Ad/Landing Page Agreement
There is a simple rule that seems so hard to follow in this digital age: Your digital ad must align with where the ad takes you–on the first click. Simple? Not exactly.
The rise of the landing page’s importance is directly because websites have become so complicated and offer too much information. The landing page provides a clear connection between the message of the ad and where you subsequently “land.”
The effect is like seeing a sports coat on a manikin in a store window. You then open the door to go in and find a sea of cologne, perfumes, make-up and jewelry (an experience I had at a Macy’s). Where do you go? For some, you may just walk out the door.
On the internet the experience is the same. Google has developed a quality score to measure the alignment between the ad and the landing page. It is based on the relevancy of your ad, keywords and landing page. But you really don’t need a score, you just need common sense. I see a chair I like so I click on the ad. If you take me to your website and make me do multiple clicks to find the chair, eventually I’ll “bounce out.”
That’s the experience I had with Office Max. I saw a chair I liked in an ad on LinkedIn. So I clicked, then I clicked again, then I clicked again. I still had not seen any chair like the one in the ad. So I then bounced out. It’s hard to measure my difficulties because I would be measured as a “click” from the ad and then a person who “clicked” in again (a conversion). Some might assume I didn’t like the price. Some may assume I had a second thought. But the real problem is I never saw the chair, so I had no chance of purchasing. That’s bad for Google quality scores and bad for business.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
