Is Your Advertiser Unhappy?

This is a follow-up to my previous post on effective online advertising. Most often when an advertiser is unhappy with the performance of his campaign, he’s probably not looking at the ad the way your readers (his customers) look at an ad. Try helping your advertiser evaluate the entire campaign—ad creative, landing page and follow-up pages—as if you were one of your readers:

• Can I understand the ad in just a glance? Or do I need to sift through a ton of copy or wait for a 30-second animation to finish?
• If the goal is anything other than branding, is there a clear incentive and urgency in the creative that makes me want to click? Do you tell me what I should do and why now?
• If the goal is lead generation, does the landing page reinforce the incentive? Is the form clear and easy for me to submit? Is there anything to distract me from completing the form?
• If the goal is sales, is the checkout process easy and are you tracking the entire process?

Align the advertiser’s campaign goal, creative and measurement of the success of the campaign, and he’ll be much happier with the outcome of the campaign—and so will you.