Even though I’m sure all of you already know what a landing page is, I will take this short time just to make sure. The landing page is the page within your website that specific traffic is driven to. In other words, it is the page that one of your banner ads points to, or your email campaign, or even your paid search campaign. This landing page can be the same for all your advertising, like your homepage, or it can be targeted to each specific ad. For example, a banner ad selling Porsche parts could drive traffic to the specific page in your site that pertains to Porsche rather than to a page containing car parts of all types. This type of targeting usually results in better conversion, but we’ll get to that later.
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Obviously, your paid search marketing can and should benefit from this landing page targeting. Each of your search terms should be pointing to a specific page that pertains to the topic the search term represents. When someone searches for Porsche parts, the URL that appears should drive them (no pun intended) to the Porsche page. This is all very basic and I’m sure most of you have already implemented this logic.
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The remainder of this article will cover, specifically, the issues of landing page conversion with respect to paid search engine marketing.
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You hear the expressions “landing page conversion??? and site conversion, but what do they mean exactly? The terms refer to the percentage of visitors driven to a landing page, or to your site, who convert to customers. For instance, let’s say our search campaign drove 1,000 people interested in Porsche parts to our Porsche page, and 10 of them ended up placing an order. That would be a conversion rate of 1% due in part to the landing page and in part to the site, including shopping carts, design and navigation. It’s not exactly rocket science. Common sense would tell us that the higher the conversion rate, the better. And that’s true.
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But how important is the conversion rate? It’s obviously important because it increases the pull of your advertising and lowers the cost of customer acquisition. But it is especially important when it comes to your search advertising. In paid search, you are competing for qualified traffic in a real-time auction. The amount you or your competitors can afford to pay for a click is determined by the gross profits which that click will produce. The better your conversion rate, the more revenue you produce per click. The more revenue you produce, the higher you are able to bid for that keyword and the more traffic you’ll receive. You can now see that search advertising is a zero-sum game. Someone will win and someone will lose, and the winning marketer will be the one with the highest landing page conversion rate.
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Given that the appropriateness of the landing page has a huge impact on overall conversion, how can you make sure you’re using the best landing page for the job, in order to maximize that conversion rate? It’s through a process called A/B testing (or more sophisticated Darwinian testing for high traffic pages).
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Here’s how it works (At least this is how my company, Did-it.com does it):? Our client, sometimes with our help, will design a number of different landing pages. They may have different looks or even different offers. We put them in a round-robin rotation, driving an equal percentage of the inbound traffic to each one of the pages. We then track the actual conversion rate each page is producing. A report is generated at the end of the test period, which summarizes the results. If one of the landing page designs performs better for a particular keyword, the traffic can be permanently directed to that page. In fact, our system can even be programmed to pick the best landing page design for each keyword listing automatically, and redirect to it. That’s true landing page optimization. It all sounds pretty simple. And if you use a capable system or professional services firm to set up and do the work, you should be fine. Without the right tools, however, it could be a nightmare. For instance, just randomly distributing the traffic requires some know-how. In addition, landing page conversion rates often change throughout a 24-hour day. One page may work better at night and another during the day. Any system you choose has got to be able to track these differences and take advantage of them. You can see that to get the most out of your campaign can be a difficult chore without professional help.
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So what will be the ultimate benefit of a good landing page testing program? It may be fantastic success in the search marketplace, or merely the ability to survive in the jungle of high paid placement bids. Either way, an inefficient campaign that loses money and misses opportunity is never an option. Take a fresh look at your site and your landing pages.

