I’m sure a lot of companies and SEM managers out there have faced these similar situations with their search marketing campaigns:

• You’ve upped your bids and maxed out your daily budget caps
• You’re seeing high click through rates for your keywords and ad copy
• Your analytics dashboard is reporting more than 75% bounce rate
• Your conversions are less than 2%
• You’re losing money on this campaign (oh my!)

For most companies utilizing Paid Search Marketing there is intense pressure to deliver leads, sales, downloads–any sheer act of engagement otherwise campaigns will be cut and budgets reallocated to something else that performs. But for many, being far from a dramatic conclusion, there is hope.

If you’ve gone through all your SEM checklists and see nothing wrong with your keywords and ad text (your high click through rates insist that the combination of keywords, match types and ad copy are targeting the right audience) then you need to focus your attention on the landing page. Oftentimes, we pat ourselves on our backs for producing a good set of keywords backed by thorough research, estimates and forecasts but we overlook one basic tenet of a well thought out SEM campaign: engagement.

In most cases, your searchers click on your ad copy, arrive on a landing page and will produce some action. But instead they arrive on a page with pretty graphics and flowery copy that reads far down below the fold and all of a sudden…bam! you expect them to fill out a form. Your visitors then proceed to the exit because they’ve decided you’ve been a tad too forward in asking for their deets: their number (home, business and cell), email and address of personal residence.

To avoid the same situation above you need to empathize and put yourself in the shoes of another.

Ask yourself:

• Is this page inviting?
• Is there a strong call to action to elicit intended user response?
• Is your page copy succinct and on point with your message?
• Do you make the effort to produce a page that inspires trust?
• Are your forms no more than 5 or 6 fields?

We ask ourselves these questions constantly to remind ourselves what to do if we see a campaign under performing. We take a holistic look at every aspect of the search campaign from bid management to keywords selection, ad copy and then, study the landing page if our conversions don’t add up. In helping clients optimize their engagement pathways alone we have seen initial upticks in conversion rates by more than 250%.

Take for an example, an educational client. We utilized LiveBall, a landing page vendor which acts as a content/lead management system and reporting dashboard all in one, to produce and host our landing pages. With this vendor we were able to develop multiple versions of a landing page, determine the right combination of call to action, messaging, graphics, and perform A/B tests. From testing our page we obtained statistically significant data by comparing conversions rates, exit percentages and activity spikes and determined our next steps, made the proper modifications and tested again.

We found that having an introductory page that greeted the visitor at the entrance would inspire prospects to learn more about our offerings. With their curiosity piqued they were led to a form they can fill out and get more information. When we compared this pathway to a page that sends visitors directly to a form with the same copy, we observed drastically different conversion rates. About 95% of visitors bounced out of the page that greeted them with a form, compared to 45% who first viewed an introductory page. After visitors entered the initial welcoming page, only less than 41% of visitors were apt to leave the page immediately. We monitored the page for one week we saw an improvement in weekly lead volume by 121%–almost double the amount of leads.

Ultimately, what this shows us is you need to make a polite gesture to your visitors before they will agree to your terms. As trust issues are ever present when a user is required to submit their personal data you need to reassure your visitors.

With all these suggestions and tips in mind, in your landing pages give your prospects all the information they need. Be clear in what you’re offering and don’t hide behind forms. And one more note: don’t forget to optimize every so often. It’s easy to rest on our laurels for that initial uptick, but as trends are constantly changing your page can very well be obsolete within months. So retune and retest your pages constantly and you’ll find that holy grail of conversion rates. The more effort you put into engagement optimization the greater the returns and the easier it will be on your advertising dollars.

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