Here's the Perfect Landing Page
Today In Digital Marketing is a daily podcast showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. This week, Tod touches on:
Discovery Pushing CPMs Up
Google's Loyalty Program Live?
The Perfect Landing Page
TikTok: The New Quibi?
Pinterest Buys Fashion AI
Amazon Retail Head Leaving
Below is the transcription from this weeks topics
Discovery Pushing CPMs Up
Wait, I thought more suppliers were supposed to increase competition and drive down prices?
The newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery apparently didn't get that memo. Reports say they've taken an aggressive stance at the upfronts and pricing their CPMs up to 25% higher than equivalent ad placements went for in the past.
Quoting MarketingDive:
The former Discovery Inc. has been selling a “premiere” package since its 2018 acquisition of Scripps Networks, giving advertisers the opportunity to purchase premium ad slots at higher CPMs.
In exchange, Discovery promised advertisers a reach equivalent to broadcast and access to millennial households and mobile viewers. The bundle was priced between broadcast and cable prime at the time...
So how does that compare with other online ad platforms? Surprisingly, that might be more or less in line with the industry averages.
According to Revealbot.com, Facebook's CPMs are up about 21% compared to a year ago.
Google's Loyalty Program Live?
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about a new Google Shopping Ad feature that would integrate your loyalty program directly in Google Search.
Often, these things are announced, and then we don't see them in the real world for months or years.
Well, this one might be already out there.
SERoundtable.com reports that some people are seeing it on retailer ads, like Target.
The way it shows up is as small text underneath the brand name — sort of like a sitelink extension. It's a little oddly worded — it says "Link to see benefits on Google," so this might still be a test.
When you click More, it opens a little panel showing the loyalty program benefits.
When Google announced this a couple of weeks back it explained it like this:
First, you’ll be able to easily integrate your loyalty programs in Merchant Center, so that your free listings can display loyalty benefits to the existing program members that opted-in to see them.
Second, we’re starting to roll out the ability for advertisers to attract new loyalty members when they use Performance Max campaigns for online sales with a product feed. Using Customer Match, you’ll upload your loyalty lists to advertise your programs to potential new loyalty members only.
The Perfect Landing Page
There are a lot of moving pieces in selling something — the ad, of course, but arguably the more important piece is what happens after the click. For many brands, they’re not trying to get a purchase, they want completion of a lead form.
And how that landing page is designed can make or break a campaign.
Earlier this week, I spoke with Bob Sparkins of the popular landing page builder Leadpages and asked him for all the secrets — what the “perfect” landing page looks like.
BOB: First of all, the perfect landing page has to be able to communicate quickly to the perfect person on the other side of the computer. So if you have a mismatch between what you're saying and who's seeing it, that's obviously going to hurt you.
Hero Image
It needs to click within two seconds. That means a great hero image.
A great hero image means something that relates to the viewer, not to the expert who's selling something or to the company. Most companies make the mistake of showcasing their brand with a huge logo, or with a picture of their team, or whatever. Instead, the perfect hero image is going to reflect the positive outcome that the person who is viewing that page is going to have from whatever they get from your offer.
TOD: Can you give me an example? Let's say that it's a supplement product or something like that; what would be a good hero image for that?
BOB: Somebody who is in shape, or preferably two or three people that are in shape, they're enjoying their life, they're likely outdoors, or they have energy in some particular way that the supplements assumingly have given them.
It's not going to be a big picture of the bottle; it's not going to be somebody who's tired and lethargic. It's the outcome that people will see, not the state of their current existence.
The Headline
Perfect length is going to be seven to 12 words. Now, obviously, a sub headline can be you know, 15 to 30 words, preferably short as well. Think about writing from that seventh to ninth grade level
It's about emotional copy that speaks to the desired result of the person on the other side; it's not "I have this product for sale"... [Instead, it's] "You want the end result, then keep reading."
Body Copy
TOD: Okay, so let's talk body copy. There's really two schools of thought, I think. There's the short and punchy, and and then there's the Ogilvy method, which is to just dump everything into seemingly endless long page. At LeadPages, you've got access to a ton of data. Which of those two performed better?