By Dave Pasternack

Many people do extensive product research online but end up buying from brick and mortar retailers. How can you track the effectiveness of search marketing campaigns that result in offline purchases?
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A special report from the Search Engine Strategies conference, August 2-5, 2004, San Jose, CA. Many search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns can drive offline sales of products or services. In this session, attendees learned about the different types of offline responses, and how to set up and track the various steps in the research and purchase (conversion) process.
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Types of offline responses
“In the online and offline world, impressions are mostly delivered by the ad agency,” said Glenn Alsup, President of Viewmark. “Responses are figured from the online and offline mechanisms, which are segmented by us, the search engine marketer.”
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Alsup presented the different types of offline responses, which he segmented into three different areas:

• Discreet landing page
• Process landing page
• Redirection program

“A discreet landing page allows you to create a page specifically for that piece,” said Alsup. “It’s pretty straightforward - site owners can count the number of visitors who land on that specific page.”
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A process landing page has multiple offline campaigns direct to a single page. “One example is a magazine that has a subscription renewal,” he explained. “Visitors go to the process landing page and type a priority code, which can be used for many different magazines and campaigns. In addition, site owners can get customer information from in a survey.”
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A redirection program is similar to what you might see inside a Dell catalogue. The catalogue will drive site visitors to a program, which in turn redirects them to a different page.
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“We try to correlate offline actions to the online driver, e.g., placing a cookie with a unique I.D. (back to each marketing driver),” he said. “For example, on an ecommerce site, once a product is selected a confirmation e-mail can be sent with customer ID. The offline salesperson can take the data and import it back into the online drivers.”
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“The better you can segment the stages of online and offline conversions, the better you’ll be able to determine ROI down in your sales funnel,” he concluded.
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Search engine advertising campaigns
According to iMedia, between 70% and 90% of all consumers buying “high consideration” products begin their research online, and then purchase offline.
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“This shows that a client who starts online and converts offline tends to be more valuable of a client/customer,” said Patricia Hursh, President, SmartSearch Marketing. “A Web site offers a choice, where you can purchase online or dial. People who pick up the phone are fairly serious about a transaction. Others may end up being delayed conversions.”
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“In order to justify online ad spending we as marketers many times must show the positive impact it has on offline sales,” said Steve Schepke, Co-CEO at Meandaur.
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“Most of our clients are very focused on their immediate, measurable cost-per-conversion, both online and off. This purely direct-marketing approach can be somewhat short-sighted,” Hursh added. “For this reason, as part of our results reporting, we also explain the benefits they are receiving in the areas of brand awareness, market positioning, and delayed customer acquisition.”
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Both Hursh and Schepke presented case studies in which search engine advertising increased traffic and conversion rates. For homeopathic cold-remedy site, Hursh recommended the following three-step approach:

• Create a unique landing page for search advertising
• Establish an 800 number, accessible only from this landing page
• Track sales generated by the 800 number

Another option is to create a unique landing page for each ad provider (one landing page for Google AdWords, one for Overture, and one for FindWhat). Conversion tracking can be done by measuring the incoming 800-number calls or the customer reference code.
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Schepke also uses the 800-number approach for his clients. “The primary use for some Web sites is for lead generation,” he said. “User information, including telephone number, can be gathered from a form on the site. An 800-number was used to track inbound calls. The actual sales conversion might happen only at physical center location through sales pitch.”
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The number of phone calls can increase by placing the 800 number prominently throughout a Web site. “By putting our 800 number on the Web site, we received a much higher rate of call-ins than originally estimated,” said Schepke. “And these leads were of much higher quality as well, better than the leads from the online form.”
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“For one of her clients, Hursh calculated that nearly 3 out of every 10 sales from online exposure were being fulfilled offline. However, the 800-number/PPC campaign also resulted in an online sales increase of 73%. “Calculating your true cost-per-order allows you to optimize your campaign more accurately and compete more effectively,” she said.
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Hursh used a different approach with a childcare centre Web site, since they could not implement the 800-number strategy. “People research local childcare options online,” she explained, but all enrolments occur offline.” For this campaign, she followed this three-step approach:

• Implement periodic, non-consecutive search advertising campaigns
• Try to run campaigns when other marketing efforts are at a minimum
• Correlate search ad spend with Web site statistics and overall centre registration data

Search campaigns correlated with 157% increase in site visitors and a 78% increase in leads. In this particular case study, search advertising delivered the lowest cost/lead of any other marketing channel, she said.
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Hursh also recommended that site owners not ignore delayed conversions. “Remember that it usually takes about 2.5 correspondences with a customer before actually closing a sale,” she concluded. “That means a lot more people could convert on a delayed basis than on an immediate basis.”

By Grant Crowell