“Easy Peasy Japanesey”
- Brooks, The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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• write embedded links so that visitors could reliably tell where they would land after the jump
• explicitly state what would happen as a result of filling out and submitting a lead form (we’ll contact you by e-mail), along with what wound’t happen (we won’t sell your information or bother you by phone), as well
• ensure that the look and feel of the landing page, website, and check out flow all matched up with no major disconnects,
• and you’d be sure to ask for the minimum commitment necessary: don’t label the button “Buy now” when “add to cart” more accurately represents what will happen after the click.

The goal was to relieve e-commerce and website anxiety by clearly setting and meeting expectations with each click and every micro-conversion. Amazon.com was especially good at this, and we can see the extent to which they took this practice by this old screenshot of their “add to cart” button, which not only employed the “add to cart” label, but also added two other reassurances:

1. The “You can always remove it later” reassurance
2. and the “Shopping with us is Safe” guarantee/Point of Action Assurance

Of course, Amazon tested this religiously, and changed their shopping buttons a half dozen times at least in recent memory, but they continued to keep the “You can always cancel it later” parenthetical remark through 3-4 iterations.  Meaning that that reassurance continued to positively impact sales until fairly recently.

So what does all this have to do with Facebook Ads?

Because Facebook and clicking on Facebook advertising is fraught with many of the same anxieties earlier stage ecommerce faced, the same reassurances and best practices are still at play — i.e., you violate them at your own peril.

Here’s an example:

Now, a few simple questions:

What does this ad image show?  A classic, cut-it-out-of-the-paper style coupon.  And what does the headline say? “PRINT Your Coupons Here.”  So what do you think the vast majority of prospects will expect to see when they click on this ad?

Answer: they’ll expect to be taken to a page where they can print out, old-school style coupons, just like the one pictured in the ad itself.

At least, that’s why I expected.  And frankly, I was intrigued by that: what a funky and semi-cool way to combine Social Media advertising with old school marketing techniques to drive real-world sales in brick and mortar stores, right?

It also seemed an easy upsell for a premium service of sending digital coupons to your phone so as not to have to waste paper and printer ink printing them out. A nice way to collect e-mails and cell phone numbers, all in all. But that’s not what happened when I clicked on the ad.

Instead, the advertiser violated every expectation that they possibly could.  Just see for yourself on the landing page I was taken to:

So, um, where are the coupons?  Hmmm… Maybe you have to pick the categories of coupons you want first, and then they’ll show you the coupons for printing? But what’s this about “sending me” the coupons. Didn’t the ad say I could print them myself? Oh well, why not pick 5 categories and see what comes next…

So what the heck is this?  When the hell did “Free Samples” come into play? I thought I was clicking through to get printable coupons?

And who the heck is Lifescript Advantage?  What happened to Girlpon? Just who am I giving my e-mail address to?

Finally, where, Oh Where, is LifeScript Advantage’s privacy policy or any other kind of Point of Action Assurance?

Not only did these people waste a click, they pissed me off and left me decidedly more cynical about clicking on Facebook ads in general. Not good.

So here are 3 easy tips to keep you safe from this kind of advertising disaster:

1) Make sure the mechanics of your actual offer are clear

If you’re taking people to a site to see a video, make sure they know that they’re being taken off-site to “learn more” or whatever.  If they’re going to a fan page, that should be clear also.  And whatever it is you’re offering to get the click, the fulfillment of that promise should never be more than two clicks away — one click for the ad, and one click to start the video, add the item to cart, download the report, etc.  Making people click from page to page will only create massive distrust. If you’re going to ask for a “like” say so.  If you require an e-mail to use to send people the report, test mentioning that in the ad itself.  CTR might dip, but CPI will likely rise.

2) Test having your store or brand name in the ad itself

This is especially important for ads pointing to an outside landing page.  The brand match-up from ad to landing page is important, as the disconnect will spook people more than you may realize, just like I was spooked to be handed from Girlpon to lifescriptadvantage.  Beyond this, I know that Facebook also councils that you stylistic connect your Facebook Ad-specific landing pages to the overall look of Facebook and possibly have some sort of Facebook Fan Welcome message.  This is good advice, as it further reassures visitors that they are in the right place.

3) Never skimp on the Point of Action Assurances

If you’re going to ask for an e-mail, have some kind of privacy policy or statement. If you offer a guarantee, mention it. In fact, test mentioning it on the ad as well as the landing page. And if your one of the few advertisers giving something away for FREE, no strings attached, test mentioning that, too: “Instant Download –No e-mail sign-up  necessary,” or something like that.

Remember, in most cases, you don’t just want the click — you want the conversion as well.  So plan for it with well known conversion best practices.

In other words, your Facebook ads have to sell the prospect on giving you an audience.  And this comes in two stages, as well:

• Stage 1: Sell the prospect on halting their otherwise satisfying experience browsing their newsfeed to actually pay attention to your ad long enough to actual read it.
• Stage 2: Sell the prospect on the benefit of clicking through – sell them on the actual offer beeing made.

