Key To Lead Gen Success: Make Room In Your PPC Budget For Landing Page Development

Whether you’re beginning a PPC initiative or have an ongoing PPC program, allocate a portion of next month’s click spend budget to new landing page development. Doing so will increase conversion rates and lower your cost per lead, turning you into a rock star of online marketing.

“Wait a second. We just went through a website re-design! We can’t afford to build new landing pages,” is a common objection when making this recommendation to clients. If you’re truly committed to lead generation online, you must design and implement specialized web pages for your PPC program.

Let’s say you’re a marketing research company and your average engagement is $1 Million for a two year contract. Your message needs to be super sharp, focused and extremely credible. Your offering is certainly a highly considered purchase, necessitating extensive research. Using an existing page from your website won’t deliver the targeted information the prospect is looking for. You’ll be missing out on capturing valuable leads and wasting your marketing dollars.

An effective online lead gen campaign starts with carefully considered keywords, chosen to align with searcher intent. Next is the PPC ad. Copy should be benefit-rich, differentiating your offering from the competition. Your ad must be compelling but qualifying. It must be super-relevant to searcher intent and set the stage for what is to come. Be sure to offer a free whitepaper or case study in the ad for maximum response.

PPC landing pages are the third element of this carefully orchestrated advertising process, and have a very specific purpose — capture the lead. Website pages are rarely designed to accomplish this. Think of it this way; websites are the brochure, landing pages are the infomercial.

I love a good infomercial. They’re straight to the point, jam-packed with benefits, but not confusing. You know exactly what they’re selling and they are presented in a way that makes it irresistible. There’s no doubt what the call to action is and how to order.

C’mon — how many Chia Pets do you own?

Infomercials and successful B2B landing pages have two similarities; they’re laser focused on one offering and tell you how to order. They practically reach into your wallet for a credit card and dial the phone for you.

But Wait, There’s More!

Effective lead gen landing pages are focused on the offering first encountered in the PPC ad, which ties in to the keywords in the search query. The landing page headline matches the PPC ad title. The page copy expands on the concepts/benefits presented in the ad. They have a three field form to capture the lead and an obvious “Download Whitepaper” button. It’s that simple. Order by midnight tonight and we’ll double your order. (Sorry-couldn’t resist!)