4 Tips for Facebook Ad and Landing Page Combos for Better Conversions

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Have you been disappointed with Facebook Ad click-through rates? Are you wondering why your landing page conversion rate is so poor?

In this article I’ll take a look at four Facebook advertisements and their corresponding landing pages. I’ll tell you how you can be sure the two are optimized and working together to convert.

I’ll examine product promotion through a discount, promoting a white-paper or E-Book, retargeting your promotion, and promoting your contest. This will give you the full range of ad and landing page design combos to learn from.

1. Product Promotion with Discount


I recommend advertising on Facebook with a discount or coupon as it sets you apart from other ads. Remember users aren’t on Facebook to shop, nor are they searching for your products. Discounts give users an incentive to click. ClearlyContacts has used a discount with their ‘FREE Designer Glasses’ advertisement below.

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What I like:

  • Offering a discount to first-time customers: Discounts and coupons are useful when advertising on Facebook. They set your advertisement apart and increase your Click-Through-Rate
  • Using the word ‘Free’: It’s no surprise that words like ‘free’ increase engagement. I also like that they highlighted it (twice!)

What I’d Change or Test:

  • A model: I would definitely recommend putting a face behind the glasses. In my article 4 Ways to Combat Facebook Ads Fatigue I discussed the importance of an image, and how recent studies have found the face of a happy woman to be the best picture for ad engagement.

The landing page:

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What I Like:

  • The design: Black and white create a very clean, professional landing page. The layout is great with the main image and title slightly off-center, the three CTA’s below, and the sidebar on the left.
  • The ‘Refine By’ sidebar :The ‘Refine By’ drop-down options on the sidebar increase will increase their conversion rate. It shows they have more to offer than just free glasses.
  • Three clear CTAs: Step 1, 2 and 3 are all great CTA’s that not only encourage conversion, but also tell people how to get the discount.

What I’d change or test:

Removing the top navigation bar: Landing pages should be focused. You don’t want to give visitors the easy option of doing anything but the main action you’ve provided.

Why they’re good together:

  • The same image: Creating congruity between your advertisement and your landing page is key to conversion. There should be no confusion that your ad link has sent a potential customer to the wrong place.
  • The same text: Repeating ‘get the first pair free’ continues the congruity and integration of the advertisement and landing page

2. Promoting a White-paper or E-Book


Facebook is a great place to promote E-Books, Guides and White-Papers. With Facebook Power Editor you can target your audience by interests, profession, location, age and gender. This gives you fantastic control over who sees your advertisement, which works well for B2B and Facebook marketing to professionals. Here’s an example from Marin Software:

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What I like:

  • A clear value proposition: This advertisement offers top tips to drive ROI, awareness and revenue – creating a clear value proposition tempting to its target audience of marketing professionals.

What I’d Change or test

  • Changing the image to a person or image: Including text in your advertisement’s image goes directly against Facebook Ads best practice, which is to keep your image eye-catching, simple, and without text.
  • A CTA as the title: I’d definitely test ‘Get the ROI Guide’ instead of their business name as the header. This would draw attention far more than ‘Marin Software’ does.
  • Their business name in the text: I’d recommend “Marin Software gives you top tips…” in the ad write-up rather than the headline.
  • “Free”: Like we saw above with ClearlyContacts, using the word ‘Free’ could increase engagement. If you are offering a free guide, service, or a discount, definitely let people know.

The landing page:

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What I like:

  • The simple layout: This is a very simple and effective landing page format. The entry form clear and large on the right side, a great CTA, and an obvious title leave nothing to the imagination. I also like the lack of unnecessary distractions. They know their target audience is marketing professionals and they design for that demographic.
  • The clear CTA: Orange is one of the best colors for landing page CTAs: it contrasts with almost everything and catches the eye fantastically.
  • The entry form: Knowing information like phone numbers, job title and (especially) monthly search marketing spend is extremely valuable for Marin Software’s email marketing and lead nurturing.
  • The bullet-point ‘Download to Learn’ breakdown: Giving business-people a quick and easy breakdown of what your E-book offers is vital to encouraging them to download.

What I’d change or Test:

  • The colors: I’d test a different color font, as the dark grey on light grey is difficult to read.
  • The Header: I’d test matching the ‘Get the white paper’ header at the top of the entry form to the same orange as the CTA button below. Once again, it’s difficult to read and you want it to stand out.
  • The CTA : I’d A/B test different wording for the CTA, as ‘Submit’ doesn’t jump out at me.

Why they’re good together:

  • Cohesion: The color scheme, font, and language (Top Tips for Building Awareness and Driving Revenue) match – creating a cohesive feel to the campaign.
  • The value proposition: The advertisement communicates a value proposition well which, despite a somewhat lackluster appearance, does the job of encouraging click-through to the landing page.
  • The landing page: The landing page is good: it’s simple, designed for marketing professionals, with a great entry form and a clear CTA.

How I’d optimize the two:

Test the landing page CTA : I’d like to see the split test results of ‘Get the Guide’ vs ‘Submit.’ ‘Get the Guide’ would match the advertisement and may convert better, lowering the campaign’s Cost Per Action (whether that’s CPC, CPM or oCPM) more than ‘Submit’.

3. Re-Targeting a Lead


What is Re-Targeting?

Re-targeting is the ability to automatically advertise to a specific Facebook user after they have completed a set action.

Here’s an example of how it could work:

  • You run an advertisement driving people to download your E-Book or white paper (see above)
  • A Facebook user clicks your advertisement and trafficks to your landing page but doesn’t download.
  • Because you’ve placed a Conversion Pixel on your landing page, Facebook (and you) can specifically retarget the same user on their News Feed, prompting them to convert.

