What is Post-Click Optimization? Expert Advice for Your Strategy
If your advertising conversions are down despite healthy ad engagement, post-click optimization may be the missing piece of your puzzle.
Similar in some ways to conversion rate optimization (CRO), post-click optimization is focused on ensuring that your landing pages (LPs) convert as many ad-clickers as possible. However, unlike CRO—which often aims to improve the site experience in a way that benefits all users—post-click involves intentionally tailoring the experience to answer for the needs of specific audiences, or personas.
In this article, we’ll dive further into post-click optimization for search and social campaigns, and how to build a uniquely powerful, scalable approach. Touching on all elements of the post-click experience, from landing page to thank-you page, we’ll provide tips, best practices, and considerations to make in your own campaigns.
What is Post-Click Optimization?
Post-click optimization is the process of improving the shopper experience in every step after an initial ad click has occurred.
Post-click optimization aims to provide shoppers with highly relevant landing pages and clear calls to action, and extends to the post-purchase (or other action) experience for clicks that have converted. This means that optimizing your thank-you page after a desired action has been taken is an important element of post-click optimization, as is optimizing any follow-up emails related to that specific event or action (ie. order thank-you email).
When someone clicks on an ad—whether it’s a paid search, paid social, or display ad—they’re not only typically displaying some kind of interest in your offering, but also have expectations about where that click will lead them. When the landing page doesn’t match the ad, it can lead to confusion, frustration, and lost sales opportunities.
Post-click optimization is all about turning as many interested users into customers as possible through strategic enhancements. This is accomplished through the scalable production of technically optimized pages, relevant/targeted landing page copy, and an overall streamlined LP experience with one primary CTA and few exit paths.
Pre-click vs. post-click
It’s important to think of pre-click and post-click as members of the same team with a common goal. Because post-click optimization is largely about creating an expected experience based on the ad a shopper clicked—plugging any leaks at the bottom of the funnel—it’s impossible for it to operate in a silo. Pre-click optimization is your smiling and engaging salesperson welcoming folks inside; post-click optimization closes the deal.
The full-funnel goal of upper-funnel pre- and lower-funnel post-click optimization is creating harmonious, compelling messaging that carries users deliberately from awareness to conversion as seamlessly as possible.
More simply put, pre-click optimization focuses on getting the most number of people to click on your ad, while post-click optimization focuses on getting them to convert once they’ve clicked.
Consider that an average CTR for a search ad is less than 2%, with social and display usually getting even lower CTRs. Pre-click optimization is important to get those CTRs up through better ad copy, creative, compelling headlines and similar tactics.
Ideally, those pre-click optimization methods will result in a higher CTR for your ads, but if your post-click experience is poor, you could still fail to increase conversions.
Post-click vs. post-view conversions
Post-view metrics are similar to post-click metrics in purpose and meaning, but are used for measuring performance on channels that don’t include anything for a viewer to physically click on. These include viewers who have seen a brand’s out-of-home (OOH) advertisements like billboards and subway ads, as well as Streaming video ads.
By its nature, post-view analysis raises at least some questions about attribution across channels and ad placements, including whether or not someone actually watched the ad delivered to them. As such, post-view metrics and their associated impact are very difficult to measure without an advanced analytical approach.
Key Elements of a Post-Click Strategy
Now that we’ve covered the basics of pre- and post-click optimization, let’s explore what a post-click optimization strategy looks like in practice.
Precisely segmented
Creating buyer personas helps you flesh out the differing reasons that motivate shoppers to click and convert, which influences the language and value propositions you’ll focus on in your ad and landing page copy for those groups.
Some questions you’ll want to consider in developing personas for precisely segmented messaging include:
- How much information does this audience need to make a confident purchase decision?
- What specific information and value propositions would be most likely to earn this audience’s clicks and conversions?
- What is the average age, gender, and/or income level of this audience?
- What search and social channels is this audience most likely to use?
- What about the ad this audience saw am I most clearly referencing?
- What are the unique needs and challenges of this audience? In other words – how different is this audience from any other?
Highly scalable
If your page is too general, you risk people exiting or not making a connection between the ad and landing page. That said, it’s not an efficient or effective use of time to manually develop dozens or more uniquely targeted LPs at scale.
It’s not unheard of for brands to have 50+ targeted landing pages that cater to different ads and personas. The more relevant you can make each page for a given persona, the more likely those customers are to convert. However, if you’re creating pages from scratch every time, you may see diminishing returns due to the time investment required to create the LP.
Luckily, starting from scratch isn’t necessary. Instead, focusing on creating templated elements that make pages easily adjustable with minimal effort.
