What?
Yes, you read that right. Don't run ads to landing pages.
For years we've been taught to use landing pages which continue the conversation from the ad. It worked like magic for me for years but like anything, trends change.
People are tired of having to enter their name and email address to be able to read the content. It felt like we were being tricked because we were enticed by the ad that piqued our interest only to end up on a landing page requiring us to enter our name and email address to see the content.
At the Traffic and Conversion Summit in San Diego, both Ryan Deiss and Justin Brooke (two of the top traffic experts in the world) revealed that they run most of their ads directly to the content, not requiring the opt in. This starts building a level of trust with the reader because they're providing a great user experience. The viewer gets to read excellent content with no commitment on their part.
What happens next is the magic.
On Justin's content page (not a landing page), he has a widget on the left side promoting a free one hour training video. After the reader consumes his excellent article, they often want more excellent content. They click on the widget where they are redirected to a landing page where they do have to fill out their name and email address to view the free one hour training.
Opt in rates are significantly higher that sending cold traffic to a landing page because there is a level of trust after letting them consume excellent content without opting in.
They also add a pixel on the article page which lets them build a Facebook custom audience and a remarketing audience on the Google Display Network. This lets them build audiences they can market to for a fraction of the cost of running ads directly to a landing page. These audiences are also highly targeted because they create a separate audience for each topic. A brilliant strategy!
Want more traffic tips from the Traffic and Conversion Summit? For a limited time, you can get the complete set of notes from every session here
