Arnav Patel

How We Created A Newsletter That Helps Us Close $50k Deals From Cold Leads

How We Created A Newsletter That Helps Us Close $50k Deals From Cold Leads - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: March 18, 2020</div>
Chatbots and push notifications go together like peanut butter and jelly. Both technologies are pretty great on their own, but together they are downright phenomenal. Think about it like this. Lead generation consists of two stages: 



<ol><li> Pre-click optimization</li><li>Post-click optimization. </li></ol>



On the pre-click side, you need to worry about getting your landing pages in front of the right customers. If implemented correctly, push notifications are the best way of achieving this. Unlike Google ads, Social Media Marketing or SEO which give you commoditized, low-attention &#8216;traffic&#8217; a well-executed push notification campaign allows you to re-engage visitors and to<a href="https://www.izooto.com/"> own an ‘audience’</a> who is more willing to give you their attention and click on to your landing pages. 



Of course, this is only half of the picture. Getting your landing page in front of a focused audience does not guarantee conversions. Modern buyers are discerning with their attention and they will punish you with a high drop rate if you show them a poorly designed landing page. This is where post-click optimization comes into play. As a marketer, it&#8217;s on you to deliver an engaging experience to your prospect that puts them in their mind space to convert. For a lot of industries (mainly B2C Services), <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/ppc-conversion-rate-conversational-landing-pages/">Chatbots are the best way to achieve this</a>. Conversational Landing Pages give your audience a personalized lead generation experience that converts at rates that are <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/chatbots-conversion-rate-increase/">2-3x higher than traditional landing pages.</a> We were so excited by the potential of a chatbot+ push notification combination that we teamed up with the push notification wizards at <a href="http://izooto.com">iZooto</a> to create the ultimate webinar on how you can use chatbots and push notifications to supercharge your conversions and take your marketing to the next level. 



<script src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/f39gzrs2lj.jsonp" async=""></script><script src="https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.js" async=""></script><div class="wistia_responsive_padding" style="padding:51.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><div class="wistia_responsive_wrapper" style="height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;top:0;width:100%;"><div class="wistia_embed wistia_async_f39gzrs2lj videoFoam=true" style="height:100%;position:relative;width:100%"><div class="wistia_swatch" style="height:100%;left:0;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0;transition:opacity 200ms;width:100%;"><img decoding="async" src="https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/f39gzrs2lj/swatch" style="filter:blur(5px);height:100%;object-fit:contain;width:100%;" alt="" onload="this.parentNode.style.opacity=1;"></div></div></div></div>





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[Webinar] How Chatbots And Push Notifications Can Supercharge Your Website Conversions

[Webinar] How Chatbots And Push Notifications Can Supercharge Your Website Conversions - Tars Blog

Nicole Mears

Hearing the words “we need to reduce ad spend” from your boss or client is never a great start to a conversation.



A million questions run through your head. 



<ul><li>Why is my boss/client unhappy with performance?</li><li>Why now?</li><li>Will performance nosedive? </li><li>What did I do wrong? Am I going to get fired? Ahhh, why me? </li></ul>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c327_6Yflrtg4_90IF3NdE9b4prpj2z3SSGP0mYR4Bj-5EVALLJSU0OMjZkMl8RG5xs-NaFSqc_5-x4Q-priNubaXDJqinNFmasEN4qWMp0ygLwSt-RP0KGq4wph6gv0cbQbWZILbO5FX.gif" alt=""/></figure></div>



Unless you purposely do an awful job managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, the reason for the budget decrease may be firmly outside of your control. Increased competition could be eating away at your company’s sales (and marketing budget). An overwhelmed sales staff might not be able to handle all the new PPC leads you are sending them. Or, (as our friends at Tars predict), advertisers may be proactively <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/2019-ppc-marketing-trends">tightening budgets</a> in the face of an economic downturn. 



Take a deep breath. It’s possible to lower PPC spend while still driving exceptional results. Learn how to cut wasted spend, eliminate budgeting errors, and optimize your conversion experience to help lower costs and make campaigns as effective as possible. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Scrutinize Your PPC Account Strategy </h3>



Few things waste a PPC budget faster than poor account strategy. Just because you launched your ad campaigns utilizing best practices doesn’t mean that you can get complacent. Failing to add negative keywords and placements on a regular basis is just as harmful and expensive as using all broad-match keywords in your paid search strategy. 



Error-Proof Your Analytics: Website analytics tools such as Google Analytics are essential for measuring advertising campaign effectiveness. Before you do anything else, confirm 1) Your analytics tool is implemented properly 2) <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://advantixdigital.com/url-tagging-destination-url-important-google-analytics-job/" target="_blank">Tracking parameters are appended to your URLs</a> and 3) Conversions (the desired actions you want your website visitors to take) are set up. Analytics data will help guide you on which elements of your strategy can be cut or changed without impacting revenue.



 Modify Match Types: If your paid search strategy relies heavily on broad match keywords, the good news is that you can likely save a chunk of change quickly. The ‘broad match’ match type gives ad platforms wide authority to show your ads for search terms they deem close to your keywords including synonyms, misspellings, and “other relevant variations.” Analyzing search query reports on <a href="https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2472708?hl=en">Google Ads</a> and <a href="https://help.bingads.microsoft.com/#apex/3/en/56670/2">Bing Ads</a> will tell you if the search terms your ads are showing for are relevant. If they’re not, test using stricter match types (broad match modified and exact) to eliminate wasted spend and improve engagement metrics.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" width="300" height="186" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f205f227363a218d6c2e0_6a0ec1902fb2f9204e3bb542_wp-keyword-match-types.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-2227"/></figure></div>



Get Negative: If you found that your ads were showing for lots of unrelated searches in the last step, it’s time to get negative! Negative keywords proactively prevent your ads from showing on irrelevant or harmful searches and save you valuable ad dollars. “Jobs”, “salaries”, and “DIY” are just a few you can add to stop attracting people unlikely to purchase. Audit your search queries at least 1-2 times a month. If you’re using display targeting, review your placements report and add poor performing websites as negative placements as well. 



