Hot off the press.
Google may not serve up your ad without a relevant landing page.
Let’s talk about the implications for all marketers in this episode
of Closing Time.
Thanks for tuning into Closing Time, the show for go to Market Leaders.
I’m Val Riley, head of marketing for Unbounce, Insightly, and LeadsRx.
Today I’m talking to Tas Bober.
She is founder of the Scroll Lab.
Tas, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
I’m so, so, so excited because, you know about landing pages.
And I know about landing pages. I can’t believe we haven’t
had you on the show yet, but I will say this.
This news from Google is blowing my mind.
So if you would just set the stage for our discussion with the,
the information that Google put out recently about landing pages.
Yeah.
So February 5th, and we’ll link to the article, I’m sure.
So everyone can read it in depth.
But the tldr of it is Google basically listened to a lot of feedback
from users who are saying they hated the,
the disconnect between an ad and a search query,
and then they end up on this landing page
that has nothing to do with the ad or what they asked for.
So Google essentially created this, like predictive model
that can go to these landing pages,
determine if they have ad relevancy.
And an interesting take for all landing page people out there is that it actually
now requires us to have a navigation element on these landing pages.
And I know many people are panicking because they’re like,
what are we going to do?
Now the, you know, with this navigational element,
which we can talk about in a second, but, essentially,
if your ads don’t have a matching relevant landing page, Google
will most likely not even show your ad, even if you’re willing to pay.
So that’s the big takeaway here.
Okay, so this is really groundbreaking because as marketers, we’ve been told
for so long we need to have campaign-specific, relevant landing pages.
But do you mean to tell me there are still people
that are sending their Google ads to, like, a random home page?
Because I’m going to have a heart attack if you tell me that that’s the case.
Yes, actually.
And this is an old article too.
But the number that’s been circulating around
has been 44% of B2B ad clicks just people on the homepage.
And I post a lot of content about landing pages on LinkedIn.
And, you know, they’re more maybe like 201 or 301 level.
But every once in a while. I will go back and say,
here is the difference between a homepage and a landing page.
Here’s why you need to send your paid campaigns over
to a dedicated landing page.
So we sometimes have to get back to basics,
because there’s so many people who just don’t even understand
that there’s a value in having a separate, isolated landing
page experience that’s relevant to their campaigns and their ads.
I don’t know if it’s hurting my heart more or my brain more, as a marketer
to hear that. But.
So looks like there’s a lot of opportunity here for people to really level
up their landing page game by either simply having landing pages
or having super campaigns, specific landing pages that speak to their ads.
But I’m going to shift into the navigation discussion because
I have always been taught that you want your landing page to be this
like place that is hyper focused on conversion
and therefore does not have navigation, because we don’t want to pull people
away from this path to conversion that we have set.
But the Google decision is saying that
perhaps the navigation will be rewarded.
So please talk me off that cliff.
Yeah.
I mean, it was a hard one for me as well.
When I first started posting about landing pages, you know, the
I would always propose the standard format where if we close our eyes and picture
a standard template, we have, you know, form up top a few things, have text,
no navigation, a little bit more and then like download now or whatever the CTA is.
But I have since shifted my
perception based on tests that I’ve seen, especially in the B2B buying environment.
It’s obviously a little bit different than B2C, but, people obviously panicking
because now they’re like, well, I’m going to distract them with this navigation.
So I’m just going to put my site navigation on there. Right.
So we’re going to take this bad advice.
We’re going to take this this requirement and then turn it in a bad advice,
which is let’s put a navigation on there.
Let’s check this box and put it back.
But my recommendation is actually to meet in the middle,
which is, one, your pages shouldn’t always be super short form.
And I’m talking more about like product overview, landing pages, comparison,
landing pages, things of that nature
where people are actually shopping for a solution to a specific problem.
Right.
And instead of having
just the general site navigation, they should have an anchored navigation.
And I have done this even before the Google announcement
and saw wild results from it.
And we can talk about some of the signals that I look at as well.
But we put an anchored navigation, which is basically ability
for people to click on, one part of the navigation,
and then it just jumps to the appropriate place down on the page itself.
So if you have an anchored navigation that’s like the problem,
the use cases, the testimonials, FAQs, and then finally the CTA.
You can have all of those in the navigation.
And so if they want to just go quickly to the FAQs or quickly to the proof
points, they can just jump right within the page.
And then in the footer. I would suggest a minimal footer
that could actually take them to other pages
where this is where people will do, like go to the About Us page and the whatever.
But I always say you should link to other landing pages
within your landing page ecosystem in the footer,
and that way it’s kind of your own private little sandbox environment
where you are seeing how people are consuming information.
But you can control a lot of the asks of the changes on there,
because it’s still part of this like landing page experiment.
I love that.
I, I did come, come up at the time where
it was like a no no for your landing pages to even scroll.
