When a user is browsing sites like Facebook or Fox News, they aren’t there to learn more about your product. This is why an ad about how great your product is gets such low attention, and a high cost per click is the consequence. Even when they do click on the ad, a purchase is rare.

Their mindset first needs to be switched to the problem they have – the problem your product solves. You need to add the Interest step (a pre-sell page) that is currently missing from your AIDA (Attention -> Interest -> Decision -> Action) sales flow, and improve your Attention step.

What the math looks like

 

Here is the result of applying this technique to Google Ads display campaigns in one of my accounts:

Improving the attention (ad) step

When your ad lands a user to your product page, it is doomed to be sales-y and crash against the user’s “This is an ad – ignore it” and “They’re trying to sell me something – beware” mental blocks.

And when you land a user to a pre-sell page, your ad is a preview of interesting content (an article/video/email). It bypasses the mental blocks and, therefore, attracts more prospects, making them ready for the unbiased consumption of the pre-sell page’s content.

Adding the interest step (the pre-sell page/video):

1. Finishes the switching from the Facebook newsfeed or news article to your pre-sell page/video content, so the user consumes it more attentively
2. Preframes the prospect to believe that a specific feature/ingredient/way of doing (the one that your product is focused on) is the best way to solve their problem. It sells the prospect on a specific solution mechanism, not your product itself.
3. Creates a micro-commitment with the click to your product page.

Forms it may have:

• an article (tips, tutorial, buyer guide)
• a how-to video guide
• a sponsored email (on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, LinkedIn)
• a sponsored message (Facebook, Viber)

Examples:

 

When done right, the pre-sell page amplifies desires and emotions of the prospect so much that by the time they see your product page, they already want your product.

If it works so great, why isn’t everyone using it?

Though the approach is simple, it takes time and smarts to:

• develop sales flow with the pre-sell stage and who is experienced enough to know what works and what doesn’t, so you don’t waste your money and time
• create such content
• set up and optimize ad campaigns.

It’s much easier to state that Facebook, native, display, email, and YouTube ads don’t work for your business, than it is to do the above listed. You might have heard that many affiliate marketers earn more than CEOs of big companies. This is because they never ignore the interest stage in their ad campaigns.