5 Ways to Enhance Your Pay-Per-Click Landing Pages with Video

You’ve spent weeks conducting keyword research, building out tightly-knit campaigns and ad groups, and crafting click-worthy ad copy … 

Pop the champagne, you got the click! But wait, what happens after the searcher clicks on your ad?

Unfortunately, the click doesn’t come close to guaranteeing the conversion. Remember, your lead isn’t paying for that click. They have no problem bouncing back to Google, and visiting your competitor’s more intriguing landing page, which is where video comes into play.

Video gives you the opportunity to grab your visitors’ immediate attention with an attractive thumbnail, and influence them in an often emotionally charged way.

“Using video on landing pages can increase conversions by 80%!”

Wistia convinced me to work for them through an inspirational video, so trust me, it works! Unsure of where to start? Follow these 5 video strategies to make more engaging PPC landing pages.

1. Build trust

Would you trust Uber to drive you home if you’d never heard one thing about them? Probably not.

In most cases, when you purchase something online or offer your contact or financial information, it’s because you trust that company.

Trust is hard to gain, but once it’s established, it often leads to brand loyalty. For instance, I feel safe purchasing songs through Spotify or renting a dress from Rent the Runway because these are services I’ve utilized time and time again with recurring positive experiences. These brands have gained my trust, but often with paid search, people are visiting and possibly even hearing about your brand for the first time. So this goes back to my original question — how do you make a stranger trust you?

Video is one genuine way of doing just that. People are more likely to trust other people, so showing the humans behind the brand can lay down the groundwork for a long-lasting, trusting relationship (e.g. a loyal customer). This is even more critical for industries that are managing sensitive information, like financial and law firms.

“Showing the humans behind the brand can lay down the groundwork for a long-lasting, trusting relationship (e.g. a loyal customer).”

One of our customers at Wistia fits into an even more challenging industry, summer camp! Personally, I’m not a parent, but I have a nephew and an over-protective sister and brother-in-law, and I can’t picture them dropping their son off at summer camp without conducting some extensive research first.

Steve & Kate’s Camp condenses the need to over-investigate by providing interested parties with a variety of videos showing happy campers, nutritious food options, and the engaged and approachable summer team ensuring the safety of each child.

Beware: after spending a few minutes on their site, you’ll likely consider quitting your job and becoming a full-time camp counselor.

2. Elicit emotion

Recently my former colleague caught me crying after watching a gum commercial. That’s probably not something I should admit in my first blog post for Wistia, but it’s all in the spirit of proving a point — emotions drive us to purchase.

Ok, so I didn’t run out and immediately purchase 20 packs of Extra’s spearmint gum, but I did share the ad on social, I’m talking about it now, and it clearly resulted in a memorable brand interaction.

Video is an effective medium when it comes to creating an emotional reaction. When visuals, sound, and speech are tied harmoniously together, our brains are awakened. Why do you think a relatively large percentage of Americans spend their free time binge watching Netflix? Videos provide us with emotionally fulfilling experiences.

But, how can you tie emotions into a PPC landing page? You first need to spend some time brainstorming what emotion you want to elicit. Fear? Bliss? Desire? Jealously? There’s a laundry list to chose from, but you can marry your product with chosen emotion(s) to form a compelling video for your landing page.

When searching for an “apple watch,” I stumbled upon a prime example of this with Microsoft’s video landing page for the Microsoft Band. Upon watching, I experienced yet another emotional rollercoaster, as feelings of loss, sympathy, and inspiration swept over me.

3. Explain a complicated product

Imagine your manager tells you to research cloud control. The only thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “cloud” is the white fluffy objects that appear in the sky, which are actually visible masses of condensed water. Either way, your boss is referring to another type of cloud that your brain has not wrapped it’s head around.

What now? Well, the smart companies that make complicated products are utilizing video to sell them. For instance, VM Turbo has an entire landing page explaining to searchers how they work, and luckily there’s a video to help the viewer visualize how their system operates.

“The smart companies that make complicated products are utilizing video to sell them.”

4. Create human connections

As marketers, you’re constantly hearing all this chatter about how companies need to shift away from the B2B and B2C mindset to become B2H (Business 2 Human). But how many of you are actually doing this?

The answer is, not enough! Back to point #1, trust will never be gained if your business appears as an abstract logo on your website, with no breathing, living humans behind it. Utilize videos on your landing pages to show us who’s behind the brand, because humans relate to other humans, not logos or text.

Hootsuite does an incredible job of this, showing that they’re not just another social media tool, they’re a company comprised of vibrant, passionate employees.

5. Showcase talent

Most companies can’t grow and thrive without adding talent to the team. More and more brands are using Google and Bing ads to find and acquire ripe candidates, but it isn’t easy to convince an employed individual to abandon their current gig and work for you instead, especially if that person is unfamiliar with your business.

Hello, it’s me. No, not Adele. It’s the internal video showing off your company culture that you should be placing on your recruiting landing pages to intrigue talent. If you have a positive company culture, then there’s no reason to not be creating and showing it off through video.

The energy technology company, Enphase Energy, does this well, showing passionate employees discussing what led them to join the team, and how they’re making an impact in addressing energy deficiency.

By building trust, eliciting emotion, clarifying the complicated, and showcasing the people behind your product, your future videos could help turn clicks into conversions. Think of it this way: A landing page without video is like a weekend without pizza. It’s just not as good as it could be.