BOB: We always find that the shorter the landing page outperforms the longer landing pages. As far as products that are under $200... people don't need that much information to decide.
If you have a $1,000 or $5,000 product, then you're going to need to explain a little bit more about why the value of what you offer is worth the price that you're paying....
If you are a really good copywriter and can sit to tell a good story, then you're able to tell that over a longer period of time, but always try to trim always try to concise.
The Form
TOD: Let's talk about the form. Best practices have been: the fewer the number of fields, the better. Does that still hold true? What's the tipping point where the number of people who don't complete it starts to rise? How many fields is that tipping point?
BOB: From one field to two fields is a minor drop off. From two to three fields, a little bit more. Three to four drops off significantly.
So what I ask your readers to do is think about what's the most critical information that they need in order to continue the conversation. And what's the most obvious information that a person on the other side would be willing to give to you.
If you are a real estate agent and you're doing a home value quote or some kind, it makes sense to have an address right or a zip code at least, it also makes sense to have a phone number.
But if you're asking people for an email to get to download a checklist or a guide of some kind, then an email alone is fine.
The other side of this though, is if you want a more qualified lead, then feel free to ask for more information just to weed out some of the tire kickers that might otherwise be looking at your information.
But even if you're selling something on your landing page, consider if you need their shipping address or can you just get away with their zip code in order to charge appropriately the credit card?
A lot of people do ask for way too much information and usually you can have people opt in or buy something with as minimal information as possible. Then on a second or third communication, say, "Hey, I'd love to get a little bit more information about you or your business," or your company or whatever the case may be. And you send them to a subsequent form for more progressive profiling, but shorter, the better.
The Button
TOD: Finally, what I think is kind of the Dark Horse of landing pages: the button. What is the right colour of the button?
BOB: The colour [should] contrast with the background and shouldn't be jarring, but it should stand out clearly.
We do find different industries use different colours, effectively blues and darker greens for SaSS, oranges and yellows and reds for a little bit more emotionally driven copy.
But the most important thing is that it stands out. So if you have a colour that's part of your brand, be consistent and keep using that same colour.
Make sure, though, that that colour is not used all the way throughout the page, except for the call to action. And if you have more than one call to action button, which I wouldn't recommend most people do, but if you're skilled at it, make sure it has no colour, and use a line around a line button instead of a flat button.
Bob Sparkins is a marketing manager at Leadpages — their site is leadpages.com. They also have a podcast called The Lead Management podcast.
TikTok: The New Quibi?
Remember when this upstart company called Quibi used $1.7 billion dollars to try to make a business out of original TV shows that fit vertically on a phone? And remember when they gave up and sold their entire catalog to Roku for less than $100 million?
Well now, a new company is trying it out — but this one might actually work.
And that's because that company is TikTok.
Hollywood Reporter is reporting that TikTok is about to launch an original eight-episode comedy series, which users will be able to subscribe to for $4.99 for the season.
Yes, $5 for one season of one show.
Episodes will be 30 minutes long and could get people used to watching longer video there. Already, the platform accepts videos as long as 10 minutes. Longer videos are more monetizable, as that gives more opportunity for mid-rolls.
Pinterest Buys Fashion AI
Pinterest has bought AI platform The Yes.
The Yes enables users to shop a personalized feed based on their active input on brand, size and style...
[It has] an extensive fashion taxonomy that combines human expertise and machine learning to power its algorithm, and Pinterest said its brand relationships and shopping expertise can potentially be applied in other categories, such as beauty, food and home.
They didn't say how much they paid, and the deal is expected to close in Q2.
Pinterest says it plans to close The Yes's existing app and web site once that happens.
Amazon Retail Head Leaving
Dave Clark, Amazon’s head of the company's worldwide consumer business, is resigning effective July 1st. He has been with Amazon for 23 years. The company says Clark is resigning to “pursue other opportunities" and plans to have an update on the search for his successor in the coming weeks.
Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today In Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com