Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a cornerstone of online lead generation, offering a way to drive targeted traffic to your website. But what happens once you’ve successfully attracted those visitors? The answer lies in your landing page. To convert those visitors into valuable leads, your landing page must be optimized for maximum impact.
My Experience…
I’m in the performance business selling leads to major buyers and I own a couple local home service businesses that are dependent on lead generation. In the last 12 months I have spent over $10,000,000 on lead generation out of my own pocket — not client money. My skin in is the game when it comes to this lead gen stuff.
In this article, we’ll explore seven PPC landing page best practices to help you generate leads effectively from paid advertising, because as we can all agree, fast scalable results form paid traffic, are way better than SEO!
Let’s start off with a banger.
1. Have One Clear Conversion Action (that is most valuable to you)
99% of advertisers also botch this one.
Low level marketers think that they should should include all these possible options that someone might utilize. In their eyes, if someone doesn’t want to call, maybe they’ll use a web form. That is false. If a user has a high enough level intent they will utilize whatever option you present them. Your ads need to reach more users with that high intent and you need to build that intent through your ads.
For maximum success as an advertisers, you need to establish what conversion action is most valuable to you, and present only that offer on the landing page. DO NOT have multiple conversion actions, or worse multiple offers on the same page.
Let’s break that down a bit. I cover a lot of this concept in the video below.
Elaborated further here….
Let’s say you want to capture leads for plumbing services. There are a few way you could capture leads; phone call, traditional web form, chat bot, online book tool. It’s not uncommon to see plumbing landing pages where all of these methods are stuffed into one page; along with the option for a $19 toilet tune up special and who knows what else. This approach perpetuated by low level marketers is such that you should provide all options a user might want to take.
What happens in reality is that you lose conversions simply due to paradox of choice, generally slow down your landing page, and the conversion you get will also be of low value.
Instead of utilizing multiple conversion actions that hamper your success, its best to focus on which one is the most valuable. In the example of an plumbing business leads, the highest value conversion event is a user picking up the phone and making a call with a need for plumbing services.
In this case the landing page should only have a phone number for users to calls. Naturally the next argument from those inexperienced is that you’re missing out on people who would’ve used a web form or alternate methods. Yes, that is partially correct, but let’s put some numbers behind it. If you had a page with a web form and phone number, but take away the web form; 50% of the people that would’ve web-formed will call. The fall off is not 100%.
Now you can focus on optimizing your ads and landing page to get more people to call. And then the magic… with that one clear conversion event you can set your ads platform to use their algorithm to optimize for that event
2. Keep The Focus On The Offer
When you have presented your audience with an offer on some type of paid advertising platform whether it is Google, Facebook, or Pinterest (yes I run ads there)…
and they click on the ad because they are interested in it…
DO NOT PRESENT ANYTHING ON THE LANDING PAGE THAT COULD TAKE THEIR ATTENTION AWAY.
For example, let’s say you want to capture leads for auto insurance. Do not have anything on the landing page that is about info about how rates are calculated, or how to bundle home and auto insurance.
Amateurs often fall for this because they believe other content may help drive the user towards the conversion goal, but all it really does is increase the time from when the user showed interest (clicked your ad). Consider the auto insurance example; someone may need quotes and be curious about rates (and maybe your rates are great), but the longer they dwell on that content, the more likely they are to forget about their need for quotes or your website (ie. they set their phone down).
>>> I cover this in the context of ads for roofing business in this post.
3. Clearly State Your Value Proposition
When a user clicks on your add, they’re expressing interesting. Now you’ve got to use your landing page to state your value proposition that will push them over the edge to completed your conversion action.
In Other words tell users directly why they should put in their information right now on your website.
Make it clear in big font.
And make sure your value proposition aligns with your add. Some offers might have multiple value props; so stick to one, and ensure that if you are stating a value prop and in the ad, it is the same on your landing page.
4. Show Social Proof
Trust is a fundamental factor in lead generation. This particularly applies to generation of sales leads where you are capturing more detail information. Incorporate social proof elements such as testimonials, and trust badges to build credibility. Potential leads are more likely to convert when they see that others have had positive experiences with your products or services.
5. Keep Things Minimal
Elaborate landing pages can confuse and deter visitors. Less is often more when it comes to design.
When a user clicks your ad, they already have interest, so just show them what is necessary to express intent and become a lead. That may be simply just the lead form itseld.
Remove unnecessary distractions and focus on essential elements that drive conversion. A clean, minimalistic design is visually appealing and makes it easier for visitors to follow the path to conversion.
6. Start With a Multiple Choice Question
Rather than asking for the user to input contact information that requires typing, I start all my lead forms with a multiple choice question that auto-advances the user to the next step. That starts the process with minimal effort and keeps them moving. If you’re using WordPress you can do this with Fluent Forms.
7. Test Cross-Browser Compatibility Before Going Live
A critical but often overlooked best practice is testing your landing page’s compatibility with different web browsers. A landing page that works flawlessly on one browser may have issues on another, potentially costing you valuable leads. Before launching your PPC campaign, thoroughly test your landing page on various browsers to ensure a seamless user experience for all visitors. If you’re going to be spending money on ads, I RECOMMEND using spending a few bucks to use browsershots
8. Start With a Question
Engage your visitors from the moment they arrive on your landing page by starting with a thought-provoking question. Questions pique curiosity and encourage visitors to consider how your offering can address their needs. It’s a subtle way to guide them towards the conversion event you want.
9. Make Sure the Site Loads Fast
In the mobile world users have little patience for slow-loading websites. If a website takes more than a second to load, someone may shift their attention somewhere else.
My rule of thumb is that the website should be consistently loading within the first 2 screenshots at https://pagespeed.web.dev.
While this may seem excessive and you may think that loading a few shots later is acceptable, you have to consider this testing is occurring in a simulated environment with perfect internet connection. In the real world where connections may be spotty or bandwidth / processing power consumed by other resources on the users device, deficiencies are only amplified. This is why it pays to have good hosting if you’re running a serious ad campaign. I personally use Vultr HF for all my hosting. It’s great hosting and it only costs a few bucks more than good hosting.
>>> If you’re using WordPress you can see my post on How to Pass Core Web Vitals For WP
On that note;
Incorporating these seven best practices into your PPC landing pages can significantly improve your lead generation efforts. Remember, the ultimate goal of your PPC campaign is not just to attract traffic but to capture leads but optimize for the most valuable conversion event. By having one clear conversion event, stating your value proposition, showing social proof, keeping things minimal, testing for cross-browser compatibility, starting with a question, and ensuring fast load times, you’ll be well on your way to achieving that goal.