Target by behavior (track what they’re doing online and target them based on that), look at your path to purchase
Target by date of first session
Target by traffic source
Segment users by single or multi-session conditions

e.g. phone calls
push calls into GA as an event, trigger a goal around that event
re-target them differently based on that action

e.g. present them a phone number

You can target them differently based on a chain of events / activities

segment users according to sequential conditions
re-target to build your desired path to purchase

It’s not a templated approach, you’re becoming super relevant to your potential customers

Credit Due

Set up reports for assisted conversions

Questions Answered

How do you leverage presupposition in ad copy?

e.g. executives at a hotel

Might say “75 executives have stayed at this hotel”

Try to better associate with your buyer

Are cinemagaphs available outside the US?

Not sure: ask your rep

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Selling Better: PPC Strategies for Ecommerce and Call Extensions

Selling Better: PPC Strategies for Ecommerce

Lauren Frankel, @frankly_lauren

PPC Manager, Seer Interactive

-Lauren has an adorable dog

Shopping Campaigns

Organizing is crucial for building great strategies

e.g. if you’re selling jackets, seasonality and jacket type is really important

Understand your product selection

Strategies

Segmenting by price point
Customers looking at different price levels are different customers
Segment them by price group and bid based on performance

Segmenting by product SKU

Default for AdWords shopping is all of your products dumped into one bucket
But you won’t know what’s performing if you dont segment specifically by product

Frontloading your product titles with your brand name

e.g. 28% increase CTR, 53% increase in conversion rate

Gives your brand more space

Managing Promotion Calendars

Tonnes of promotions every month can feel overwhelming #PromotionOverload
CALM DOWN, grab a beer

Labels are a way to group similar elements in your account

Simple to set up, allows you to switch between promos
AdWords only, in the interface, not the editor

Automation lets you set rules to more easily manage your account

Can use to help you schedule
Yse your labels to set rules
You can set multiple requirements
Frequency - be cautious that your rule can run at any time within the hour that you set

Lauren’s experience is they tend to run at the end of the time period
Don’t forget about time zones, too

Name the rule something detailed

You can get email notifications whenever the rule runs << DO THIS

Countdown ads

Achievable with small snippet of code
Creates a sense of urgency
Lauren tested it and saw some serious improvements in her campaign
Don’t forget about time zone

PPC Strategies for Call Extensions

Cody Kunning

Director, Search Engine Marketing, Marchex

Some businesses don’t want to drive phone calls

Expensive
Not easy to track
But lots of people WANT to make a phone call after a search, especially from mobile (according to a Google study)

Mobile ad spend continues to BLOW UP

Desktop is shrinking
Mobile is likely to overtake desktop ad spend this year
Getting harder for business to ignore phone calls

Where do calls come from?

60% happen on call extension button << MAKE SURE YOU’RE DOING THIS

-40% happen from the landing page

Building the call extension

Google has some rules
You can put your call tracking number
It can forward to another number
It can be local or toll free

Google forwarding number swaps out the number you enter

can be used with call tracking

Ad types for call extensions

you can pick website and phone number, or just phone number
just phone number can be useful on branded terms
both are good for more general keywords
set up a schedule for your call extensions
set it up for when you can receive the calls (don’t waste money when you can’t pick up the phone)

Google call conversion tracking

really only measures duration and call count
doesn’t measure intent
doesn’t measure true conversion dollars
super useful though

Google is a great tool to use before the call happens, call tracking tools great for after the call happens

If a mobile landing page is not optimized, use call only ads

-separate call tracking by device type for deeper insights

-gotta see where it’s coming from: desktop vs. mobile

-setup call conversion tracking with AdWords

-Talk to the call centre, more data may be available

-use all the data you have access to

-use a call tracking provider

Call tracking

attributes calls back to the keywords
measures consumer intent of phone calls
visibility to bid towards both forms and calls
provides insights of offline actions to improve online optimizations

SO MUCH INSIGHT, can help you optimize ads based on what people are actually asking about

Basic Call Analytic Insights

-hold times are usually lower at national call center’s vs. local agents

Call Analytics for Search

-100% keyword attribution for all calls

-relates the call data directly to you keywords #ALLTHEDATA

-e.g. cable company reduced CPA by 43% and increased revenue by 50%

-found the keywords that were driving new customers vs. existing and optimized for them (BOOM)

Questions Answered

What are the impression requirements for Google Forwarding Numbers?

