If you're paying for clicks, you should make the most of them. But if you're sending those clicks to sub-par landing experiences, you're not.
Unfortunately, most marketers send respondents to landing experiences that could be better. A lot better. Here are some examples of some not-so-good landing experiences that I came across today.
1. After searching for "web hosting" on Google, I clicked on this ad for NaviSite web hosting:
I was then sent to this landing page:
The first thing that sticks out to me is the amount of copy. Too much copy is a huge turn off to respondents who click on a banner or search ad and aren't interested in investing time to read.
NaviSite also missed the perfect opportunity to segment according to respondents' interests and needs. They include a list of their available hosting solutions and say, " we have a ... full suite of Managed Hosting Services, customizable to your business needs", but that's it. They could have created a more custom landing experience and segmented according to what type of hosting solution respondents are looking for. Then, they would have the opportunity to pitch and persuade directly to the respondent and, for instance, tell the respondent why NaviSite's Network Management Solution will help them. Someone who is interested in Network Management is going to have different pain points than someone who is interested in Remote Monitoring or Desktop Support.
2. I also searched for "crm" and clicked on this ad from Microsoft for their CRM software:
And then landed on this page:
Forget the fact that this page is boring, unattractive, and doesn't clearly mention the research CD that was promised in the ad... No matter what business size you select, you're sent to the same page. Microsoft missed the opportunity to tell respondents why their CD and software will help them. Small businesses and large businesses have different needs and requirements. Microsoft could have played on that and sent respondents to separate, more individualized pages.
3. Finally, I search for "IRA" and clicked on this Fidelity ad:
And was sent to this deep link:
(Yes, I had to take two screen shots because this page has a bad case of SPS/sagging page syndrome.)
As you can see, this deep link has more than a dozen links and different choices for respondents to make. While Fidelity really wants respondents to press the "Open a Roth IRA" or "Open a Traditional IRA" link, since they give respondents quite a few more choices, they make it so much easier for respondents to not convert.
It would be a lot more effective for Fidelity to send respondents to a simple, navigation-less landing experience, giving respondents a few simple choices to make based on their needs and qualifications. Since the search term is IRA, they could have easily segmented according to whether people are interested in a Roth or Traditional IRA, and then pitched the benefits of their Roth or Traditional accounts.
I'm going to wager and guess that NaviSite, Microsoft, and Fidelity pay a lot for their Google clicks, and with landing experiences like these, aren't seeing a good return on their investment.
-Megan Leap
