4 Google Ads Alternatives to Avoid A Poor Landing Page Experience

Are you thinking, can Google Ads perform without landing page? The answer is YES!

While landing pages aren’t always essential, a poor landing page experience can ruin your chances of converting leads if you don’t know the anatomy of a landing page quite well. So, if you’re going to use landing pages in your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, make sure you get it right.

In Google Ads, you have a wealth of tools and features to optimize your campaigns and improve your targeting to hit your business goals. As a result, it’s now possible to run successful PPC campaigns without the need for a landing page.

In this article, we’ll show you some alternatives so you can avoid delivering a poor landing page experience.

1. The Next Best Thing: Video Ads

Traditionally, a paid ad acts as an enticing bait to encourage leads to click through to your landing page, where they will then have access to the vital information that could sway their purchasing decisions.

Now, video ads are on the rise because they allow advertisers to engage people with streaming content that provides much more information than a simple text ad. These highly-engaging, informative ads enable users to learn more about your offer without having to visit another page.

Let’s take a look at some popular ad formats:

1. Skippable in-stream ads run on YouTube, before, during, and after a YouTube video. Users have the option to skip the ad after the first five seconds.
2. Non-skippable in-stream ads are the same as skippable ads, in that they play before, after, or during another video on YouTube. As you may have guessed, the key difference is that you cannot skip these ads.
3. Bumper ads appear at the end of YouTube videos. This six-second format is excellent for increasing brand reach, especially when you target mobile users.
4. Outstream video ads are high-quality adverts that often appear between paragraphs of text in an article. They usually play without sound, relying on visual impact to catch the eye of users — and hopefully elicit a click to enable the audio.
5. Ad sequencing enables you to tell a brand story through a series of short videos that will build interest around a product or service.

 

When video ads will work without a landing page

Generally speaking, your video ads will do well on their own in the following circumstances:

• Your goal is brand awareness, and so it’s not important to generate new leads.
• You have very specific content that you wish to broadcast to your audience.
• You don’t have much time to create additional content.
• You don’t have the budget or resources to create content.

Sometimes, you will still need to create a landing page that reinforces the message you deliver in your video ad. However, if you don’t want to create landing pages, consider whether it’s necessary.

2. Lead Form Extensions

A Google lead form extension is a feature that appears as a call-out box next to your PPC ads in the Google search network. By using this extension, you can capture leads with high purchasing intent directly on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

The lead form enables advertisers to collect important lead data, such as:

• Name
• Email
• ZIP code
• Phone Number etc.

When you use this form and pre-fill some fields, it is a clever way to avoid a poor landing page experience.

This option is particularly useful if you are running an event and need to gather registrations quickly. Car rental service providers use this strategy to make promotional offers online, allowing customers to make a booking quickly.

Also, in real estate, these ad types encourage people to fill out the form to promptly get in contact about a property.

 

When Lead form extensions will work without a landing page

Typically, users who complete lead forms have strong purchasing intent. With that in mind, here are some scenarios where lead form extensions will work well without a landing page:

• When no additional content is needed to explain your products or services (as the customer already knows why they are going to provide their information).
• When you are offering a downloadable resource, like a whitepaper or eBook.
• When the goal is to get subscribers for your email list or newsletter.
• When you want to integrate with your CRM to improve customer communications.

If you want to know why you should use lead form extensions, and how they can help your campaign success.

3. Use GMB (Google My Business account) As Your Landing Page

Nowadays, it’s a smart move to set up GMB, as it can help increase your brand visibility on the Google network. When doing this, you will need to fill out the entire profile, but it’s worth the effort, as it makes it easier for people to discover information about your business.

In effect, you can use GMB as a landing page, which presents the following information:

• Phone number so people can get in touch directly with your business premises when they have a query or want to make a purchase.
• Business information, including your office address, a Google Maps location pin, your opening hours, and other contact options, such as email, fax, and social media.
• Photographs to give people a better sense of your brand and business. According to Google, “businesses that add photos to their listings receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps.”

GMB is especially useful for retail companies, furniture showrooms, health service providers like a dentist or therapist. In these markets and professions, you don’t need to create a dedicated website, as a full profile on GMB acts as a landing page that can drive customers to get in touch or visit your business premises. However, when you create a landing page keep in mind the key components of a landing page.

When to use GMB as your Landing page

If you want to avoid a poor landing page experience, think about using Google My Business instead. It will work well in these cases:

• Your customers or leads are already prepared to get in touch. You can use GMB to facilitate easier engagement and interaction.
• You have customers leaving positive reviews about your business. By highlighting these reviews on your GMB profile, you increase your star rating. This added social proof helps you to build brand awareness and trust, which attracts new customers.
• If your business is offering the right services for your target audience, you may be able to rank high in Google SERPs with a well-optimized GMB profile.

4. Call-only Ads

As we shift to a mobile-first world, more companies are trying out call-only campaigns. By leaving out the landing page, you can enjoy several benefits:

• Faster connections by offering a simple click-to-call button that drives interaction with your brand.
• Less digital touchpoints so you can focus on keywords and CTAs to get more people to call your business.
• Leverage urgency to encourage customers to make contact to arrange a meeting or booking quickly. Call-only ads work well in these cases for trades companies, such as plumbers or locksmiths.

You can get excellent advice on how to run a call-only campaign in Google Ads from the PPCexpo blog, Essential Knowledge for Google Ads Call-Only Campaigns.

5 Benefits of Running Ads Without A Landing Page

The consensus among marketers is that landing pages are a critical step in the marketing funnel that helps generate quality leads. By leaving out landing pages, you risk missing some opportunities to earn more business.

That being said, here are five benefits of running campaigns without a landing page:

1. You can focus on converting leads directly from your PPC ads.
2. You can use video ads to convey your brand messages and monitor its impact in a measurable way.
3. You can use lead form extensions to gather essential customer data and to acquire faster leads.
4. You can use GMB to make it easier for customers to get in touch.
5. You can save time, money, and effort by not creating detailed landing pages for each offer.

 

4 Disadvantages of Running Ads Without A Landing Page

On the other side of the coin, landing pages can help your PPC campaign in many ways. By leaving them out, you could suffer. Here are some disadvantages to running campaigns without a landing page:

1. It’s harder to measure key performance metrics, such as Clickthrough Rate (CTR), page session time, and bounce rate.
2. You don’t have a lot of space to convey your brand message.
3. You risk draining your PPC budget quickly as people click but don’t get enough information to convince them to convert.
4. For multiple products, you’ll find it hard to manage and market everything if you only rely on ads.

 

Wrap Up

For many years, the landing page has been the crown jewel in the marketing funnel, offering a unique user experience and compelling call-to-action that turns visitors into customers.

Now, PPC advertisers have alternatives. If you’re worried about delivering a poor landing page experience, try out one of the ideas in this blog, and discover what works best for your audience.