Thanks,
Matt
direct to the order/application form...Or would it be better to have a small few paragraphs of teaser/informational writing on the service?
I'd stick them both on the same page. :)
Yes that's what I was thinking as well!
And regarding split testing could you point me in the direction of how to do that?
Much Appreciated!
Matt
Do you adwords specialists reckon it's ok to direct adwords 'clickers' direct to the order/application form (without giving out details) it's no cost to fill out the form... A good strategy?
Disclaimer: The following just my personal opinion, but it seems to have been borne out in a conversation or two with advertisers. ;)
I think that many users will be turned-off if they click on an ad and have to sign up for something, before being given any substantive information about what they searched on.
Speaking for myself, I would immediately hit the back button without taking a second glance. No questions asked, and no possiblity of earning my business.
Given a recent conversation with an advertiser with really excellent targeting, well written ads, lots of impressions, a very good CTR - and NO business at all, I can only imagine that others feel the same way.
(For the record, clicking on his ads landed the user on a page that gave no info at all beyond a logo, and asked for a fair amount of personal info, including required fields for both a work and home phone, before being allowed (free) access to his site. And no one was choosing to do it.)
I often advise advertisers to pretend they know nothing at all about their business, as an excercise. Then take a fresh look at their ad, and the site it links to. As someone who knows nothing about your business, would you do business with the site you are taken to?
As I said, just my $0.02. ;)
AWA
I initially provided the information the client was looking for, then requested they sign up for the next step. My stats looked like this:
100 clicks
100% of the clicks viewed the information.
2-3% went to the second step and signed up.
40-50% of those closed.
So that's say 1 to 2 closes per 100 clicks.
Now I force them to sign up before they get the info. My numbers look like this:
100 clicks
25-30% sign up for the info. (Horrors! almost 80% of my traffic hit the back button! Do I care? Nope. But this was a big hurdle for me).
20% of those then buy.
So that's 5-6 sales per 100 clicks.
Nevertheless, I believe conventional wisdom says to give them a teaser on the landing page, then second page is the signup. But that didn't work for me either.
With all due respect to AWA, in the niche market I work in, I followed the same train of thought for years and refused to deviate. However after being hammered by a couple of knowledgeable customers I tried a different tact - and was proven dramatically wrong.
I am arriving to this forum a bit later than usual today! (cough)
Anyway, wheel, I am totally delighted to be proven 'wrong', whenever it means that something counter to conventional wisdom has worked well for an advertiser.
More power to you!
AWA
Often if the signup page is for things that people are use to giving their info for (insurance quotes, real estate contacts, etc) then the signup pages have a good fill rate. If it's something like a software download then such a page often doesn't work.
Split test everything. It's possible to find keywords that are very industry specific and the people want the info before contacts, and the more general keywords for the same industry - a contact page landing form works well.
Google makes it easy to split test using both ads and power posting - just make sure you make note of what is going where so when you run and organize reports, your data is easy to read and tell what you are actually testing.
