Great creative, perfect placement, your new interactive campaign is a slam-dunk.
Except that from the customer's point of view, you copped out. Like countless others before you, you focused on perfecting the first click -- the ad impression -- and ignored the next 15-50 clicks that it takes to close the sale.
Customers see no relevant distinction between the ad and the site. To them, the ad and the site serve the same purpose: to get something done. So why do marketers continue to feel that an ad is just the first step in branding and promotion, and that the site is someone else's problem?
Imagine a motivated online shopper searching for a comforter by keyword. Your ad sounds promising; she clicks. From the landing page, it takes her 27 more clicks and 13 field entries (40 interactions!) to find the comforter of her dreams and complete the purchase.
Now imagine that she's also eating her lunch, answering the telephone, and overseeing her kids. She's high-intentioned -- she wants that comforter! -- but distractibility is also high. Each of those 40 interactions, particularly the ones she may find unnecessary, is another chance to lose her.
So let's do the math: one point for executing the ad perfectly and convincing the customer to click once. Zero credit for the rest, because you relinquished responsibility for the subsequent 27 clicks she has to slog through. Final grade: 4%. You signed your name to the top of the page and turned in a blank term paper.
You and I know it's likely that the person responsible for writing the ad that appeared on Google did not in any way control the layout or sequence of the store. We know that IT can make it challenging to make content changes and impossible to make changes to navigation and forms.
But the customer doesn't care how your company is organized. The customer has never spent a second thinking about the inherent restrictions of your affiliate relationships. She wanted to accomplish a task. When you take responsibility for only one tiny part, making that task more difficult for her to accomplish, you are spending money and falling short.
Claiming that you do the advertising, and that the site is someone else's problem, is so 1990's. Instead, make certain that your creative brief at least takes note of the site itself. Don't limit yourself to "what page do I link to?" Push harder.
Ask whether the layout and copy on the mortgage application, for example, is appropriately tuned to the 18- to 35-year-old women that you are acquiring through an affiliate relationship. Should the first question really be "Social Security Number," or could you wait to ask that one? Do you need all of the information that you are asking for? And are you considering what links the target customer is most likely to click on?
You can't change every point of interaction within a visitor's session -- and even if you could, many changes wouldn't make a difference (the high-intentioned buyer generally doesn't care about the color of your buttons or the font of your headline).
But you can at least step out of the nineties by taking control of one or two interactions. Choose those that will streamline your visitor's session and reduce opportunities for distraction -- and you're likely to stay one giant leap ahead of your competitors.