Adam Sand breaks down why ads fail: the landing page doesn't match what the ad promised. He walks through a six-point checklist and shows how Nike's vintage shoe billboard sends people to the right product page, not a generic homepage. Relevance between ad and destination is everything.
Beginning with the end in mind is just such a key critical component. Because what happens is we end up kind of like just launching ads that don't all line up. It's helpful to look at what really works on Facebook is you're interrupting someone's day and you're just trying to get them to take one step towards meaningfully solving a problem that you can either create for them or that they already know exists. You want to think of, who are you showing the ads to? Where are you showing them ads? What is the offer in the ad? What does the ad look like and say, where does the ad take them to? And what does that place that they go to look like? And what happens next when it comes to this? I like to use this analogy because I think it helps people make sense when we look at an industry outside of ourselves. If I'm going to release the Nike Jordan vintage edition shoe, like the original shoe, the red one that had the wings on the side of the basketball, If I'm going to release the Nike vintage edition, and so someone told me in the marketing department that we should run billboards. Well, I have a bunch of decisions to make. So I have to think of, like, what's the billboard going to look like and where am I going to put the billboard? Because I got to think, who am I showing these ads to? So if I find out, okay, what traffic exists on which roads where, this would make sense. So there are places that are big in basketball, right? Like, there's March Madness and like Syracuse, New York, there's a big basketball community with the Hoosiers in Indiana. Like, there are certain states where basketball is huge. Canada, basketball is not huge. So you put that billboard anywhere in Canada, it's going to perform way less than anywhere in America. But then there are certain places in America where it's going to perform better. Probably going to do pretty good in Chicago. So if you find the street, if you could literally know the street and say, these are the streets where people who love basketball and love Michael Jordan and love Nike drive, that would probably be a great place for a billboard. How many people drive that road is the next thing, like, because I have to pay per thousand impressions. So if I put that billboard up, says red Nike Air Jordan vintage edition, the first goal is like, yeah, the ads got to be very clear on communicating that we are re releasing the red Nike Jordan vintage edition. Then when I put that billboard somewhere, I want the people who look at it to be interested in that kind of thing. They have to see it and they would be inclined to want to engage further. So in there, I would get my cost per thousand impressions, right? There's probably a street in downtown Chicago that has a ton of traffic, but only 10% of the people in downtown Chicago are interested in basketball. But then I could put it on, say, the north side of Chicago is where all the, like outdoor basketball courts are. You know, big community of basketball playing, demographics. It's like the big. If you put the billboard there, there's less traffic, but a much higher concentration of people who love basketball. Where am I going to pay more? I might pay more for the high traffic billboard. Because the high traffic billboard, they're going to say, hey, this billboard gets a million impressions per day. A million people walk or drive by this billboard every single day. So therefore we want a pretty penny for it. If you're looking at the billboard on the north side, they're going to say, yeah, that one only gets about like 20,000 impressions a day. And you're like, I don't care. It's got 20,000 impressions of exactly who I want. So your cost per thousand impressions is lower and it's a more relevant audience. So that's the first step. The second step is like, the ad has to be good. The third step is when they go there, let's say there's a QR code or some kind of like scan this picture or ad, and the augmented reality AI machine learning bot inside your phone is going to take you to our landing page, right? We'll say this technology exists because it does on Facebook. The billboard is essentially on the highway. Every time you scroll your Facebook, you go scroll up to whatever the 6.1 inches of your phone. You're moving 6 inches down the highway. The feed and then. And they're inserting billboards along the way. That's all it is. You just, you scroll 30ft of Facebook a day or you scroll 100ft of Facebook per day. And Facebook knows everything about you. And they can say, you're not limited to a physical space, but you can say, I want to put this in front of only people that are like that. So if this billboard allowed you to scan a QR code or view it, there's two options. If you put that ad up and when they scan it, they go to nike.com store or you, you had run a test. And the other ad goes to nike.com store vintage editionshoes/ men's. And all you have to do is pick your size and buy. There's a decision being made there One decision is that you're gonna sell more shoes of the exact vintage edition. The opposing argument was if they go to Nike shoes and they have to go through a journey, they might pick a few more things and add to the cart. It depends on what you're beginning with. The end in mind with, right? If your goal is to have a big launch of the vintage edition shoe and get everybody wearing that shoe and make a big buzz around that shoe, do you think that it would make more sense to send them to nike.com store shoes vintage Edition men's and all you have to do is pick your size and hit buy now or would you send them nike.com store? You'd probably send them to the directly to the shoe. Because if you're clicking an ad like when we go back to those questions, remember where I said where does the ad take them to and what does that place they go to look like? Well, we want to make sure that wherever they feels relevant to the ad that they clicked. This is a huge mistake. I see people make great videos and great ads and then they send them to the Contact Us page. Nike does not allow that excuse to hold the back their success and you can't either. So we have to know where they're going to go and what happens next. We want to make sure that the landing page is relevant. So if they see an ad for repairs, it should go to a landing page that talks about repair services. They shouldn't go to the Contact Us page. It should be like, hey, if you live in Honolulu county and we're talking about the roof repair needs of Honolulu county, picture in the back is Honolulu. That's the one place in Hawaii where you see buildings taller than a palm tree. And so the picture should probably feel relevant for the people who live in Honolulu County. And then it should be schedule a repair estimate the roofing repairs that we offer on Oahu, like everything about this page is about roof repair in Honolulu county. You can send them to the contact us page that they could click on.