There is a minimum
Use call tracking

Advice:

Click to call only you build as a call extension right now
On June 15 call only campaigns will replace that ad type

Workarounds for automating promotional ads in Bing?

Nothing that Lauren is currently aware of
Bing is more manual that Google

Are the Google tracking numbers recycled?

Yes. They will re-use those numbers

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Transforming Tweets into Closed Deals

Tactical Twitter Advertising

Merry Morud, @MerryMorud

Social Advertising Director, aimClear

Fluffy is no longer an option for social!

It’s not just about community and engagement
It’s about owning your audiences that are psychographically focused with omnichannel retargeting/remarketing including search remarketing (YAS
If you’re not doing this you’re leaving money on the table

Social signals impact SEO

Paid amplification in Twitter

Promoted tweets:

Targeting based on interests, handles, TV targeting, keywords, tailored audiences (including exclusion which is super helpful), behaviours - via 3rd party data (that you can also exclude)

These are all “OR” targeting, hopefully Twitter will allow you to layer at some point
Life-reset categories (e.g. retirement, divorce, college students)
Pay attention to government, politics (e.g. Airbnb facing legislative changes)

Follower targeting:

Can be tough
You’re reaching out to similar followers
Can be helpful to use a few handles so you get the overlap

You can use handles as keywords

Influencers who are engaged will often tweet their own handle
Engaged, themed users tweet at authority handles, also

Twitter handle tools

Use Google - all the lists

There may be overlap but it’s worth it

Keyword targeting

You can often find intent with keywords

First-party data (e.g. your CRM list, website visitors)

Export your Linkedin connections
Can also use as negative audiences

Third-party data

Currently restricted but likely to open up more

Close the loop with conversion tracking

Check it out under “Tools” in Twitter

Promoted Dark Tweets

Limit the deliverability like a pro

Lead-Gen Card

Automatically collects email from their Twitter account when they click your CTA

Advanced Conversion Optimization for High Traffic Websites and Mobile Devices

Chris Goward

Founder & CEO, WiderFunnel

Chris was a cute child
His sister had mad rosy cheeks #TotesAdorbz

Agency goals are often at odds with their clients

Marketing + Scientific Process = Conversion Optimization

^Everybody wins

Tips ignore context, but they can be a great place to start

With a new client it can be great to start with an easy test

in this example Chris started with a button test
the button copy was “Submit”
they tried instead a social signal, and a sense of urgency
the control won (whaat?!)
so they kept testing!

Turn best practices into ‘tested practices’

Test errything

-Website redesigns are the wooorrrsssttt

-but visitor expectations are increasing so you’re constantly fighting to keep up

-with a redesign you’ve changed #ALLTHETHINGS, and now you don’t know what specific things are increasing or decreasing it’s effectiveness

Evolutionary Site Design

-constantly testing and upgrading your website

Example: BuildDirect

-site needed a redesign

-WiderFunnel looks at the major factors part of the BuildDirect experience

-they tested those elements individually

-ended up with a completely redesigned website and huge conversion rate improvements

-new test changed what main page linked to (information architecture test that led to specific merchandising page or a product listing page)

-merch page killed it

-completely redesigned website with zero risk - achieved with continuous improvement based on testing

The human brain is the best optimization tool

-there are lots of tools, most relatively simple, but it’s all about creating your hypotheses

What should I test?

-how you answer the question will determine your success with testing

Lift Model

Value Proposition

-what are you doing for me

Relevance

-capture the scent trail from the ad, email, or link

Clarity

-make your offer clear

Distraction

-don’t over-design

Anxiety

-remove barriers

Urgency

-why should they act now?

-test based on all these elements to find out what’s important to your audience

-challenge your assumptions about your value propositions by testing

-don’t stop at 1 test

-use small wins as a new control and test further

-drill into 1 insight to find new ones

-Social Proof is one of many different persuasion techniques

-find out which elements and value propositions work by testing

Which value proposition approaches should you test?

-landing pages are a great place to test this

Points of Parity

-where your features & you competitors’ features match your prospects desires

Points of difference < Most important

-where your features match your prospects desires, but your competitors’ don’t (BOOM)

Points of Irrelevance

-your features your prospects don’t care about (you don’t want these)

-don’t look at conversion optimization as a project

-it’s an ongoing profit center

MOBILE OPTIMIZATION MUST BE INTEGRATED

-the year of mobile has passed - we’re living in a mobile world

-mobile is not the difference between your laptop and your phone

-there’s a myriad screen sizes, devices, etc

-mobile is a state of being #OprahMoment

-mobile is all about context, so optimize for it

-attention span is shrinking

-you have less than 8 seconds to engage

-desktop tests can lead to mobile wins, but with different contexts come different expectations

-a great framework allows you to build insights on insights on insights

-don’t undersell conversion optimization, the results can be phenomenal

Questions

At any point do you go back and re-test controls?