The action you’ve set could be anything, from clicking on a product or viewing an online webinar to placing something in an online shopping cart. For more information about Conversion Pixels (they’re seriously awesome) I recommend Jon Loomer’s guide.

One of the main providers of automated Retargeting is Adroll, a website I visited several weeks ago. As I triggered one of their own conversion pixels, I have since been receiving advertisements like the below on my Facebook News Feed.

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What I like:

  • Including an impressive business statistic: Statistics like “our average customer earns $10 for every $1 spent” are a great use of ad space. Remember this works just as well for white-papers, press releases and E-Books.

What I’d change or test:

  • Different colors: I’d test a different colored border for the image. Facebook’s own color scheme is light blue and white, and testing a more eye-catching (red or green) border might prove effective with click-through
  • The image text: Once again I’d recommend taking the text out of the main image. While the logo is great I’d definitely test rotating this advertisement with a picture to really grab the eye.

The landing page:

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What I like:

  • Multiple CTAs:   Including ‘Try it Out’ and ‘Start your Free Trial’ (as well as another within the video player) is a great way to decrease your CPA.
  • If you are going to include multiple CTA’s make sure they’re differently worded and far apart like AdRoll’s above.
  • The image of Adam Berke (AdRoll’s president): Putting a face to the company is a good marketing move. AdRoll is a big company and this personalizes it.

What I’d Change or Test:

  • More information before I click the video: If I’d come organically from Facebook (rather than being retargeted) I wouldn’t know much about what AdRoll does. I’d like to see some more statistics or a few bullet-points about how they can work for my business before I have to click the video.
  • Removing the top navigation options: Again, this distracts from the point of the landing page. Everything about your landing page should be focused on a single action (in this case starting a free trial).

Why they’re good together:

  • Cohesion: Once again we’re seeing great color scheme and logo matching
  • Lack of repetition: I’m actually glad they haven’t repeated the ‘10 dollars for every 1 dollar’ statistic within the landing page. It served its purpose catching my eye in the ad and repeating it would feel like it’s all they have to brag about. Instead they’ve referred to the 8,000 brands who’ve chosen AdRoll (peer pressure is a great motivator in advertising)

4. Contest Promotion


Facebook is the best place to run a contest online. Like-Gating (which London Drugs has done below) is a great way to increase your Facebook Reach and Edgerank. London Drugs has increased their Facebook Fanbase from 5,000 to 80,000 since they began running contests in November 2012.

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What I like:

  • The image: London Drugs has taken advantage of the ‘happy woman’ image which testsso well (in fact, they have four). Smiling groups are a great option for a News Feed advertisement. A sidebar ad (this is in the News Feed) would cut it down to the main woman on the right, and be very effective as well.
  • The Like-Gate: Running a contest with a Like-Gating
    Facebook Contest App
    is simply the easiest way (within Facebook’s promotional guidelines) to increase Likes for your Facebook page.
  • The CTA: ‘Like us for your chance to win’ is one of the best CTA’s out there. It gets immediately to the value proposition, and tells people exactly what they need to do.
  • Product placement: Six random smiling models wouldn’t create the same effect as six models illustrating some of London Drugs’ main selling points: photography, make up, pharmacy, kitchen utensils and school supplies.

The landing page:

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What I like:

  • Recurring contests: This contest is number three of three – giving Facebook users three chances to win. And although the prize is the same ($250 gift card), the themes are different: in this case Fall for Fashion, Fall for Home, and Fall for Tech. This keeps people interested and also illustrates the products London Drugs has on offer.
  • The Prize: Gift cards are my favorite prize for Facebook contests. Remember that contests are about boosting engagement with your brand, both during and after the contest has ended. Using a brand-related prize (like a gift card or product) ensures people who engage are actually interested in your services.
  • Theme-based contests: Capitalizing on what people are thinking about (holidays, seasons, back-to-school, sporting events) is a great way to increase participation
  • The orange Call-to-Action (CTA) button: Using a contrasting color for your button really works to pop it out and catch the eye. The last thing you want to do is blend your CTA into the background
  • Showing who’s Entered: A little bit of peer-pressure never hurt in a contest. Including the number of people who have already entered encourages others to engage as well.
  • Making it easy to share: Including ‘Send’, ‘Recommend’, ‘+1’, Tweet and ‘Pin-it’ buttons increase the virality of your content by 700%.

Why they’re good together:

  • Running an ad for a contest is similar to an E-Book, but it has the added element of “a chance to win”.
  • Both your advertisement and landing page copy can utilize ‘chance to win’ to drive conversions
  • There’s really no better value proposition than ‘you can win this awesome prize.’

And as an added benefit, the chance to win a prize also drives more sharing between friends than an E-Book or sale.

Conclusion


Creating a great ad in conjunction with a great landing page is how you convert your Facebook Fans to customers. Even better if you redirect clicks on the Ads to a Facebook landing page. For online retailers, try implementing a conversion pixel on your product pages and shopping cart. E-Book producers, remember to include a value proposition (statistic or top-tip) within your advertisement and landing page. If you’re considering running a contest, I recommend talking to a third-party provider and getting some advice before jumping in.

For all advertisement/landing page integration, remember that less is more. Choose a great picture and CTA, keep your text to the point, and watch the engagement roll in.

Further Reading:

Now it’s your turn. Have you had success integrating Facebook ads and landing pages? Start the conversation below.

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