Just how powerful is message match?

Message match helps establish and build trust between your brand and your web visitors as they click their way through your online marketing campaign. And that trust, with help from LiveBall, is powerful enough to double your conversion rates.

SmartSearch Marketing knew that people were looking for their client’s product using certain keywords. Yet, despite the traffic being sent to their client’s microsite, most of these visitors weren’t taking action on the site let alone converting into leads. Since they knew their keyword terms were generating interest, they could reasonably assume that somehow their landing page message wasn’t connecting with their ads or visitors. So SmartSearch developed a strategy using dynamic keyword insertion and LiveBall’s dynamic content substitution tool to ensure that the keyword that led a prospect to their ad was also prominently displayed on the landing page. The result? They quickly saw conversion rates increase from 0% to 16%.

Aligning marketing messages all the way from the search query to the landing page content helps keep a prospect’s attention, because each part of the experience is relevant to searcher. In addition to keeping their attention, it builds their trust with you and your brand and encourages them to act on your call to action. Dynamic content substitution allowed SmartSearch to further align their marketing message by using the keywords that their prospects were actually using.

Typically, a high bounce rate (over 50%) is a red flag for message mismatch. However, the best way to avoid message mismatch is to create online marketing experiences with a consistent, simple message in mind.

As you create new campaigns and review older ones, ask yourself these three questions:

  1. Are you delivering on your promises? If you promised something in your ad copy – a free white paper or a discount – make sure your landing page clearly directs your visitors on how they can get the promised item.
  2. If you are using an image in your ad, is the same image used again on the landing page? Even if it has very little do to with the ad copy, visual consistency also helps establish familiarity and, ultimately, trust.
  3. Does your landing page copy mirror the exact words and phrases used in your ad and your keywords? Also ask where and how dynamic content substitution could help to further increase the message match between your landing page and keywords you are targeting.

It’s one thing to discuss the importance of message match, but to see it in action is pretty remarkable.