Short answer: Yes

-depending on client

-WiderFunnel has gone back and re-tested with some clients every 6 months

From Target CPA to Maximizing Clicks: Using Google Bid Management Tools

Google’s Bid Management Tools for Conversions

Elizabeth Laird

Director of Paid Search Marketing, shopathome.com

- Search terms are important but there’s SO MUCH MORE

-e.g. device, browser, locations

- Shopathome focuses on deals

-imagine a 45 yr old woman in Chicago on her desktop at 10am

-she’s probably researching

-very different from a 25 yr old male in NYC at 8pm - he’s looking for immediate

- How you want to bid should be different for those, based on understanding who what person is

Intent + Right User Profile = Stronger ROI

CPA Bidding:

- Target CPA gets more volume that Max CPA

- Better results on GDN than search

Enhanced CPC Bidding

- Adjusting bid down up to 100% is a really powerful tool

- More responsive than conversion optimizer (better for time sensitive)

- You can remove demographics you don’t want to reach

- Grows from 50% up to almost 100% over time

- Decreased CPAs by about 20% for Elizabeth in testing

Return on Ad Spend Bidding can be kinda clunky

Overall

- Test again and again, things change over time. ECPC has improved dramatically to the benefit of marketers.

The Science of Maximizing Clicks (Conv) in Google AdWords

Bryan Minor, @BryanMinorPhD

Chief Scientist, Acquisio

Tools of Optimization

- Google Conversion Optimizer

- Google AdWords Scripts

-growing

-used as glue between you and other things like databases

- Google AdWords API

-now it’s free, but takes time to learn

You pick an Optimization Tool to see what’s going on, but how?

- Transparency of formulations

- Skill set of team

- Customization required (you need something that’ll do what you need it to do)

- Data size and persistence requirements

Relationship between bid and CPC:

- Highly non-linear, varies throughout the day (examples shows 40% variation)

- Changing bids based on best current information, constantly updating

- Can’t currently see bid history in Google AdWords

Mobile optimization problem

- Average of 40% mobile in example

- Huge change from 1, 2, 3 years ago

- There are no pure mobile campaigns - you can only set bids at the device level

[Mobile Example]

- Typically bidding more and paying less for mobile

Fixed Budget Optimization

- It’s worth exploring the lower options

- Often you bid less and you get more

Summary:

- It’s important to define your problem to find the right tool to solve it

- Continuous testing is important

- Inefficiencies in the PPC market are exploited by good tools

Questions Answered:

Q: How do you test one bid option over another?

Time length depends on conversions, but at least 30 days to let it work itself out

Q: When dealing with clients who have a product that’s geotargetting but in a competition where there’s 10-20 and the bids are $20-40 / click. How do you compete and stay relevant?

Dynamic algorithms are really necessary

Q: Would you separate the mobile and desktop campaigns?

Can’t anymore
They’re really 2 campaigns in 1
Bryan monitors them both separately

Q: Are there any indicators that you need to work on QS before you go back to your bidding?

Elizabeth says it’s hard to test anything if your account isn’t in order

Target CPA in AdWords automatically optimizes for conversion
Statistical significance is a common problem #PPCProblems

The Chemistry of Landing Pages with Live Critiques

Brian Massey, @bmassey & Joel Harvey, @JoelJHarvey

The Conversion Scientists

(learnings from the live critiques added in italics)

Whaddup with the lab coats?

Entering the world of data-driven marketing
Also they’re stylin’

Some background - the building blocks of landing pages

-a framework to evaluate your current and future landing pages

What is a landing page?

Keep the promise you made in the ad, link or email (#messagematch)
Inspire action
Reduce friction as much as possible to your visitor takes advantage of your offer
Remind your visitor immediately that they’re in the right place

We know something about these visitors, so build a landing page that’ll make them convert.