Nix What’s Not Converting: Here’s where analytics data is key. You should be regularly analyzing your campaign strategy to build upon what works and eliminate what doesn’t. Are all the elements of your campaigns working in tandem to drive conversions or have a few gone rogue? You can evaluate and tweak all of these elements individually until you find the optimal combination to drive positive ROI: keywords (or display targets), ad text, location targeting, demographic targeting, dayparts, bids, and ad networks. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Eliminate Budgeting Mistakes </h3>



Simple budget errors can have disastrous consequences on ad performance especially if mistakes aren’t caught immediately. Have you ever added a few extra zeros to a campaign daily budget? Mistracked ad spend because of a spreadsheet formula error? Had an angry client request money back because you overspent their budget? One of the simplest ways to reduce spend wasted by budgeting mistakes is to never make mistakes in the first place.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c32c_RLxMY3p5CMoJyIpo4l96oiB14ia8EoeJxewnaM9E4RkCWlg0fxeM1nmae4qF-5_jDiJvkE4h8SplOLRgMrnFhFXrFP8eHU8ksaflZvnUGNV-d_fFCaEAbF2fUYG8d9nYSeHnH_tU.gif" alt=""/></figure></div>



Create Checks and Balances: Compare spend data in your tracking tool or spreadsheet frequently against data from advertising platforms. 



 Use Multiple Tracking Methods:



Have a primary and a backup method you use to compare results. If you can’t afford two tracking solutions (monetarily or time-wise), look for ways to cross-check data within one tool (example: create client-specific and all-client tracking reports to compare).



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c32f_nHpRPDcJ_y65nuhl7gxBiVnIKM_6xgiK84wg8ojgSyp8Nu8nkGF9qYd3hVOiwK2nYe7QGT0iiUSqLy2v-GZIU3mpmxDRlquIiInvL6QW_f0FAZwyxPChEJgW0vDFtshBYzWMlrz9.png" alt=""/></figure>



 Test Software Solutions: PPC management software is incredibly useful in helping you scale workload and reduce errors. Many&nbsp;<a href="https://shape.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">ppc budgeting/reporting software solutions</a>&nbsp;offer free trials, or you can build your own using advertising platform APIs. 



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Redesign Your Landing Page Experience </h3>



You did it. You drove an interested searcher to your website with promises of fame, riches, and happiness&#8230;or, better yet, an exceptional product or service. <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/4-reasons-ppc-chatbot-landing-page/">Is your landing page enticing enough</a> for the visitor to interact with you? Don’t pay for visitors to only have them bounce immediately. Make sure your targeting, ad text, and landing page are all aligned to help convince users to convert into leads and ultimately paying customers. 



Match Your Messaging: You wouldn’t be happy if you told a cab driver to take you to the airport and they dropped you off at the train station instead. Now apply this idea to PPC ads. Why would you waste valuable ad dollars directing a searcher to a landing page that is irrelevant to their search? When the messaging and calls-to-action in your ads align closely with your landing pages, visitors trust your website will provide them the information they need. Test mirroring elements such as your ad headlines and your landing page H1s/H2s to better engage with more PPC visitors. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c324_JT8VE_WDFm7ipgirYCanhn2DoVBNEeMQ8Ziq0DCqJv17WsCg9Izo-MVYAVfYyf6ausJBTzBUz-Dwm0qmYlIWTmmUgpciLI-9nSJUy_W7P2A-loS8OYBdTqtYj7MAUkVdi12ftCGn.jpeg" alt=""/></figure>



Keep it Simple: When utilizing PPC landing pages, ask yourself: “When a searcher clicks from my ad to my landing page, is it clear what step they should take next?” 



It’s tempting to overwhelm your visitor with every detail about your product or service and five different ways to “convert.” In truth, that often leads to paralysis; the visitor has so much information they don’t know what to do next. Landing pages should inform (but not overwhelm) visitors and should have a low <a href="https://unbounce.com/conversion-centered-design/attention.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">attention ratio</a> that makes it clear to visitors what step you want them to take next.



Conversations Drive Conversions:



Even if you master the art of creating highly relevant, easy-to-use PPC landing pages, you can never guarantee all visitors will stick around and turn into prospects. <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/ppc-conversion-rate-conversational-landing-pages/">Chatbots can help you make a major leap forward in engagement</a> over static landing pages and forms and help you cut wasted ad spend! Chatbots interact with your website visitors to teach them about your products or services. You can make a chatbot’s welcome text and conversation flow unique to a specific PPC campaign to achieve “message match” as well. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c335_QDI_RYvzVw9fl2kwXl62BSNgvdmSoi2DivTc8Zdnb0bFOG6_R0ztzJeWuEZFI5KIgCUPZq4AujRdgpbxQXAAJYpvBqmHzUPVt6uAhrR3cMYeAIlpilSjtcV2rvD94KGhpbUbb_Eb.gif" alt=""/></figure></div>







<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Conclusion </h3>



PPC budget conversations don’t have to be painful if you know how to cut ad spend wisely. Ensuring you have a solid PPC strategy, a trustworthy budget management system, and a highly-engaging landing page experience will help you drive success at any budget level. 



 



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Reduce PPC Spend in 2019 While Still Driving Exceptional Results

Reduce PPC Spend in 2019 While Still Driving Exceptional Results - Tars Blog

Ish Jindal

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: January 10, 2019</div>
Last week our tech team created a simple <a href="https://unsplash.hellotars.com/conv/S13JhF/">chatbot</a> using the<a href="https://unsplash.com/developers"> Unsplash API</a>. The functionality is pretty simple. A user gives the bot a search query and in response the bot sends Unsplash’s top 3 free stock images associated with that term (You can try out the bot over <a href="https://unsplash.hellotars.com/conv/S13JhF/#tarsbot">HERE</a>):



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/qoj4Tyvjivlz9vlv8aPdJB40H6rK3rxd5RcZlnfKMKxwCofnqhNCOXCIdOznOZwDvnTelbXMHbt-ChtGha_xs86nW9YtmzCjCYZZwZuRLrBsabsskZOIRFEP0CDtI6OFCG6F8Q4Y" alt="" width="282" height="439"/></figure></div>



The bot was created half as a joke, because our content marketing team takes a notoriously long time to select pictures for blog posts and the rest of us thought that by reducing the options from which they can choose images, the process would be sped up, but the underlying design philosophy is actually a profound take on where chatbots make sense and how they function. 



There is a tendency in the conversational technology space to view chatbots as <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/chatbot-developers-there-might-be-an-app-for-that/">complete alternatives to apps and websites</a> that contain all the same functionality. This approach, while novel, is unrealistic and results in a dreadful user experience. AI is getting smarter by the day, but commercially available NLP resources are simply not up to the point yet, where chatbots can understand query a user throws at them. This is why most chatbots you interact with today inevitably disappoint you when you try to talk to them. 



Of course this doesn’t mean that chatbots are un-salvageable as a technology. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Rather it just means that we need to approach the technology in a different way.</blockquote>







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Two Types of Users </h2>



The shift from Graphical User Interface to a Conversational Interface is significant because it changes the nature of interaction from a one-way self-service interaction to a two-way assisted interaction. I like to think of this as the difference between going to a Grocery store and an Apple store.