Eye catching ads with crappy offers will get looked at and maybe even read, but won’t generate any clicks.  And ads with great offers but poor images and headlines will never get the attention they need, let alone the clicks. So you have to have both.  And that’s where this ad for Yellow Sky Actions falls short:

If you’re a professional photographer, this offer will likely come across as compelling. Giving away valuable, download-it-now software plug-ins is a great offer. But the picture and the headline are severaly lacking.

First, if you have a great offer like this, why bury it in the body copy?  Why not put out in the headline, like this:

• Like Us for Free Photoshop Actions
• 4 Free Photoshop Actions!

Either one of those front-lines the free offer and doesn’t depend on any (likely non-existent) brand familiarity, as the current headline does.

But as they say in Missouri: show me.  If you’re selling Photoshop actions and your ad features an image, why not show a before and after?  Maybe something like this:

Now, I’d prefer the “Before and After” photos look a bit more dramatically different, but you get the picture (pun intended) — the very format invites further inspection.  Before and After’s grab more attention because prospects are inclined to read the “before and after” caption for the photos, and also to note the differences between the photos.  That’s added attention practically guaranteed to bleed over to the headline.

Do you see now why the headline should contain the offer in an ad like this? Putting it there dramatically improves the ad’s ability to make that first sale. And by improving the picture AND the ad, you end up with more people giving Yellow Sky Actions an “audience” for their pitch than with the ad they’re currently running.

So are your creating Facebook ads capable of making that first sale? Or are you counting on a great offer to get itself read without any additional help from your image and headline?

Landing pages are obviously an integral part of PPC campaigns, and we’re conducting a survey about landing pages to better understand how businesses utilize them. This short survey (15 questions; 5 minutes) will provide us with lots of valuable data about this facet of PPC. We’ll share that data with you after the survey ends so you can benchmark yourself against other PPC Hero readers!

To increase participation, we’re giving away five $50 Amazon gift cards! To be eligible, complete the survey and include your email address in the final question. The survey closes at 5 pm EST on Wednesday, May 12, and we’ll announce the winners the following day.

Thanks in advance for participating!

If you do not see the survey below, please click here to take the survey.

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As an incentive for your participation, we’re offering the chance to win a landing page review from our PPC Hero Team. Please take a few minutes to share a little bit about yourself and how you fit into the PPC industry.  Once we have collected and processed your responses, we will share all of this data on the blog!  If you’d like a shot at winning the review, be sure to fill in the last box of the survey which asks for your email. If you’re the lucky winner, the PPC Hero team will provide an analysis of the well-formatted elements of your landing page, as well as some ideas which could be tested to continually improve PPC conversion rates.

Thanks for your participation!

Phew! And that does it! The contest is done. Congratulations to all of our winners. Thank you to everyone who entered, who Tweeted, who subscribed to the blogs, and who showed support. You’re all totally awesome. Thanks again!

So, what did these folks win? Good question! This is what we’re giving away:

• 3 free subscriptions to SEO Moz
• 3 free subscriptions to SEO Book
• 2 free subscriptions to ShoeMoney
• 1 free subscription to ClickEquations
• 5 free subscriptions to ClickSweeper
• 3 free subscriptions to Search Monitor
• 1 free subscription to formspring
• 3 free subscriptions to Keyword Discovery

That’s a lot of prizes! The duration for each subscription varies per prize and they’re all awesome! Congratulations to the winners!

TOMORROW we’re drawing for the GRAND PRIZE – a free PPC or SEO review by the Hanapin Marketing Team! There is still time to enter! Go over the contest site now and enter to win!

TOMORROW we will randomly draw winners for our software prizes! And here’s the best part, if you haven’t entered to win yet… you still can! Just go over to the contest site today and submit your entry!

And on WEDNESDAY we’ll draw the grand prize winner! This lucky individual will receive a free PPC or SEO audit from the Hanapin Marketing team! You can still enter to win!

What are you waiting for? Enter now!

In case you haven’t heard, the Hanapin Marketing Team is giving away $16,000 in SEM software, books and services in our Totally Awesome SEM Sweepstakes! Throughout the week we’re going to give you some details on the software prizes that are up for grabs in the sweepstakes. And if you haven’t done so, enter now!

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Hundreds of interactive agencies, search marketers, and affiliate marketers use The Search Monitor for several reasons (1) to police affiliate marketers for compliance with affiliate programs, (2) to police trademark use in ad copy, display URLs, and branded keyword sponsors; (3) to acquire competitive intelligence on paid and organic search including market share, keyword research, ad copy research, discovery of competitive promotions/offers, rank, and budgeting strategies, and (4) to identify and measure brand buzz. To learn more please visit TheSearchMonitor.com.