The Simple Landing Page Reaction:

Offer + Form + Proof + Trust + Image

Start with your offer

The landing page MUST match the ad

Whatever you’re offering in your ad, follow it through to the landing page
Keep the promise of your ad, match them as closely as possible

Ask a designer - (but keep them away from your page)

Use their skills to get your message across

Let’s build a form

What’re you asking for?
We want to eliminate Abandon
Don’t give your visitors options to leave your page and not convert (landing pages FTW)

What about if you’re driving phone calls?

Replace “Form” with “Phone” in the form
Usually you ask the fewest things possible to get someone to convert
If you wanna generate phone calls, creating excessive friction with your form can drive phone calls
Having a difficult form can actually increase phone calls - it makes the phone call the path of least resistance

Ask a Copywriter

Write copy that makes more people comfortable completing the form

Build Some Trust

Images and words that increase the credibility of your page

e.g. logo, credit card logos for payment, customers

Provide Proof

Credibility statements (e.g. 13 million sold)
Specificity is awesome

-13,453,123 is better than 13,500,000

Social proof

Someone else talking about how amazing you are is much more valuable that you talking about yourself #HumbleBrag
Don’t hide your social proof - it’s important stuff

Test it all over your page, see what works

Social icons are tricky, you don’t wanna send your leads off to Mark Zuckerberg - use when valuable to your campaign

Show the product

Avoid “business porn”
If you can’t write a reasonable caption for your image, GET IT OFF YOUR PAGE
Spend as much time on the images as you are on the copy
This can be video (test different videos if you’re using video - demo vs. story, etc)
Don’t use YouTube (sorry!)

The button colour that converts the best is the one that doesn’t match (think contrast!)

It should visually be the most important thing on the page
The CTA should follow through on the promise of the headline
Directional cues (“hey there” arrows) can help

Building a Testing Framework

The key is test, win (hopefully), re-evaluate and start over again
Isolate your variables

Questions Answered

Q: How do you match headline to ad if you’re testing your ad copy?

Keep your landing page static
If you’re testing your offer, have a landing page for each offer

I think we can all agree the theme of this Q&A is #TestAllTheThings

Your thank you page is a great place for driving further actions, e.g. social media asks (follow us, tweet this, etc.)

How Smart Marketers Bridge Content and PPC Marketing

Eva McKnight, @evachristine09 & Tyler Cook

Formstack

Content Marketers vs. PPC Marketers
Bridging a personality divide
Back and forth “here’s something, promote it” from Content Team

Always need to know the goal of the content

How to initiate the conversation between content + PPC?

Need to collaborate in advance
What is the point of this content?

One simple question: “What works?”

What audiences, keywords work so you can plan together on building the right content

Breakthrough moment for Formstack - a competitor (Adobe), retiring their form tool

They were the first to know, thanks to monitoring via Google Alerts
Formstack started building campaigns that night
Built out list of keywords people might search when looking to move off of competitor
Built a landing page to allow people to easily transition
Super-targeted PPC campaign built on live information
Also included a social campaign reaching out to people tweeting worries about the transition
Everything on the campaign pushed to specific landing pages that showed how Formstack was a great tool for the transition

Pro Tip: Dig back into archives and revive old content

PPC team found existing content previously used for organic search campaign and built paid campaign around it
Awesome to have evergreen content that you can build different campaigns around

The visitors don’t know it’s not brand new because if you catch them at the right time it’s super timely to them

Discover ways you can build off of “wins”

Formstack had a rad webinar that outperformed their others

They built another campaign around the same content

Establish baseline questions to ask each other

What is the end goal of this piece of content? << SO IMPORTANT - is it lead gen?
Who is this content aimed at? << know who you’re talking to
What promotional collateral do you need?
What is your tentative launch date? << helps give context to how much you can
Can we create more content like this? << build off you wins!

Create new target audiences based on your discussions

Write winning ads to complement the content

Write a lot of them, stretch it, get creative

Harness the power of images that resonate with your audience

If you don’t have in-house, use free stock images (be careful to use relevant and professional, not “obvious” stock)

Once you get traffic on your page, MAKE SURE IT CONVERTS

No matter how great you content, audience, or ads, if you don’t have a great landing page, your visitors won’t convert

Create a “social” form to increase conversions up to 189%

Pre-populate forms with your visitors’ social data

Think beyond a basic contact form

Get creative with different types of forms

Time paid promotion with peak activity/submission

Questions Answered

Tyler suggests allthefreestock.com for free images

Test how often you can reuse content - there’s no hard and fast rule on timelines

Formstack’s sales team reports on which leads, from which content are most likely to actually become customers — this gives them focus for what type of content to make