In a grocery store, you walk around, pick up the items that you want and go to check out at your own pace. The vast majority of your shopping experience is completed completely on your own, with the grocery store providing the infrastructure and organization for you to serve yourself best. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1506617564039-2f3b650b7010?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&amp;q=80&amp;fm=jpg&amp;crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;w=1080&amp;fit=max&amp;ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjgzNjh9" alt=""/></figure>



In an Apple Store on the other hand, a usually knowledgeable sales rep usually guides you through the buying process, addressing your queries, suggesting which product might serve you best, finding it for you within the store. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2066a40d7fbc1f9dba9b_applestorefrance.0.0.jpeg" alt=""/></figure>



To be clear, neither of these forms of buying is better than the other across the board. Rather, each has its advantages and disadvantages that make them amenable to different use cases. More specifically, each approach to design has its own advantages depending on the user. 



We classify these users into two broad classes: Consumers and Curators. 



Consumers don’t use much customization in their buying decisions and they appreciate simplicity. A lot of the time, they are, for lack of a better word, noobs when it comes to the product/service they are buying. They don’t know what to look for to make a buying decision. On the other hand, Curators, like extra options. They are usually well-versed about product they are looking to buy, and need to examine every single detail before committing to a purchase. 



Our content team, for all their writing prowess are consumers of images. When they are presented with a wall of options in a regular Unsplash search, they find it intimidating. They find it too intimidating to make a single choice, and usually when they do, they make the wrong choice, that someone has to review and change.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="543" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2067a40d7fbc1f9dbaa7_6a0ec1985a9ed777a3dfe8cf_wp-unsplash_old-1-1024x543.gif" alt="" class="wp-image-2167" /></figure>



By presenting them with only three images, the bot simplifies the choice, and makes it easier (not to mention quicker) for our content team to find great stock images to go with our blog posts. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



If you are interested in using bot&#8217;s to take your marketing game to the next level, chat with us over HERE





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Why We Created the (Unofficial) Unsplash Chatbot

Why We Created the (Unofficial) Unsplash Chatbot - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: December 6, 2019</div>
We’ve made it around the Sun again and a lot has happened in that time. There was a trade war, France won the world cup, we saw a royal wedding, and Youtube released its most hated Rewind yet. But lost in the buzz was perhaps the most significant event of the century.



At Tars we have found a new obsession. About 5 months ago, we ran a fairly simple experiment where we used a chatbot as the landing page for a Google Search Campaign. The end result was amazing. The <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/chatbots-conversion-rate-increase/">conversion rate skyrocketed</a> and <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/conversational-landing-page-ppc-cpl-reduce/">CPA plummeted</a>. More significantly, however, we found the killer new application for chatbots: <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/ppc-conversion-rate-conversational-landing-pages/">PPC conversion rate optimization</a>. 



It didn’t take long for us to get singularly (perhaps unhealthily) focused on the PPC marketing. Over the last 5 months we have immersed ourselves in the world of CPAs, CPCs and all of the other <a href="https://www.webfuel.ca/what-do-all-those-ppc-acronyms-stand-for/">jargon-y acronyms in the PPC space</a>. In fact, we got so into it, that <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/5-things-we-learned-at-smx-east/">I flew all the way across the world to New York for SMX East</a> where I hung out with an awesome group of search marketers (that’s where the featured image comes from). As 2018 came to an end last night, we got a bit sentimental (and also a bit tipsy) about this new self-discovery (Vinit from the Tars tech team has been an emotional wreck) and have been thinking up ways to cap off a wonderful year. 



The best idea we came up with was a 2019 predictions post of the <a href="https://fortunly.com/statistics/small-business-statistics/">marketing trends</a> we expect to come into their own in the next year



Here is the list we came up with.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Rise of Brands</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/z8E-PjnPIYrnFOVVuk7rOq4h6iwSKrJxOJ0KQExVUa39av0dYPK3vBpyQO0Dd82jYdSLf39Nat-BVFdrjG4RK3aTaucjBRsnTMLI-E49-08M-vs0QfBh_bA2ZMGhYllXxvYx5DFT" alt=""/></figure></div>



PPC marketers invest time, effort and money to increase conversion rates and drop CPA. While this is undoubtedly an important aspect of the PPC marketing process, it leaves much to be desired, and we think that 2019 is the year that the industry realizes that. Rather than focusing on increasing short-term ROI, PPC marketers will use their campaigns as a brand-building tool that inspires loyalty in customers. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Marketers will spend less time trying to maximize the profit on each click that they pay for, and look at longer term bigger picture gains.</blockquote>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Increased use of Videos</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pPN9s97GJ7Y0Y4qozLCpifbxbIych-LQy62c9WU49uqAIzD3CLJToy-02f_wAxpi1tQ_gJSlR5ia_dz-GYb6Y_2GGQr2b8KMKbgpNZlTOjsTxuXLAgMRzO5VK7hcvTCul8B2H53f" alt=""/></figure></div>



<a href="https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/youtube-rewind-video-2018-dislike/">YouTube rewind might have sucked this year</a> but believe it or not videos are here to stay. In fact, we are so optimistic about the increasing power of video as a piece of content that we don’t use regular text messages to communicate internally. Instead, if I want to ask Vinit from the tech team to go for a tea break, I send him a video message recorded on Loom.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">In 2019, we predict that video will play an increasingly important role in the way PPC campaigns are run. </blockquote>



In addition to growing ad spend on YouTube and Instagram, we see immense potential for video content on on other PPC platforms like Google and Amazon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">PPC for Content</h2>



Content marketing has been a productive lead gen channel for some time now, but we feel that it began to really hit its stride in 2018, when the quality of free content saw a dramatic increase. Our personal favorite was this kick-ass advent calendar made by the folks at Acquisio.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/hMExNg89xg9MLYxjyoaS6YgWUkiyr4JteVaIH8zDciG9z0oOOkeTyf_iD2Rhy7HqAcFT7Uu_R9s4Js8_8l0qD7-HBRYvjXa88j9NSbJyziWL58mbWUp2Dz-8GLXAdB-MZZFqgYXE" alt=""/></figure></div>



