What is a PPC Landing Page? (With 4 Real Examples For AdWords)

A PPC landing page is a standalone web page you intend to use in a paid campaign on AdWords, Bing Ads, or similar. It’s a dedicated page where visitors ‘land’ after clicking through on a pay-per-click ad.

Particularly good landing pages for PPC typically contain just one focused campaign goal or objective known as a Call to Action (CTA). Their simplicity—and relevance—is what makes dedicated landing pages one of the best ways to increase conversions from your paid traffic and lower the cost-per-click of your PPC campaigns.

Why use landing pages for Google Ads?

The game-changing value of landing pages and why they work so well with ads really boils down to the difference between organic vs. paid traffic.

That is—your website is mainly a means for attracting organic traffic. In this case, Google selects and serves up links on your site believed to be the best match for a given search query and these Google-chosen links are served up in the bottom half of the SERP (see section 2 in the image to the right). This organic traffic is largely why you need a terrific website optimized for search.

But with paid advertising on Google Ads or Bing Ads, you get to choose where to direct visitors (section 1 of the SERP).

You can decide to link this paid traffic to your website’s homepage, for example, (and many marketers do) but this isn’t actually your best option when it comes to conversion.

Content on your homepage—or even other site pages—often doesn’t match the premise of your ads in all cases and won’t always contain info or a call to action tailored to your initial ad campaign.

As many advertisers eventually discover, paid traffic pointed to generic web pages (like a website homepage, for example) doesn’t convert well and can drive up cost-per-click. This is mainly because visitors often can’t find what they specifically searched for on the generic page and typically bounce more quickly (signalling to Google the landing page experience wasn’t very good).

On the other hand, if visitors click through from an ad to a highly relevant landing page, they’re met with information that reinforces the promise of the ad, and they encounter just one call to action or next step to take. By simplifying the options available, you help ensure a smoother path to conversion.

In fact, in an analysis of 455 pages put through the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer, we saw on average, dedicated landing pages converted 65% higher than website pages.

Bonus: AdWords rewards those serving up PPC landing pages

Not only does a landing page allow you to present a focused, carefully selected call to action, and customize the experience you present on click through to match the expectations set up in your ad, but if you pair every PPC ad with its own hyper-relevant, standalone landing page, you can:

• Achieve a higher AdWords Quality Score (in turn boosting your Ad Rank and your Search Impression Share, getting your ads served up more often)
• Lower your cost-per-click
• Lower your cost-per-acquisition, and
• Increase conversions on the offers you run with paid

As many marketers using a landing page builder can confirm, they’re able to drive the same amount of traffic to a landing page for Google Ads and see far better results because of the page’s refined focus:

“With Unbounce, we were able to test all the way up to 20-22% conversion rates. Without driving any more traffic, the client’s getting four times the leads that he was getting prior.”

— Andrew Miller, Co-Founder, Workshop Digital

What do the best performing PPC landing pages contain?

After deciding you’d like to lower your cost-per-click and get better ROI on your paid ad spend with ppc landing pages, it’s all about creating them.

Based on what we typically see with our customers, the best PPC landing pages contain 5 key elements:

1. Strong, contextual images (including a ‘hero shot’ at the top of the page)
2. A headline and sub-headline
3. A singular, focused call to action (where your form or button will appear)
4. Clearly outlined features and benefits of your offer
5. Testimonials, trust symbols, or ‘social proof’ supporting your claims

Four Pay-Per-Click Landing Page Examples for AdWords

It’s one thing to know what elements go on a landing page for Google Ads, but what do some of the best PPC landing pages actually look like in practice?

Fortunately 14,000+ amazing brands have been using the Unbounce landing page builder over the last eight years to create on-brand, high-converting masterpieces, so we have a lot of examples to share.

Here are a few you can use as inspiration from real estate, home improvement, SaaS, and more:

Company: Rive Centre – a real estate brand for new and affordable family homes in Montréal
Unbounce Landing page built by: Digital agency Webistry
Conversion type: Lead generation (in this case, for large-scale commitment)
Landing page conversion rate: 0.31%

Click through rate on the search ad: 3.5%—10% in some Ad Groups
Cost-per-click before use of landing page: $2.00
Cost-per-click after use of landing page: $1.50

Search Ad leading to the landing page:

The Unbounce landing page

Company: Service Today
Conversion type: Lead generation (book an appointment now)
Landing page conversion rate: 10.54%
Click through rate on the search ad: 3.92%
Cost-per-click before use of landing page: ~$16
Cost-per-click after use of landing page: ~$13
Cost-per-acquisition: Improvement by 30%

Search Ad leading to this page:

The Unbounce landing page:

Company: MonkeyLearn
Conversion type: click through (request a demo, or read a blog post)
Landing page conversion rate: 2.55%
Click through rate on the search ad: 5.27% avg
Cost-per-click after use of landing page: $0.53 avg

Search Ads leading to this page:

The Unbounce landing page:

Company: CurAge Spa
Landing page built by: Digital agency Webistry
Conversion type: lead generation (free skin consultation lead form + click to call)
Landing page conversion rate: 2.19%
Click through rate on the search ad: 1.83%

Search Ads leading to this page:

The Unbounce landing page: