Why should I create landing pages for my paid search program vs. just taking searchers to my home page?

Make it Relevant!
When searchers are dropped on a home page, odds are they will just leave, and continue searching. This is based on a lot of research out there, as well as personal experience. They clicked on your paid search ad, they arrive at your home page, and they are given too many options, so they just leave…I've seen this demonstrated on a number of occasions where clients experience a significant number of single page views – People came to the home page through paid search and left the home page – Possibly ending up on a competitor’s site.

Furthermore, most searchers are in the information discovery mode.  If they need to dig around your site to find valuable information about what they are searching on - Odds are they will leave...

You've Got 8 Seconds
Searchers need to be given very few choices in terms of direction, and must be taken somewhere that is correlated to their search terms and where they stand in the purchase cycle. Studies show that you have 8 seconds to grab the searchers attention, and once you get their attention, they must have a clear path to follow.  The landing pages that are developed need to be tested/tuned to ensure that keywords/messaging/landing pages are performing up to the searchers expectations - The message is relevant. Here is a great example:

You Spent the Money, Get Their Contact Info
You just spent money to get them to your site – So, you should get their information, and be sure to give them something of value. Most solidly performing landing pages provide whitepapers or case studies – and these offers are correlated with search terms and estimated status of where the searchers stands in the purchase cycle.  For example, if you were in the early stages of looking for a solution to sales compensation issues and you do a search on “Sales Compensation,” click on ad, and you are taken to landing page about sales compensation issues that provides you with an offer (white paper) to better understand those issues and a means to solve them…Wouldn’t you be more likely to provide your information vs. landing on some companies home page?

This is important! Do not, and I repeat, *do not* make anyone register to receive a product brochure – This will turn off searchers immediately.

Google Quality Score
Your cost per click, impression rates and position are dependent on Google’s Quality Score of your campaigns – The more relevant the process (keyword ties into Google Ad ties into Landing Page), the higher the Quality score – Those who take people to the home page tend to have horrible quality scores, and thus higher costs and bad placement.

Filter out the Garbage
The purpose of the Google Ad being tied into the landing page is to also act as a filter – It works to qualify and filter out a majority of the “garbage” that can potentially come in from search.

Close the Loop
By closing the loop with a landing page/form/offer – you can then better correlate spend to actual results. You can better track keyword performance, messaging validity, and correlate leads to search spend. This allows for improved camping tuning and more intelligent management of the paid search budget.

By just dropping off people at your home page, you are just throwing away money in hopes of getting someone (who you do not know who they are) to do something.

Below is another excellent example of a well-formed landing page…Highly correlated to search terms, a clear path to conversion and a high value offer:

by Kirk Crenshaw, Demandbase