In 2019, we expect to see more amazing content like the advent calendar, and more significantly, we expect to see companies promoting this content through PPC campaigns. As a company that relies heavily on content marketing ourselves, we know the amount of time and effort goes into making a piece of content, and we are seriously considering running PPC campaigns to get them the visibility that they deserve. (We actually borrowed this prediction from the Acquisio advent calendar, which you should totally check out over <a href="https://promotion.acquisio.com/2019-digital-marketing-paid-media-predictions/?utm_campaign=1812-2019-digital-marketing-predictions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">HERE</a>). 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Paid Voice Search?</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8K4gJldXOnXxn9h3vzl0okUT6HBXdROVfvRoTGZxOK2_BT4VicACNu9PdMdPXJl7LtiGRyM0iJB6RGasA_c1ej2pBbmgeAd4kIfzylumfNXz-vkXcsDHI-4WdunJkfPW2oM59T6K" alt=""/></figure></div>



Alexa, and Google Home have been around for some time now, but they hit critical mass in 2018. Research by voicebot found that <a href="https://voicebot.ai/2018/04/02/smart-speaker-owners-use-voice-assistants-nearly-3-times-per-day/">1 in 5 adult Americans own a smart speakers</a>. These customers interact with those speakers about <a href="https://econsultancy.com/the-state-of-smart-speaker-voice-search-in-2018/">2.79 times a day on an average amounting to 132 million daily interactions</a>. Of these, an estimated <a href="https://econsultancy.com/the-state-of-smart-speaker-voice-search-in-2018/">20-25% are searches for local businesses.</a> 



As these platforms continue to their meteoric in 2019, we expect to see Google and Amazon experiment with monetization. We don’t know how this would end up looking or working, but we’re willing to bet that there will be some form of paid voice search results on offer in 2019.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Continued rise of Amazon PPC</h2>



In the search space Google has long been a market leader that towers above its competition. In 2018, however we saw a viable competitor emerge in the ecommerce space. <a href="https://www.lsainsider.com/study-54-of-product-searches-began-on-amazon-in-the-second-quarter-of-2018/archives">54% of product searches today, begin on Amazon</a> and this increased dominance is showing in the PPC space. AdSpend on Amazon PPC campaigns has been rising quickly. In fact, PPC revenue is now Amazon’s fastest growing segment.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/WCYqxVmbUPaGwODQ5DCi3hNZAmNrBTqHmhTjIVF5i_U4xgHxlkMesHirlcW8yPtz6uT34GLOOrnaedA-4vMEC_hLJeWWBcm1FM0rOfPT1Id63sNlK6wn36gjNDSj6DNDuda0h9qh" alt=""/></figure></div>







In addition to seeing a continued rise, we expect Amazon to develop it’s search ecosystem even further 2019, with the addition of richer search results and a position 0 type offering.







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Audience-based&nbsp;Targeting</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/xYE3kx_2Viq-VpRJbgsJhoOkzUDZ614ObD5ziLxgsP8BB56di3OIVCRhfi9X3B8ivmQfILNZk76vuQZmCMqWFoeKYEt1dpAfwpapcwU2hjGx-auCQ-LuRQjXF5Avgym-GQvjbiv0" alt=""/></figure></div>



Earlier this year we attended SMX East, one of the world’s largest search marketing conferences. One of the coolest announcements at the event was finding out about the integration between <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/bing-ads-allow-advertisers-target-linkedin-audiences/256019/">Bing’s ad platform and LinkedIn’s social graph</a>. 



Essentially, Bing advertisers can use data from LinkedIn to improve ad targeting. We see this as an early sign of a larger &nbsp;trend in the Search marketing world. Till now, search marketers have relied wholly on keywords as a way of finding, segmenting and targeting audiences. In 2019, we expect to see deeper integrations between search platforms and social platforms giving rise to <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ppc-trends-in-2019/275425/">audience-based ad-targeting.</a> 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Continued Rise AI</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/3RJ4QDVJFVNAeOwKj49n8-KrDplIFVXzdc53Hn7OBR7iSvW9BS0D6_Cq0epnbWmDLCQDOUz8DXDXGWanWlKm_P1Jf8N24jRS4veCf-ger2CTWuMVlwkdFDH_NPvmDefnuMUj-dKa" alt=""/></figure>



AI is playing an increasingly significant role in the way PPC marketing campaigns are run. As competition in the PPC space increases significantly, the workload on PPC managers is becoming even more hectic. Over the past few years we have seen a rise in <a href="http://shape.io">AI-driven bid management software</a> that reduces the stress by automating many of these processes. The beauty of AI is that as it gets used more, it gets better. As such, in 2019, we expect to see dramatic improvements in AI-based PPC marketing that makes the lives of marketers even easier.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Drop in AdSpend</h2>



No one at Tars is an economist, but we have figured out a way to get around the WSJ paywall, and we’re pretty certain that there will be a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-economy-flashes-signs-its-downhill-from-here-1540656002">recession in 2019</a>. While the recession might not be as bad as the 2008 Financial crisis(hopefully), it will undoubtedly affect spending across the board. This will inevitably mean reduced online spending which will adversely hit companies that advertise online, who will be forced to reduce the amount they spend online. Doomsday is coming people! 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">PPC Chatbots</h2>



When Facebook released it’s messenger platform in 2016, many in the tech world thought that it would be the next big platform for online sales. Much of that hype was unfounded as Messenger bots have not seen widespread adoption, but the promise of a more conversational buying process is robust and growing. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Marketers have increasingly found that the killer feature for chatbots is web-based lead generation. </blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/11_adqM1ytSMEuO3PKo95FsUTU1EThS2b7r4npmqf7LeTEek6lmpYiYzSp5hUFLolYx2qJFA695GH3GV0JpcAHJZug27VLl-BYD-DISj-lfBcC2hKbOjUYhcEbN9k-wOLqXt2V83" alt=""/></figure></div>



Chatbots offer a familiar, mobile-friendly and, most importantly, engaging lead generation experience to prospects that results in a higher conversion rate and lower CPA. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">In 2019, we predict that there will be greater adoption of the Chatbot technology in the PPC space in particular where traditional post-click experiences (e.g. click-to-call, landing pages) have long yielded abysmal conversion rates.</blockquote>



Don’t believe us? 



Check out our very own lead gen chatbot over <a href="https://2xconversions.hellotars.com/conv/HJGsEj/#tarsbot">HERE</a>. 



