One aspect that many advertisers and landing page designers fail to address is the issue of congruency and continuity specifically when a user clicks from an ad to the landing page to the checkout process. The power of keeping the pages consistent with each other is too often underestimated and overlooked, yet the lack of congruency has an adverse impact on the buyer and user.

This is in direct relation to the idea of relevance. A user searches for a term, and when the search ad is not congruent or relevant to the search term that is strike one against you. For arguments sake, let’s say the search term is congruent with the ad, but when you click on the ad, you end up on an unexpected landing page that does not match the ad at all, or even worse, a homepage.

We’ve all been through this and as a result have also clicked out faster than saying “what the heck!” What happens to the user, and why is this issue dismissed as unimportant by many companies? We will explore all of these concepts today.

But first, let’s go on a journey that explores this idea of

1. relevance
2. congruency and continuity.

My search term:

Dora Doll

I have multiple things going on after searching for this term. Right off the bat, because I’m familiar with these things, I realize that some of these search results will not take me to where I want to go. This is the top result

I can see from the url, I will be getting the results I want, however, the text within the ad is extremely general since it mentions only “Plush Toys.” It is encouraging to see 10 – 40% off, although I’m skeptical whether that applies to “dora dolls.” Additionally, I do not really intend on spending over $69 on a doll!

The next ad is a bit disappointing:

LeapFrog, a company that focuses on a games and computerized books for children, will most likely not have any dolls, and they have clearly bid on the wrong term. It’s not a very focused advertising effort from the people at LeapFrog.

So I move on to the next couple of ads…

Great results! The first one Target.com checks out in my book. The second is not so great since I know Toys R Us is going to direct me to a homepage, and not the category page for Dora Dolls. I don’t quite understand why. The third Amazon.com seems okay, although the text talks about their new Toy Store and not my Dora Doll! The last search result for mytoybox.com

seems to do a good job as well. I’m going to click on two results to see where it takes me, Amazon.com and mytoybox.com.

First Amazon.com

Not to be picky, but I wanted a Dora Doll. And the first 6 results that happen to be above the fold are Diego, accessories, Cousin Daisy, or Boots the monkey! That’s not good, and I don’t really want figurines, I want a doll…

Now to my next result:

It doesn’t take me right to the category page. Of the first six options there is a dolls option which is good. But then as I scroll below there are bedding products listed which is strange considering I searched for Dora doll.

In all, sometimes these searches can be lose “relevant” scent quickly, only gaining a fishy smell because they aren’t taking me to the right place. My search term was quite simple, so I expect to see the results I am looking for immediately. Have you had fishy search results?