Mastering PPC Landing Page Optimization: Expert Tips from PPC Lead Sophie Logan

We caught up with Sophie Logan , PPC Lead at Beauhurst and brightonSEO speaker, to talk about landing pages that actually convert. She breaks down how tiny tweaks can make a huge difference, the mistakes everyone’s making (but no one talks about), and how automation is quietly taking over PPC. If you want to stop coasting and start leveling up your landing pages, Sophie’s got the insights you need.

1. How have you seen PPC strategies evolve over the last few years, and what do you think is the most crucial element for a successful PPC campaign today?

I think the biggest shift in PPC strategies is that businesses need to know more than just who their target audience is; they need to understand them. They need to know what they like, what they don’t like, what their pain points are, where they spend their time on the internet, how they like to engage with online content, and what terminology they use. Ads must resonate with them on a deeper level than purely demographics and locations. Everyone has higher expectations of advertisements, and it is our job to ensure that our campaigns exceed these expectations if we want them to succeed.

2. What’s your approach to managing budgets across different PPC platforms? How do you decide where to allocate the majority of the budget?

I want to ensure that the platforms I spend the most on bring the most money to the bank. For B2B Lead Generation, this doesn’t always necessarily mean the one that generates the highest volume of leads but the one with the highest lead-to-sale rate. I keep a close eye on the ROI of all the platforms that we advertise on and distribute the budget accordingly.

3. What are the top 3 PPC metrics that every marketer should track to ensure campaign success?

I’d argue that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to determining a campaign's success, especially when comparing campaigns with different objectives such as brand awareness or lead generation. However, in general, any conversion-based metric, such as Conversion Rate and CPA, are strong indicators of success.?

Sometimes, too much focus on specific metrics means that we ignore the wider success indicators of a campaign. For example, some advertisers panic when they see their CPC increase while ignoring the fact that their Conversion Rate has improved, and they are seeing higher-quality leads coming through.

4. When optimizing a PPC landing page, what’s the first thing you look at to assess if it's working or not?

In my role, I’m looking at the Conversion Rate so that I can see how well the traffic I am sending to the page finds what they need and submits an inquiry form. A big red flag for me is when a PPC landing page receives a high level of traffic through search terms indicating the relevant interest and intent but fails to convert those visitors once they’re on the page.

5. Can you share any examples where small changes to a landing page significantly improved conversion rates?

Moving a form from the bottom of the page to the top is one of the easiest and quickest wins I’ve seen for a PPC landing page. Rather than making people go through the whole page to find the form, popping it near the top of the page helps them to know what they need to do as soon as they land on the page.

Reducing the number of fields in a form has also helped to reduce form abandonment. No one wants to fill out 20 different questions just to submit an enquiry form about a product or service they are interested in!

6. With automation tools becoming more prevalent, how much control should marketers retain, and how can they best guide automated tools toward better results?

I think it’s a personal preference. As PPC marketers, we must incorporate and accept automation into our work, even if it’s something as basic as utilizing automated bidding. Platforms are changing, and as much as I am a control freak myself, we must lean into them.

In terms of how we can guide these tools and automation in general, our role is to ensure that we are feeding them accurate, reliable data and giving them the information they need to perform effectively. We shouldn’t expect them to work well if we aren’t giving them what they need to do their job.

7. What are some of the most common mistakes you see when marketers create landing pages for PPC, and how can they fix them to improve performance?

— Putting too much onto one page: PPC landing pages need to be focused and concise, but many marketers fall into the trap of making them more complex and lengthy than they need to be. Try printing out the page to get a real feel for how long it is, as looking at a screen can be deceptive. Take a pen and cross out any sentences or segments that could be removed to reduce the size of the page and the amount of content.?

— Sending people away from the page: A lot of PPC landing pages include links and CTA buttons to lots of other pages on the site, taking the visitor away from the page and, with it, their attention and likeness to submit the form. Keep visitors on that page by considering removing the top navigation bar and limiting links to other pages.?

— Not including visual elements: There is nothing more unappealing to the average website visitor than seeing a page simply consisting of huge chunks of text. Explore how you can bring visual elements to the page with images, embedded videos, GIFs, product tours, infographics, or carousels. Not only will this break up chunky blocks of text, but it will also give the visitor another way to engage with your content via formats that may be more effective for them.

8. What’s your advice for creating reports that balance simplicity for non-technical clients with detailed insights for those who are more data-driven?

Ask them. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to ask someone how they want to receive reports and what level of detail they are interested in. I’ve seen experienced Marketing Managers who just want a monthly contextual summary and entry-level stakeholders who want a detailed weekly breakdown of specific stats and metrics, so I find it best not to presume.

At the same time as providing stakeholders with reports, I also like to keep my own campaign trackers, which I use for my own purposes. This is usually the type of detailed information that is of no interest to anyone but me but is helpful for me to keep an eye on and utilize when optimizing and creating campaigns.

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