 

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9 PPC Marketing Trends to Look Out For in 2019

9 PPC Marketing Trends to Look Out For in 2019 - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: January 4, 2019</div>Last Friday I did something that I don’t normally do. Instead of getting my usual morning cup of coffee and heading into work later than I ought to, I caught the airport shuttle bus down the street, waded through Bangalore’s awful rush hour traffic (believe me when I say that it is BAD), made it through check-in, security and immigration and got on a 26 hour flight from Bangalore to New York. Am I a masochist who likes sharing a confined space with not one, but two crying babies for hours on end? No. I’m just a guy who really likes Search Marketing.
This past week, I attended <a href="https://marketinglandevents.com/smx/east/">SMX East</a>, one of the world’s premier conferences on SEO and SEM. Other than providing us with the ideal excuse to travel to New York, the event gave me a unique opportunity to meet some amazing people from the Search Marketing World.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1926" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2084a40d7fbc1f9dd0ff_6a0ec1e45ab4cdf38432ba38_wp-SMX_East_2018.jpeg" alt="" width="800" height="289" />
What I particularly loved about the conference was that it brought together people from companies of all shapes and sizes. I met everyone from a stand-up comic who was considering a career shift into the marketing world to product managers from tech behemoths like Google and Microsoft. Interacting with this diverse set of people was above all a great learning opportunity.
<h3>Here are my 5 biggest takeaways (in no particular order):</h3>
<h3>1. Bing Exists</h3>
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1923" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2084a40d7fbc1f9dd104_6a0ec1e7f10bbb3b4e15dffb_wp-Bing_SMX.jpeg" alt="" width="795" height="600" />
It is undeniable that within the search space, Google is King. That said, the significant presence of Microsoft’s team at the conference pushed me to look more closely at what Bing has to offer, and I was pleasantly surprised. With low CPCs, neat features, like the <a href="https://marketingland.com/marketers-can-now-use-linkedin-category-data-for-targeting-through-bing-search-250326" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ability to use LinkedIn data in Ad targeting</a>, and not to mention some kick-ass swag, I am definitely keeping an eye on the Microsoft ad network as a place where business gets done.
<h3>2. There is a World beyond the West</h3>
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1935" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2084a40d7fbc1f9dd109_6a0ec1eaaae0a271c70a85d0_wp-digitalcrew.jpeg" alt="" width="1440" height="1080" />
Living in India it is easy to assume that Western search engines like Google, and Bing are the only companies of their sort. I found however, that there is a thriving world outside of the Western search ecosystem. After a fruitful conversation with the <a href="https://www.digitalcrew.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">folks at Digital Crew</a>, I realised that my outlook on Search Marketing was missing a coherent approach to Baidu ads.
<h3>3. The Agency Community is Welcoming AF</h3>
Don’t tell <a href="https://twitter.com/msirkin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marc Sirkin</a> this, but I snuck into a meet up meant exclusively for people running, or working at marketing agencies. At the meet-up I heard agencies, big and small, trade stories, share concerns and offer advice to one another. My biggest takeaway from the session was that the marketing agency community is one of the most warm and welcoming communities which I have had the pleasure of interacting with. Seriously, even if they weren’t Tars’ prospective customers, I’d totally hang out with them.
<h3>4. Search Marketers know their Stuff</h3>
This might seem like an obvious point considering that I was at a conference which brought together search marketing experts, but if there is one thing I have learned from working in the chatbot space for the last few years it is that industry ”experts” are often full of shit. The Search Marketing world however is not like the chatbot space.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
The very last session of the very last day for <a href="https://twitter.com/smx?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SMX</a> East 2018 is our beloved Analytics Clinic &#8211; and it&#8217;s STILL a full house! Search marketers rock 💪❤️ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SMX?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SMX</a> <a href="https://t.co/SZVApRH8iN">pic.twitter.com/SZVApRH8iN</a>
— Search Engine Land (@sengineland) <a href="https://twitter.com/sengineland/status/1055549751092019201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 25, 2018</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Whether I was fielding questions from co-attendees on the Expo floor, listening to CRO clinics, or talking to exhibitors, everyone had a deep understanding about what they were talking about. Just answering the rigorous questions which people had for me, has given me a deeper understanding about my own product.
<h3>5. The Post-Click Deficit</h3>
Whether you work on SEO or SEM, <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/ppc-conversion-rate-conversational-landing-pages/">what your prospect sees after they click on your link is important</a>. A bad post-click experience will necessarily kill your conversion rate. Search engines know this. It is the reason they use indicators like Quality Score to help rank pages. This is why I was surprised by the lack of emphasis on this aspect of Search marketing at the conference. Don’t get me wrong. Things like average ad position and ad-copy are super important, but past a few CRO clinics (which were awesome by the way) and the one booth dedicated to landing pages, there was little discussion about post-click user experience. It almost seems like past following a basic set of best practices and technical optimisations, the search world has forgotten how to innovate in the post-click experience department. In the past, we have likened this phenomena to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Search marketers and search engine execs alike mistake the ubiquity of traditional landing page design with validation that it is the one true way landing pages should look. Perhaps I am biased because <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/lead-generation-form-sucks/">I work on fixing this exact problem</a>, but the minimal discussion on the topic was a bit odd, to say the least.
All things considered though, the conference was amazing. The welcoming nature of the search community meant that everyone I spoke to about the problem which I described above was open to talk. It was truly worth the 26 hour flight, and jet lag it took to get there. Search marketers are some of the greatest people you will meet, and I would highly recommend that anyone attend any of the SMX conferences next year. 
Who knows? Perhaps Tars might even spring for an actual booth at some point in the near future.
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5 Things We Learned at SMX East