And I have seen like you’re saying, there are certain types of content
where a scroll makes sense.
But I love the idea of how you’re using the navigation
to help people consume the page that is a little bit longer,
and assist them to getting to what they really want.
And that part about linking to other landing pages.
I love that too, because especially for a B2B organization
like ours, we are often, using that
as like a pool of budget to go to all of our landing pages.
So, having people, convert potentially on other landing pages still kind of
gives us the ROI on that paid media spend that that really makes sense for us.
Yes, exactly.
And so when I tell people about how to look at landing pages
and looking at the signals,
you know, sometimes a conversion isn’t going to happen on that page.
Actually, most times, the conversion isn’t going to happen on that page.
Because if you look at high conversion rates,
when I ask a company that comes to me and they’re like a conversion
rates, you know, they’re really high on this page is three point something.
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, if you look at a percent,
a 3%, that’s not a lot.
So there’s 93 or 97%.
Sorry, I can’t math. I’m a marketer.
There’s 97% that aren’t converting.
So you’re going to sit here and tell me that that’s a good conversion rate
and you’re trying to optimize for conversions.
That’s like 97% is not ready.
They need more information.
They probably need a lot more touch points.
I always use the statistic which is hockey stack.
In this report that talked about how many touches do you need before an Mql.
And they said 31 on average for a low ACV product
And we think that people are going to convert on the first time
like they land on a page, which is insanity, right?
When we put it in context like that,. I don’t even buy pants on the first visit.
Okay, old
Navy’s pants will sit in my cart for like 60 days before I make a decision.
And then when I realize, oh yeah, I need new pants
because this has a hole in it, then it becomes an urgent thing, right?
So that’s similar to B2B companies who aren’t going to make a snap decision
on $100,000 or $20,000, or even a $5,000 purchase
and go through that whole procurement process
when you know they don’t have to, essentially.
I’m going to give a quick plug for, the Unbounce Conversion benchmark report.
If you’re curious to see how your landing pages in your industry compare
to the conversion rates of other, vendors, you should check out that report.
We’ll link it in the show notes.
But let’s continue on.
we talk a lot about conversion rate optimization.
And you say that maybe some marketers
maybe are optimizing on the wrong thing.
Yeah.
And so that’s where I’ll give you an example, which I love using this example.
Snagit was one of the first landing pages.
You know, one of the first companies that I worked with for landing pages.
And we had a product overview page.
We were targeting technical writers,
but looking at it was built on Unbounce.
Not even not even they not even a plug.
It actually was built on Unbounce and it’s still live today.
So the Snagit product overview page opened it up.
We ran 2000 sessions later 15% of the clicks.
So 165 or something like that.
Again, can’t math
165% of the clicks were on the fourth
FAQ of the landing page
hundred. And
so I’m looking at this. I’m like this.
There must be something wrong with this data, right?
No. The fourth FAQ, you had this very interesting question,
which was Snagit was asking users to start a free trial
and their their application you download on the computer.
So it’s not cloud based. Right.
But the the purchase was $60, but it was a lifetime license.
Okay.
Well they’re thinking how many devices. I change devices every couple of years.
Can I transfer my license.
So we saw that people were actually curious about that because I like
I don’t mind buying this,
but then am I going to have to buy it again when I change my computer?
So we move that I made it its own block and we,
you know, talked about this objection.
We’re like, no, you do not whatever 265%
increase in purchases, not even the free trial.
They were like, yeah, I’m good.
You don’t need to sell me on it anymore.
Like I’ll pay the 60 bucks.
So that’s something that conversion data could never give you.
Only heat map data, only session recordings only looking
at these signals of consumption, how are people consuming the information?
My prospective buyers.
Am I giving it to them correctly?
Am I giving it to them in the priority that they care about?
And this is one of those examples where we had an anchor nav
and we saw like 35% of the clicks went from the like, them
clicking on the FAQs, jumping all the way down.
And then 165 of those clicks were on that fourth FAQ.
Consumption signals.
And I think B2C can also do this, but they probably already do. And
but the B2B, we don’t yet.
But this is where it was a huge aha!
moment for me because it was a long landing too.
And I had already bought into the long landing page.
People were consuming it.
I think the averages and this is Unbounce data.
The average, like number of people who get to
the bottom of a page is only 30%.
So some things that I look and optimize for
is am I getting 40% of people going down there?
50% over time?
What’s the density of ICP on this page?
Am I saying the right people and how far down are they consuming stuff?
Are they more interested in the fourth value prop, or
they’re most interested in the fifth FAQ that we now need to make its own block?
You know, collecting some of that qualitative feedback
and making some decisions there and then testing those variations out.
Yeah.
I love the idea of letting B2B marketers know
that optimizing for consumption is fine.
You know, and then conversion.
Whereas with for B2C you probably want to move in quicker for the conversion.
