Digital marketers are well-versed in pre-click strategies to optimize their campaigns. PPC ad headlines, search ad extensions, and subject line tests are all common practices here. The same is true with marketing automation and CRM tools.
The biggest missing piece to the whole conversion process, the stage, has been overlooked and is a primary reason why industry conversion rates are still a devastatingly low, 3%-4%.
Since we began writing about optimization in 2017, contributed articles, and presenting at PPC Hero Austin, we’ve discovered there is still a lot of confusion. What is optimization? Why is it necessary? What components make up PCO? How can I improve my campaigns with it?
(Note: Landing page optimization has been updated to landing page automation as you will see below.)
Today’s article answers all of that and more as I interviewed Instapage Founder & CEO Tyson Quick on everything landing page automation.
What is landing pge automation and why did you coin the term?
TQ: Landing page is the experience that happens immediately after a potential customer clicks on a digital advertisement. You worked hard to get that click with targeting, bidding, and advertising creative (pre-click), and now it’s time to get that ad click to convert.
Landing pgae automation (PCA) is unique from conversion rate optimization (CRO) because of its focus on the digital advertising journey and not the broad practice of optimizing a website, application, or email campaign. Since it focuses on the digital advertising journey there are four unique stages in the PCA process (video updated to include Ad Mapping automation):
- Ad Mapping
- Scalable creation (the main differentiator)
- Sophisticated personalization
- Optimization
Scalable creation is the most unique aspect and main differentiator of the PCA process. Advertisers need a quick and effective way to deploy unique page experiences for all of their ads that goes beyond simply changing a headline or image.
Example: If I’ve set up one search ad campaign to target “landing page templates” and one for “landing page software for real estate firms,” I’m going to need two different landing pages that have unique value positioning. If I neglect this part, I can expect my visitors to bounce when they end up on a page experience unique to real estate landing page software, when all they wanted to do is browse landing page templates.
In addition to scalable creation, advertisers need a fast way to deploy unique personalization and A/B test experiments, one that enables creatives and not coders.
You wouldn’t ask a developer to create a new banner ad to optimize the pre-click and you shouldn’t have to do so for the landing page.
What is the difference between pre-click and landing page?
TQ: The pre-click is defined as everything that goes into getting more advertising clicks for less. It’s a similar, albeit different process to PCO:
- Campaign – Broad segmentation
- Ad Group – Granular segmentation (aka personalization)
- Ads – optimization
The post-click is everything that goes into getting more conversions from your ad traffic:
- Broad Segmentation – Unique page experience for a unique campaign (layout, value story, images)
- Personalization – Unique page content for a unique ad group (text, images)
- Optimization – Refining layout, text, images
Why doesn’t post-click receive as much attention?
TQ: The pre-click stage gets most of the attention at this point for three reasons:
- It comes before the post-click stage (first problem to solve)
- It’s easier to understand and invest in (the more money I spend, the more clicks I’ll get)
- The tools are mature (think Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc.)
This is now changing with the evolution of new platforms like our own.
Why is ad post-click such a big problem to solve?
TQ: It’s the single most important investment that you can make when working towards a more efficient customer acquisition process.
Right now, about 3.8% of ad traffic from search turns into a conversion. Let’s say that you’re spending $1,000,000 a year on advertising and getting 38,000 leads. You’ll need to spend another $1,000,000 to get 76,000. Now you’ve spent a total of $2,000,000 for 76,000 leads.
Or, you could simply optimize your post click landing pages in an effort to increase your conversion rates and, thus, your customer acquisition efficiency. The average conversion rate for 14,000 Instapage customers is just over 22%. If you were to convert at this rate, your $1,000,000 is now producing 220,000 leads, or about 3x more for 50% less money.
The implications of this are profound.
Where does PCO fit into the funnel?
TQ: Depending on your industry, PCO typically comes second in a four stage process.
For services, it’s typically:
- Pre-Click (Interest) – Ad Networks
- Post-Click (Consideration) – Instapage
- Nurture (Convince) – Marketing Automation
- Close (purchase) – CRM’s
For ecommerce, it’s typically:
- Pre-Click (Interest) – Ad Networks
- Post-Click (Convince) – Instapage
- Close (Purchase) – Shopping Cart
- Nurture (Upsell) – Marketing automation
What makes Instapage unique to answer the problem?
Instapage is the first software solution to streamline all of the necessary steps unique to the Post-Click Optimization process. It is an assembly line for advertisers to scale the production of unique experiences that will increase their conversion rates and overall customer acquisition efficiency.
Ad Mapping
- Two-way sync your Google Ads campaigns to Instapage
- Visualize your entire ad campaign
Scalable Creation
- Web based design tool
- Visual collaboration for the design process
- Instablocks™ and Global Blocks
- AMP
- CMS (coming soon)
Personalization
- Audience segmentation
- Ad network integrations
- Sophisticated personalization with Instablocks and unique design changes
Optimization
- Heatmaps for engagement insights
- Simple, yet robust A/B testing
- Advertising spend attribution by page variation
- Conversion Analytics
The post-click stage deserves more attention
Instapage has been on a mission since 2017 to address this PCA problem so that every potential customer gets a personalized post-click landing page. You owe it your campaigns and your prospects to optimize the post-click stage.
To experience the Instapage difference yourself, get a customized demo of our platform.
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See how easy it is to create unique experiences for any audience you target.