5 Things We Learned at SMX East - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: October 20, 2018</div><figure></figure>
Unless you&#8217;ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you&#8217;ll know that chatbots are red hot in the digital marketing space. As someone who has built over chatbots over the last 2 years, I can positively say that the most of this hype is bullshit. People are jumping onto the chatbot bandwagon not because they understand the value the technology offers them, but rather because they don&#8217;t want to miss out on a trend. At it&#8217;s core, however, the technology offers marketers, a real value. The killer app for Chatbots is PPC Lead Generation. Here are four reasons why your PPC landing page should be a chatbot:
<h3>1. Higher User Engagement</h3>
On a traditional PPC landing page, businesses expect customers to read testimonials and fill out forms:
<img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1803 aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f1c9cc8bc55d781d59de9_6a0ec1f28a5029cf6504364e_wp-Untitled-1024x472.png" alt="The traditional landing page which AD used was unengaging" width="1024" height="472" />
Your customers do not have the attention span for an experience like this. With Instagram a few taps away, customers want to be engaged the minute they land on your site.
<img decoding="async" class="size-large aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afae_giphy.gif" alt="bored" width="500" height="237" />
Having a chatbot on site does just this. The back-and-forth nature of a chat means that information is presented to customers in a continuous stream of bite-sized chunks, ready for consumption.
<img decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-1856 aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c335_QDI_RYvzVw9fl2kwXl62BSNgvdmSoi2DivTc8Zdnb0bFOG6_R0ztzJeWuEZFI5KIgCUPZq4AujRdgpbxQXAAJYpvBqmHzUPVt6uAhrR3cMYeAIlpilSjtcV2rvD94KGhpbUbb_Eb.gif" alt="ppc chatbot" width="386" height="677" />
<h3>2. Mobile Optimized right out of the box</h3>
<figure></figure>
One of the bigger PPC landing page builder services out there suggests this as a good landing page template:
<img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-1704 aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afaa_6a0ec1f949bc4fb18a230e6b_wp-instapage-1-1024x557-1024x557.jpeg" alt="traditional landing page instapage" width="1024" height="557" />
Notice how the mobile version is almost completely covered by a form. This is because traditional landing pages are primarily made for desktops and laptops. Their mobile versions are cramped after-thoughts, unworthy of your customers eyes.
Chat interfaces however, were built first and foremost for the mobile screens. Ever since the days of WhatsApp running on old Symbian phones, the paradigm of message bubbles has reigned supreme on small screens. Put simply, the most intuitive way to interact with one&#8217;s phone is through chat.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afb5_6a0ec1fcf10bbb3b4e15ec37_wp-7ff99-1-wnj8_xm6lka1sagusupca.gif" />
<h3>3. The WhatsApp effect</h3>
<figure><img decoding="async" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afb8_6a0ec1ff0c37e9679b304d03_wp-5b2be-1cb_1lrenihbflyjwzen1xq.jpeg" /></figure>
&nbsp;
Every landing page is slightly different from every other landing page. While the general template remains the same, minor aspects like color, element placement, and branding change completely. This means that when a customer reaches your landing page, they have to figure out where everything is.
<img decoding="async" class=" aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afbb_giphy.gif" alt="where is everything" width="392" height="392" />
Everyone from your grandmother to your 10 year old niece uses text messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. This means that if your landing page is a chatbot, customers will know exactly what to do, the second the page loads.
<h3>4. Money</h3>
This final advantage of a chatbot PPC landing page is a culmination of the previous three. Higher engagement, mobile optimization, and familiarity all point to a better user experience.
A better user experience means a lower bounce rate, <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/conversion-rate-ppc-chatbot/">higher conversion rate</a>, and <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/conversational-landing-page-ppc-cpl-reduce/">lower cost per lead</a>. In other words, more money for you and your business to thrive.
<img decoding="async" class="size-large aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209256656fe593e5afb1_giphy.gif" alt="moneeeeeeeeeey" width="480" height="270" />
&nbsp;
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4 Reasons your PPC Landing Page should be a Chatbot

Chatbots are a buzzword in the marketing space. But how exactly can they help you see more value? Here are four reasons your PPC landing page should be a chatbot.

4 Reasons your PPC Landing Page should be a Chatbot - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: August 22, 2024</div><h4 style="text-align: center;">Healthcare at Home (HCAH) used a <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a> reduce their cost per lead by 48% and increase lead conversion rates by 2x. Here&#8217;s their story.</h4>
<h2>About HCAH</h2>
As its name suggests <a href="http://www.hcah.in" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HealthCare at HOME (HCAH), is a leading Indian health services provider</a>. The organization is backed by the Burman family, who also promote Dabur, and the founders of <a href="https://hah.co.uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HAH</a> UK. HCAH has also received equity investment from <a href="https://www.quadriacapital.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Quadria Capital</a>, one of Asia’s leading healthcare focused private equity firms. The company has 1000+ team members and caregivers’ workforce covering more than 40 cities in India.
<h2 style="text-align: left;">Before Tars</h2>
HCAH spends a considerable amount in the tens of thousands of dollars on Google Ads every month. Before using Tars, this Ad spend was used to direct prospects to:
<ol>
<li style="list-style-type: none;">
<ol>
<li>Static Landing Pages with lead capture forms and phone numbers.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: left;">Click-to-Call campaigns, where a combination of IVRS and sales reps would attempt to qualify and capture their lead.</li>
</ol>
Here is what the Old Landing Page used to look like :
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1797" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2099c200ed317ee57768_6a0ec20c0c37e9679b305a9b_wp-hcah_oldlp.jpeg" alt="" width="700" height="567" />
The system worked but not without considerable pain:
<ul>
<li>No one likes using forms and drop rates from the static landing pages were high</li>
<li>Prospects who would click on the Click-to-Call Ad had to wait in line to connect with a human agent and would drop off in the process.</li>
</ul>
Cost Per Lead was high and conversion rate was a modest ~13%.
<h2 style="text-align: left;">PPC Chatbot as the Solution</h2>
HCAH, enlisted the services of <a href="http://www.genymedium.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">marketing agency GenYMedium</a> to solve the problem. They decided that the ideal solution was a <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a>. Using the Tars builder tool they made a bot that looks like this:
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1742" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2099c200ed317ee5777f_6a0ec20f5c08d1698a979809_wp-HCAH_New.gif" alt="Conversational Landing page example" width="344" height="603" />
Unlike the previous click-to-call system, there is no time spent waiting for a human agent to get on the line. Unlike the traditional lead form solution, the back-and-forth nature of the interaction makes prospects feel like they are having a genuine two-way interaction with the company. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/guptasandesh/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sandesh Gupta</a>, GenYMedium’s Head of Analytics reveals that this enhanced user experience has a significant impact on the way prospects interact with HCAH:
<blockquote>
<figure id="attachment_1753" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1753" style="width: 204px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img decoding="async" class="wp-image-1753" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2099c200ed317ee57783_6a0ec21296d296ac8d2b692c_wp-sandesh-1.jpeg" alt="Sandesh Gupta, Head of Analytics at GenYMedium" width="204" height="204" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-1753" class="wp-caption-text">Sandesh Gupta, Head of Analytics at GenYMedium</figcaption></figure>
&#8220;While the PPC Chatbots themselves are completely automated, they give users the impression that they are speaking to an actual human being.  This induces a sense of trust in prospects which in turn translates into a higher conversion rate and a lower CPL. &#8220;
</blockquote>
Sandesh also mentioned that the <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a> has helped <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/conversations-improve-lead-quality/">qualify</a> HCAH&#8217;s leads. Since the lead generation process in their old lead capture methods, prospects do not have the patience to answer many questions. The interactivity of a <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a> however solves this problem. Using a <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a>, HCAH is now able to ask additional questions to qualify their leads such as:
<ul>
<li>Which area are you in?</li>
<li>What kind of treatment are you looking for?</li>
<li>How soon are you looking for treatment?</li>
</ul>
[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/conversations-improve-lead-quality/">This Company Used Conversations to Dramatically Increase the Quality of their leads</a>]
<h2 style="text-align: left;">The Results</h2>
<blockquote>
In numerical terms, the company has seen CPL drop by around 48% and the lead conversion rate almost double to ~25%. 
</blockquote>
From a qualitative standpoint, the enhanced lead quality has reduced the time HCAH&#8217;s sales team spends converting leads. Most importantly however, it has dramatically reduced the friction between patients and the quality healthcare which they need.
<h2 style="text-align: left;">The Upshot</h2>
HCAH’s experience with <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbots</a> has significant implications for the way we think about lead generation and qualification process. Along with a significant drop in CPL, the landing pages had essentially turned leads which they had once considered to be Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL), into Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). Where their process had previously involved running Marketing Ad campaigns to capture MQLs which the sales team would later follow-up on, the <a href="https://hellotars.com">PPC Chatbot</a> essentially brought the sales rep directly to the Ad-prospects. In essence, they had created the ultimate sales rep. One that never slept, responded immediately and was available immediately after the first click.
If you want to run similar Ad Campaigns, you can reach out to Tars (click <a href="https://contactme.hellotars.com/conv/HJemq_/">here</a>) or Sandesh and his team at <a href="https://genymedium.com/">GenYMedium</a>, and we will be happy to assess, build and run a Conversational Ad Campaign for your business.
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[Case Study] A Dead Simple Hack to Reduce Cost Per Lead by 48%

