Paid media is not the problem. Most brands are not losing because Google Ads is broken or PPC “doesn’t work.”
They are losing after the click.
When ad creative says one thing, messaging says another, and the landing page feels like it came from a different company, users bounce, the conversion rate drops, and improving ROAS turns into a constant uphill climb.
Alignment fixes that. Not as a vibe. As a system.
Google even bakes this logic into Quality Score, which is calculated from expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. While Quality Score itself is a diagnostic metric at the keyword level, not a direct measure of ROAS, it reflects the same reality advertisers feel in practice: when ads, messaging, and landing pages are misaligned, efficiency erodes.
In other words, you can keep bidding into a broken post-click experience, but every incremental dollar works harder, costs more and converts less over time.
Every ad is a promise. The landing page is where you keep it.
If your ad promises “Same-day appointments” and your landing page opens with generic brand fluff, you just created friction. That friction is expensive in lead generation.
This is where message match wins. Message match is the consistency between the pre-click message and the post-click message, intending to make people feel they made a “good click.”
And that idea should guide everything that follows: creative, copywriting, layout and the primary conversion point.
A landing page is built to convert. It is focused, intentional and tied to one specific next step.
A splash page is usually a gate, a quick stop before the user reaches the real destination. Sometimes it is necessary. Often, it is just in the way.
If your goal is conversion, default to a landing page strategy built around clarity and momentum. Use a splash page only when it has a job, like age verification, store selection or legal requirements.
From Matt, our Senior Art Director: “There should be a level of consistency throughout the process, so ads and landing pages and conversion points should all have similarities for the user.”
That is the core.
Alignment is not only about copy. It is:
When those pieces agree with each other, users move forward.
When they fight each other, users leave.
Your landing page headline should mirror the ad’s promise in plain language. This is the fastest way to confirm relevance and reduce dropoff.
Google’s Quality Score guidance pushes you to review expected CTR, ad relevance and landing page experience together because they work as a unit.
So if your ad group is tightly themed and your ad is specific, your landing page should be specific too.
Users should not feel like they teleported.
Carry over the same visual cues from the ad to the landing page:
This matters for user experience and for trust. It also quietly improves post-click optimization because less confusion equals more momentum.
From Matt: “Maintain one primary conversion point on landing pages to reduce decision paralysis or an inundation of too much info.”
One page, one job.
That does not mean you cannot support micro conversions. It means you pick a primary action, then design the page to make that action feel like the obvious next step.
If you want leads, optimize for the lead. If you want purchases, optimize for the purchase.
Do not ask for three different things and act surprised when you get none.
From Matt: “Ensure that your landing page is optimized for both web and mobile so all users have a consistent and high-level experience.”
This is not optional. Although it can vary, most paid traffic is mobile-heavy, and if the mobile experience is slow, cramped or frustrating, your conversion rate will show it.
Speed is part of this. A one- to three-second delay can increase bounce likelihood, and conversion rates tend to decline as load time increases.
Practical PPC landing page optimization basics:
From Matt: “Use analytics to identify and improve on potential pain points throughout the userflow.”
From Shannon, our Lead Developer:
“I’m thinking about one of our clients, where we cleaned up the product page, then found a cart pinch point, then a checkout pinch point. Refine and retest when you find those bottlenecks. It isn’t a one-and-done process. It is a long-term iterative experience that uses analytics and hard data to tailor the site to their unique user base’s reactions.”
That is the model.
Your landing pages should be treated the same way. You ship, you measure, you find the bottleneck, you fix it, you retest. Then you repeat.
This is how you get high-converting pages in the real world.
From Matt: “Always follow the data and split test when you can. When making decisions and changes based on data, ensure that you have enough data points so that statistically significant decisions are being made.”
This is where teams get burned. They run a test for two days, see a lift and declare victory. Then the lift disappears in production.
Optimizely calls out this exact risk: underpowered tests can produce “weak conclusions” and lead you to make decisions that do not hold up.
What “good” looks like:
If you need help planning, Optimizely’s sample size calculator is a solid benchmark for thinking about baseline conversion rate, minimum detectable effect and significance thresholds.
Landing page copywriting is not the place to audition for a brand manifesto.
Your job is to:
A simple structure that works across marketing funnel landing pages:
Keep it SEO-friendly if the page also needs to rank, but do not sacrifice conversion clarity for keyword stuffing. SEO performance and conversion rate should support each other, not compete.
Alignment is not only a first-click problem. It is a journey problem.
If you are running multichannel marketing campaigns, your paid media should connect logically with:
This is where post-click optimization becomes a growth engine. You build a consistent story, then reinforce it across channels so the user keeps hearing the same promise in different formats.
And it pays off in practical metrics: better conversion rate, lower CPA and a cleaner path to improving ROAS.
If you want better conversions, measure the right performance metrics. At minimum:
Then do what Shannon described: find the pinch point, fix it, retest it.
Alignment is not a design preference. It is a conversion strategy.
When your ad creative, messaging and landing pages tell the same story, users move faster, trust builds quicker and your funnel stops leaking money.
So keep it simple:
That is how you turn paid traffic into real outcomes.
