Most advertisers drop the ad message at the exact place where a consumer enters a site. Stop doing that immediately.
In previous articles, we have written about how using small areas of media on a site (or client’s site) can emphasize the ad or campaign that originally drove a customer to the site for improved conversions. We advocate the use of “free media,” or content slots which a client turns over to you for advertising its own products.
Here, we walk you through “their” way. Then, we show you how our way looks:
Example #1. “Their” way
The electronics retailer Circuit City is currently displaying a banner ad at the top of the MySpace home page.
The ad (below) is yellow with the red Circuit City circle, and the message, “Save up to 15% on home audio.” The colors and message are both relatively compelling.
A customer clicks. He is taken to the Home Theater category page within the site (below). The page has no connection to the ad he just clicked. Nowhere is the 15% off home audio repeated. However, there is a box that claims “Save up to 15% on all home theater systems” (a brand new offer).
Hoping to get back to the “15% off on home audio,” he clicks on “all receivers” next to the new offer. He is taken to a Home Audio Receivers and Amplifiers category page (below). All traces of any offer are gone. He gives up in frustration.
Example #2. Our way
Now, imagine this: He clicks on the yellow banner with the “Save up to 15% on home audio” message.
He lands on the Home Theater category page, as before. This time, instead of the box in the center of the page with a totally new and perhaps irrelevant message (Save up to 15% on all home theater systems), he sees a box that repeats the original message: Save up to 15% on home audio.
The original message is repeated because the client has given that small space on the page over to the agency, which has simply overlaid the existing content with new content, strictly for people clicking through from the MySpace ad.
Now, feeling comfortable that he’s in the right place, he clicks on “all receivers.” Again, he is taken to the Home Audio Receivers and Amplifiers category page, but this time there’s a banner at the top that again repeats his message: Save up to 15% on home audio.
Confident that he’s still in the right place, he clicks on Sherwood Stereo Receiver. And there, not only does he see the original message repeated again, but he sees that the price on the receiver, $99.99, has been reduced by $10 to $89.99.
It’s exactly what he was hoping for. He continues on to the purchase.
The campaign that was done “their” way landed the customer on a category page on which he had no idea where -- or whether -- he was going to find his discount. In fact, he had to click through two category pages, running strictly on faith, before he found the discount on the product page. But, as you have seen, he bailed before he got there.
With just a bit of free media from the client (Circuit City, in this case), the offer continues to draw the customer through the sales funnel.
It’s simple. It works. Do this, now.