HCAH used a PPC Chatbot as their post-click experience. Prospects rewarded them with a 2x higher conversion rate and 48% lower Cost Per Lead

A Dead Simple Hack to Reduce Cost Per Lead by 48% - Tars Blog

<div class="last-updated" style="background: #f0fdf4; border-left: 3px solid #16a34a; padding: 8px 12px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 14px; color: #166534;">&#10003; Last Updated: August 2, 2019</div><blockquote>Your Landing Page is killing your PPC Conversion Rate. Conversational Landing Pages could be the CRO tool which fixes that.</blockquote>
Picture this. 
You are looking for a car insurance policy. You Google “car insurance” and a whole bunch of Google Ads show up. The first link is from a huge company whose ads you&#8217;ve seen on TV, so it must be trustworthy. You click on it and the landing page is exactly what you&#8217;d expect. There is a picture of a smiling insurance agent staring lifelessly into your soul. She promises that if you provide your zip code below, you&#8217;ll get quick and easy quote. It isn&#8217;t particularly engaging but it&#8217;s car insurance. How exciting could it really be? A few key taps later, you&#8217;ve entered your zip code and hit submit. 
Everything from here on out is a slow moving train wreck.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea5680_6a0ec21a2570e1d0fb4925eb_wp-5d765-1jvjcao9euutcuwcinewjqq.gif" alt="progressive_experience" width="360" height="640" />
Hitting submit causes your screen to go blank. The page is loading. While waiting for it to finish, you look up at the ceiling of your bedroom and notice a weird spot. That&#8217;s odd! You were staring at your ceiling the night before while candy crush was loading, and the spot wasn&#8217;t there. Or was it? Your mind is probably playing tricks on you. You look back at your screen.
The UI elements have started to appear. There is clearly a form you are going to have to fill, asking for your name, address, etc. But, as is often the case with mobile websites, the page jerks around as new elements are rendered. You go back to staring at the spot on your ceiling. Is it bigger since the last time you saw it? Is it mold?! Holy shit! It&#8217;s probably mold! You have to find out. You open a new tab, and look up what a mold spot looks like. Google has you covered with an article (from ABC news of all places), which you start reading. Apparently mold can make you really sick! You had a headache yesterday! Was it mold related? New tab, new google search: &#8220;Mold sickness.&#8221; Things are not looking promising. It turns out mold sickness can kill you.
It&#8217;s now been 20 minutes and you have completely forgotten about your car insurance search. Instead you are on the Wikipedia page of famed civil rights activist and academic W.E.B du Bois. From the perspective of the company whose Ad you clicked, you are 50 bucks down the drain.
This sort of interaction is not uncommon in the PPC industry. It is reflective of a bigger problem in the industry.
<blockquote>
The way we think about PPC landing pages is broken.
</blockquote>
Good quality images, videos, testimonials and CTAs are all considerations you are told to keep in mind while creating a landing page. But no matter how many of these best practices you incorporate in your landing page, the end result is un-engaging and yields abysmally low conversion rates. It is no accident that <a href="https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/03/17/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the average landing page conversion rate across industries for Google Search Ads is 2.35%.</a>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Why do PPC landing pages suck?</h3>
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1RWOpQXTltA" width="560" height="314" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
A co-worker of mine likes to compare the way the PPC industry thinks of landing pages to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RWOpQXTltA&amp;t=150s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Plato’s Allegory of the Cave</a>. Within the industry there is a definite picture for what landing pages should look like and how they ought to function. But like the individuals in Plato’s Allegory, the PPC industry is imprisoned in a cave looking at a mere shadow of what their post-click experience could look like. 
According to one of the industry’s leading landing page tools this is a good landing page template:
<img decoding="async" class="alignleft wp-image-1704 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea5671_6a0ec2211dd8ac9235884db1_wp-instapage-1-1024x557.jpeg" alt="instapage_template" width="1024" height="557" />
On the surface it looks great! Clean(-ish) design, bright colors, a clear value proposition, a lead-capture form and even a number listed for those who want it. 
Prospects who land on such a page have to read through the site for more information and fill out a form to express interest in the product or service. These tasks are easy enough to complete and are the standard for all post-click interactions. Most, if not all landing pages, follow this same formula of visuals, text and forms to capture leads.  
<blockquote>
But have you ever stopped to consider whether this is truly the best way to design a landing page? 
</blockquote>
To me, there are three glaring deficiencies in traditional landing pages:
<ol>
<li style="text-align: left;">they are not optimized for phone screens,</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">they are un-intuitive</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">they are un-engaging</li>
</ol>
These deficiencies are preventing you from achieving true PPC conversion optimization.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Static Landing Pages are Mobile Un-optimized</h3>
To be clear, when I speak of mobile optimization (or the lack thereof) in traditional landing pages, I am not focusing on the technical aspects of optimization. Rather, I adopt a more design-focused critique. Traditional landing pages are made for desktops and laptops first and then re-configured for phones. In the process of adjusting the elements on the page the UX suffers. In the example above, the mobile version looks more cluttered. You can barely see the background image; The elements on the page are squished together; And worst of all, a form covers the vast majority of the page.
<a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/click-here-if-you-hate-forms/">Nobody likes forms.</a> They are a mundane part of the web which we reluctantly tolerate. 
Greeting prospects with a form is a sure shot way of telling prospects to drop off from your page. Of course, the small screen size means that designers have little recourse to solve the issue. Making the form smaller would render it unreadable and unusable, and having the form lower down in the page will confuse prospects as they won’t know how they can take action on the page. In either case, the result is prospects unnecessarily dropping before converting.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Static Landing Pages are Unintuitive</h3>
While the general template of PPC landing pages does remain the same, changes in color, CTA, images and even the placement of page elements, are disorienting. Think about it. Most landing pages look different from one another. Every time you land on one, it takes a few seconds to figure out where everything is. For prospects who are not as tech-savvy nor patient as you might like, this is a problem. If you target older demographics (e.g. your parents or grandparents), having an interface that is even slightly too complex might cause prospects to drop without converting. Even for a millennial like myself, I don&#8217;t give most landing pages the time their owners expect.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Static Landing Pages are Not Engaging</h3>
