One of the things I've been trying to drive home during my panels at SES London has been the concept of matching user intent to advertiser content. Simple things like following through on a promise you've made in your initial ad copy does wonders for your conversion rate, and I wanted to expand a bit on it from some of the fundamental elements of content matching intent.
You run a website that sells electronics. On an ad, you've highlighted the fact that you undersell your competitors by 10%. Eagerly, I've clicked on your ad, thinking that I'll surprise my cinephile husband with a new Blu-Ray player for his birthday. I look all over your landing page, and there's no information on the discount you've promised in your ad, nor is there any evidence that you've discounted the price. Dejected, I click the back button; you lose the conversion, I can buy elsewhere.
That entire transaction took place over 10 seconds or less. Ten seconds. That's the amount of time you have to fulfill the expectations of your potential customers, matching your content to their intent. My intent? To save 10% on a new Blu-Ray player. Your content? It didn't match. Hey - you may have the information somewhere on your site, fair enough. I didn't bother looking around your site because I immediately judged that the information you were promising to me wasn't there. If you take the 10% off at checkout, tell me on the page I initially land on. There's no point in waiting for customers to find the information out by themselves; they're impatient, and they like to have complete reassurance. Customers are giving you their money. Don't make them feel like they're the ones having to do the legwork to get something you've promised them anyway.
When you reassure your potential customers that you genuinely want to engage with them, you'll see a spike in conversion almost instantaneously. By appearing disingenuous and not following through on your promise to give them what they've specifically come to your site looking for, you not only lose that conversion at that moment - you possibly lose them for good. And you know what they say about negative user experience. They'll tell their friends, and you can potentially ruin a great customer base for the sake of a sentence of reassurance on your landing page.
Content, Intent. Content, Intent. Make sure your content matches the customers' intent, and you're golden.