Efficiently gather data
For a post-click strategy to be successful, you’ll need to quickly and effectively gather and analyze granular data to facilitate LP creation and performance monitoring. Because you’re likely to have a large number of landing pages in each campaign, be sure you can regularly, efficiently analyze performance data to improve upon the elements that aren’t working as well as they could be.
Constantly optimized
Always be testing, always be optimizing—there’s no crying in baseball, and no ‘done’ in marketing! Optimization should always be an ongoing process based on all available insights, including those garnered from split tests (A/B testing) and heatmaps, covered in greater detail below.
Heatmaps are an incredibly valuable CRO tool that helps you actually ‘see’ how page visitors behave so you can make improvements and optimizations based on real-life insights.
Once the winning page has been crowned, continue creating new variants to test against it, getting closer to ideal with every iteration.
When adjustments you’ve made to underperforming pages prove successful, ask yourself if those changes are relevantly scalable. If so, try implementing them across other pages and see if their performance improves.
9 Best Practices for Landing Page Post-Click Optimization
Ready to get started? We’ve put together some best practices to keep in mind every click of the way…
Message match
It’s not only important for brands to deliver on their promise; it’s also crucial for advertisers if they want the best results.
LP messaging that closely matches the ad copy, look, and feel that led there creates a more seamless, relevant customer journey. From creative to headlines, and colors to words used, you want your ad and your landing page to be eye-catching, compelling and consistent.
With post-click optimization, the same team driving the ad gains ownership of the landing page, enabling them to custom tailor it to match the ad that those viewers clicked.
Promote a single offer
It’s important not to overwhelm shoppers with too many options after they’ve clicked; they already sorted through the noise on their way to your site! Reward their interest with a simplified, clear site experience.
In addition to keeping navigational elements to a minimum, it’s important to only include one prominent CTA and/or offer on your ad landing page.
A well-optimized, post-click landing page isn’t supposed to be everything for everyone, nor is it meant to accomplish every possible marketing goal. While it would be wonderful if everyone who clicked an ad also signed up for your newsletter, browsed your other products and categories, and read your related blog posts, that’s not a realistic target to aim for. Instead, think of the most important action for someone to take when they land on this page, and make the method to completing that action as clear as possible.
Target specific personas
Personalization is key in marketing, but you don’t have to create a completely unique page for each user to improve their experience. Instead, focus on identifying the key customer personas you’ll target in your advertising, and craft a landing page for each persona to align with what will be most important and interesting for their intent.
Use compelling CTAs
Leave behind the uninspired ‘click here’ links and buttons of the past and provide customers with better and more compelling information about where that click will take them! Today’s internet-savvy shoppers already know where to click if your ad and LP are well-designed; it’s your job to give them a reason to do it, and do so quickly and clearly.
In addition to optimizing the copy of your CTA, experiment with different placements, colors, sizes, and other variables that might impact the total clicks it drives.
If your page includes a form or otherwise requires that viewers provide information to gain access, aim to keep things as short, sweet and simple as possible. Only ask for and capture the necessary information to get them to the next step in the funnel. For example, if you’ll be sending them a downloadable one-pager, consider only asking for their email address. While other things might be beneficial to know, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of asking for additional information beyond what you need as it may scare some folks off completely.
CTAs are how your audience converts once they’re on the page. A lot of work went into getting them this far; don’t leave them at the virtual door unsure of where to go or what to do next.
Use negative space for positive impact
Be sure to give your copy and images room to breathe so shoppers can better understand what to focus on. Thoughtful use of negative space/white space is a highly effective way to draw attention to parts of your page that really matter.
Don’t be afraid of blank space; simplicity on a landing page is better than clutter. (And that Blank Space might just be where Taylor Swift writes your name!)
Implement heatmaps
The most common types of heatmaps help in tracking mouse movement, scroll depth, eye movement and clicks. Ideally, you’ll find customers are lingering on and clicking on the areas that you most want them to, but there are typically at least some adjustments needed based on heatmap insights.
For example, you may find that many customers are clicking on a decorative image they expect to lead somewhere. With those insights, you can then link the image to an appropriate landing page, or replace the image with a more beneficial linked option.
Use social proof
Including shopper reviews and other customer testimonials in your ads—and on your ad landing pages—is helpful in quickly building trust and certainty for customers new to a product or brand.
Some elements of reviews will apply across several different shopper personas, while others may be more helpful for specific shoppers. Regularly browse your customer reviews to look for new and compelling copy you can use in your ads and landing pages to help convert those targeted groups.