Perhaps the most egregious shortfall of traditional landing pages is that they are boring. Once a prospect has gone through the process of orienting themselves on your landing page, they need to interact with the site to get what they want. The methods traditional websites use to get these tasks done are mundane.  In the age of Instagram and Facebook, even filling out a short form, is mind numbingly boring. Further still, these tasks are impersonal.  Even though businesses spend time and effort building and analyzing their landing pages, from the prospect&#8217;s perspective, no one from the business is actually present when they fill out the form. 
Put simply, traditional landing pages are un-engaging. 
This might seem like a trivial issue, since the purpose of an Ad campaign is not to have fun. But the effects of an un-engaging post-click experience are catastrophic for businesses dependent on paid traffic. With ever-shortening attention spans, unengaged prospects will drop without converting. Low conversion rates mean wasted ad-spend, less business and a never-ending spiral of increasing costs, and lower revenue.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conversational Landing Pages are the solution</h3>
This is what a conversational landing page looks like:
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1680 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f2060227363a218d6c335_QDI_RYvzVw9fl2kwXl62BSNgvdmSoi2DivTc8Zdnb0bFOG6_R0ztzJeWuEZFI5KIgCUPZq4AujRdgpbxQXAAJYpvBqmHzUPVt6uAhrR3cMYeAIlpilSjtcV2rvD94KGhpbUbb_Eb.gif" alt="conversational landing pages" width="386" height="677" />
<h2 style="text-align: left;"></h2>
Its <a href="https://www.hellotars.com/blog/chat-and-the-power-of-good-ui/">universally understood, universally beloved chat interface</a> addresses all the three shortfalls of traditional PPC landing pages.
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conversational Landing Pages are Intuitive</h3>
Chat apps in the modern age have become ubiquitous. More people today use chat apps than social media apps and I am willing to bet that even you spend a considerable amount of time during the day in a chat app (e.g WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Viber):
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1690 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea567c_6a0ec228dd80df03a86ec0d8_wp-graph.png" alt="messaging vs social media usage" width="800" height="636" />
This means that when you show a conversational landing page your prospects (regardless of who they are), they will understand exactly what the website expects of them. 
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conversational Landing Pages are Mobile Optimized</h3>
Unlike websites, chat interfaces were made primarily with the smartphone screen in mind. The existence of WhatsApp is a proof of this. Years ago (2010 or 2011), I bought my first internet connected phone. It was one of those Nokia phones that ran SymbianOS. While the phone&#8217;s measly specs and hardware keypad pale in comparison to the smartphones of today, I would still consider it to be the first smartphone I have ever owned. What differentiated it from the previous feature phones that I had owned was not that it&#8217;s web browser was more advanced, but the fact that it ran WhatsApp.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1700 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea566d_6a0ec22abe787e41af6ef02d_wp-nokia-wa-1.jpeg" alt="WhatsApp_old" width="800" height="500" />
The chat interface of WhatsApp defined early on what would be considered a smartphone and what would not. Eight years on, chat apps like WhatsApp continue to be popular with little change to their interface. The paradigm of to and from message bubbles persists.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1702 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea5678_6a0ec22cdd80df03a86ec36d_wp-android-wa-1-1024x835.jpeg" alt="WhatsApp_new" width="700" height="571" />
This sustained popularity is the proof that the interface is the most natural way to interact with a small screen. 
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conversational Landing Pages are Engaging</h3>
<blockquote>
The difference between having a Traditional Landing Page and Conversational Landing Page, is the same as the difference between a grocery store and an Apple store. 
</blockquote>
When you walk into a grocery store, you have to pick out all the products you want to buy on your own, enlisting the help of signs and memory to navigate your way around. The process is doable, but mundane. In an Apple store on the other hand, a smiling store attendant greets you, figures out exactly what you need, answers your questions and even gives you advice based on what they might do in your situation.
The interaction at grocery store, is not necessarily a negative one but it certainly isn&#8217;t memorable. The Apple store interaction, on the other hand is positive experience that the customer will remember for days. 
<h3 style="text-align: left;">Conversational landing pages are the Apple store of the web. </h3>
The back-and-forth nature of the interaction, makes users feel like they are getting a personalized experience whose direction they can control. Since they are presented with a few message bubbles at a time instead of a whole page of text, prospects spend less effort figuring out how to advance their interaction. Traditional landing pages on the other hand are like grocery stores. Filling out forms and clicking on buttons are mundane tasks that will fade from memory.
<img decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-1707 size-full" src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6756905c4f1eabb644da6afe/6a0f209c884b24aabcea5674_6a0ec22f72aa3d63cc676fba_wp-Apple-store_experience.jpeg" alt="Apple Store" width="780" height="520" />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">The Upshot</h3>
Using conversations to drive business is not a new idea. Throughout history, and even in the present, conversations have facilitated trade between individuals. When a clothing store attendant helps you find the right pair of jeans or when someone offers you a free sample at a grocery store, you are conducting business through conversation. 
In the past decade, the internet has disrupted this way of conducting business.
In return for the convenience of buying things from their office cubicle, couch or bed, customers endure landing pages where they have to put in their own time and effort to make purchases. This has made businesses complacent. We assume that such behavior means that the public doesn&#8217;t care for  engagement, or human connection. Such an idea is misguided to say the least. While human behavior patterns might have changed in the past decade, our basic instincts and desires have not. Every prospect that clicks on your PPC Ad wants a good customer service experience post-click. Till recently, you could throw up your hands. Pictures, videos and shorter forms were the pinnacle of good landing page UX. 
<blockquote>Conversational landing pages raise the bar. They allow you to give users the personalized service that they want and deserve without making them concede any convenience. </blockquote>

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Conversations will save your PPC Conversion Rate

PPC conversion rates across industry are abysmally low. Why is this the case and what is the solution? Here's an in-depth explainer

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