But in B2B it’s a it’s okay to sit back and let them consume
and learn from what they’re consuming.
I mean, B2C understands the multiple touchpoints very well.
You know, you call it the Amazon effect.
That’s how we stole that from them with the retargeting ads.
Right.
You shop for these shoes on Amazon.
Suddenly you’re seeing the shoes everywhere
and you’re like oh my gosh okay I bought the shoes.
Chill out Amazon right.
And so and we do that.
But our retargeting is all like
it’s the same ads, the same ads that we went to collect them,
the same ads we run in retargeting and what you know what I mean.
So that relevancy piece is always missing.
And B2C even understands that it’s going to take multiple touchpoints.
You know, they’re like, okay, people are more informed now.
They’re going to look up reviews of this product elsewhere.
They’re going to look at it.
All of these things and it they understand it better than we understand it.
We treat it the same way we think that it’s going to be.
Someone’s going to convert immediately the first time when B2C is like,
I know that they’re not, it’s at least going to take 2 or 3 touchpoints.
I want them to come back and think about it.
How many times have have you gone shopping, Val, and you’re like,
I don’t need these pair of shoes.
You know what? I’m just going to go home.
If I can’t stop thinking about it
for a couple of days,. I’ll come back and get it right.
We do it all the time.
Yeah.
That’s a great strategy.
You have to realize if you really, really want it.
Exactly.
If it’s an urgent enough problem and an urgent enough desire,
then we’ll come back for it.
But like B2B products don’t have that kind of appeal outside of like,
okay, this would make my team’s life a lot easier or
oh my gosh, my CMS is down,. I wish I had a backup option.
Okay.
Hi Unbounce so you can get set up really quick.
You know, just saying.
Let me finish on this note because. I’ve loved our conversation, by the way.
One thing as a marketer. I know I personally have done, and I
think maybe you’ll let me off the hook a little bit is hyper fixating on,
like, the button color, the button text, the, you know, like how important
it is to say, you know, get my demo or book my demo or schedule me now.
I know as marketers, sometimes we’ll just
hyper focus on various for that type of stuff.
Yeah.
I get that question a lot.
What is your what are the best types of CTAs that you’ve seen?
And I’m like, it’s super simple.
Okay, say what you mean.
And what’s actually going to happen next
if I hit this button that says talk to an expert.
Am I going to talk to an expert?
If I hit this and I get a free trial, am I going to get a free trial?
Right.
If I hit the submit button
does it submit, and then I get a, you know, a report.
Like what?
What happens?
And so something I always tell
them is the CTA matters much less than the block that it’s sitting in,
because the block that it’s sitting in, especially a CTA block,
it should have kind of this outline of here, the next 2 or 3 things
that you can expect to happen if you do give us that information.
So I always try to explain it like this to people, which is
the only leverage a user or
buyer has online is their information.
And they may know in the back of their mind specially,
you know, Unbounce who is selling to marketers.
Marketers know in the back of my mind, my information’s out there.
It’s probably being sold left, right, like, you know, just all day long.
But it’s still my only point of leverage.
And we immediately ask them for that piece of leverage
before we give them anything of value in return.
So something that helps disarm them a little bit is saying, look,
if you submit this form, we will contact you within 24 hours.
We’re going to have a 30 minute discovery call
with one of us, one of the experts on our team.
Third point.
Then we’ll set up a customized demo for you based on your specific use cases.
It’ll be 60 minutes with the solutions engineer. Okay.
They know when they’re going to be contacted.
They know you respected them enough to tell them exactly what’s going to happen.
And then they’re like, okay, fine, and don’t do the dark pattern thing
where you’re like opting them into nurturers and,
you know, you’re gonna be like, unleash the SDRs.
You know, it’s like, like bloodhounds, like they’re coming out of nowhere.
So it’s just, I think it’s that where they always are on the defensive.
And so we’re just kind of disarming them and telling them like a friend, like,
I respect you, I see you, and then the button doesn’t matter
as much as you providing them the value and the reassurance
that they need in order to make that engagement.
Right. So.
I love that being clear about the expectations and what happens next.
Right? Like that just builds trust.
Yes, exactly.
Tas, I feel like I could talk to you for another hour,
but that’s the end of our time together.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Where can folks find you if they want to learn more about your expertise?
Find me on LinkedIn.
I call myself the LinkedIn mullet.
So, I’m business in the front, so all my posts are usually more
on the educational side, and then the comments are a lot more
the party side where I have a lot of fun.
So come there.
Come for the insight, stay for the fun.
Please send me a message if you listen to this and liked it,
I want to talk about anything related to landing pages just to nerd out.
No sales pitch.
And, And I’m happy to do that any time I’m on the platform way too much.
Awesome.
And thanks to everyone for joining us on this episode of Closing Time.
Remember, if you want it delivered right to your inbox,
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And have a great week.. We’ll see you next time.