Example:
If a customer mentions fast or free shipping in their reviews, that is information that could help in converting any potential shopper.
If a review mentions that a product was the perfect solution for a given concern or scenario, that would be worth including in ads that are meant to reach similar audiences.
For example, let’s assume the product you’re selling is a pair of socks. Among the groups you want to reach are those struggling to find durable socks, and those looking for socks in fun patterns.
For the ad and landing page copy for the first group, look for reviews that speak to the durable nature in some way—even if those exact words aren’t used. An example might be: “Love these socks—no more toes poking through on long hikes!”
For the second group, you’ll want to run a similar exercise honing in on reviews that speak to the extensive selection of available colors and prints. An example might be: “So glad I discovered this brand! I gave away all my boring socks!”
Optimize thank-you pages
Thank you pages provide an excellent opportunity to drive further engagement, boost consumer confidence, and even earn additional conversions when used properly. Don’t simply think of this as the step where you virtually hand the bag to the customer and send them on their way; give them clear directions on what to do or expect next, and get them excited about the purchase they’ve just made!
Some valuable ways you can optimize your thank-you pages include:
- Remember to actually thank your customers for their purchase. If you don’t already have this language built into your thank-you page, it will likely only require a small adjustment to get it added. For example, let’s assume that once an order has been placed, your current thank-you page states ‘Your order has been successfully submitted.’ An update might be: ‘Thank you for your purchase! Your order has been successfully submitted and received by our fulfillment team.’
- Let customers know what to expect next (examples: a download link in their inbox, an email that will be sent when their order ships)
- Provide customers with links to other relevant products or pages on your site or blog to check out
- Provide customers with ways to share their purchase, recommendation, and/or a referral code with friends, family or social followers
Split test regularly
Split testing—also commonly known as A/B testing—helps advertisers better understand which of (typically) two variants performs better than the other.
The ‘A page’ in A/B testing is often an existing page, with the ‘B page’ being a variant of that page with one or more differences. That said, you could be launching a totally new page and create two separate versions from the outset to test against one another.
For an A/B test to be accurate, the same number of viewers need to be shown each page, and the total number of viewers should be large enough for the data to be statistically significant. Additionally, it’s important not to have too many differences between the two pages, instead focusing on one element at a time. Otherwise, it can be difficult to know what about one page was more compelling than the other.
Examples of some LP elements that can be split test include:
- Headlines
- Page copy
- CTA copy, placement and/or button size
- The order of products on a page, or images and/or videos used
- Included customer reviews and testimonials
Post-Click Optimization for Social Media Marketers
Post-click optimization first became prominent in the PPC world, but has grown over time to become increasingly important for Paid Social campaigns. With social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offering advanced user targeting, it’s just as important to create ads and LPs designed with that granularity in mind in your social campaigns.
Looking at Meta-owned Facebook for example, some of the Audience Insights marketers can leverage in their targeting include: age; gender; pages liked; household size and income; purchase behavior; education and occupation; relationship status, and more.
Because these users would have different wants, needs, and reasons to shop with you—just as they do in the search space—your post-click optimization efforts must extend to your social campaigns for optimal user experience and advertising impact.
But how to do it? Our Paid Social experts can help!
We are uniquely positioned to provide end-to-end performance creative and customer acquisition capabilities thanks to our talented and experienced team, and the proprietary technology and ongoing optimization that fuels their capabilities.
Many of our social ads and associated LPs rely heavily on interactivity, with popular tactics for reaching and converting social users including quizzes, gamification (ie. spin to win), and copy and creative closely aligned with their search intent.
Want to learn more about our uniquely powerful approach to post-click optimization for social? Tinuiti’s Cameron House and Emily Gates break it all down in their exciting on-demand session from Tinuiti Live 2023, focused on how to drive social growth in the age of signal loss.
Conclusion
Getting customers to click on your ads remains crucial, but devoting time to unpacking the post-click experience is essential to moving more of those clicks toward conversions. When a landing page doesn’t match the ad a customer clicked, at-best it can lead to a bit of confusion, and at-worst can feel like bait-and-switch.
Post-click optimization helps you create a consistent brand experience, where every step after the click works in conjunction with the original messaging that caught shoppers’ attention. Learn more about how our Paid Social experts can help your brand improve the full-funnel experience, from pre-click to post-click.
Also be sure to check out Jon Oberlander, EVP, Paid Social at Tinuiti breaking things down as a guest on eMarketer’s Tech-Talk—High Click-Through Rates But Low Sales? You Could be Prioritizing the Wrong Factors.
You Might Be Interested In
