Using Dynamic Landing Pages for Google Ads

[Aelia_Haider]

Hi, a newbie here.

I just wanted to know if there was any way that I could use dynamic landing pages for Google ads. I'm using cookies to populate the lead data fields, and I want to show different variations of the landing page for different keywords. What I'm unsure about is, if a prospect clicks on an ad and is led to a Marketo landing page with dynamic content, would the variations load automatically? I tried creating a sample page with utms but it didn't load the right variation. I may be going about this the wrong way. Can someone help?

[SanfordWhiteman]

I'm using cookies to populate the lead data fields

What cookies? This is too vague.

What I'm unsure about is, if a prospect clicks on an ad and is led to a Marketo landing page with dynamic content, would the variations load automatically?

Dynamic content is based on segmentations.

The displayed segment can be chosen in one of two ways:

• the pageview is associated with a known lead in Marketo that belongs to a given segment
• the pageview contains a segmentation and segment name hard-coded in the query string, yourSegmentName=Segment

If the pageview is neither associated with a known lead nor contains segment info in the URL, the default content is shown.

[Aelia_Haider]

By cookies, I meant that I'm capturing the info like campaign, keywords etc. from cookie values, not URL or referrer parameters. I mentioned this because I wasn't sure if that would affect the display of the required variation of the landing page.

Since I'll be capturing new leads, the first option for the displayed segment won't be valid in this case.

The second option seems like the way to go. So, to clarify:

If my landing page with utm tags is: https://mylandingpage.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Campaign1&utm_term=keyword1

I'm segmenting based on keywords, and the segment name for keyword1 is Keyword1.

So, if I use this url: https://mylandingpage.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Campaign1&utm_term=keyword1...

for my ad running for keyword1, that should work?

In this case, what if my segment name has spaces, e.g. Keyword 1? Would it then be yourSegmentName=Keyword1 or yourSegmentName=Keyword%201?

I do apologize if this is a very basic question, and thanks for the help!

[SanfordWhiteman]

By cookies, I meant that I'm capturing the info like campaign, keywords etc. from cookie values, not URL or referrer parameters. I mentioned this because I wasn't sure if that would affect the display of the required variation of the landing page.

No, cookies can't possibly affect which variation is shown, because the variation is decided before you're setting any cookies.

The request goes to Marketo with a given set of query params, and if those query params happen to include a segmentName=segmentValue pair, that will be used to segment the HTML response.

It would only be after the response is processed by the browser that you could set cookies based on the same query string. You're already viewing the content Marketo sent at that point.

So, if I use this url: https://mylandingpage.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Campaign1&utm_term=keyword1...

for my ad running for keyword1, that should work?

That will bring up dynamic content for the segment "Keyword1" in the segmentation "yourSegmentName".

In this case, what if my segment name has spaces, e.g. Keyword 1? Would it then be yourSegmentName=Keyword1 or yourSegmentName=Keyword%201?

The latter. "Keyword 1" and "Keyword1" would never be seen as the same value. But I'd strongly recommend not having any spaces in your segment names to avoid any confusion.

[Aelia_Haider]

Ah, that clears it up. Will try this out now. Thank you so much!

[Erik_Heldebro2]

Another option you have for Google Ads if you are just sending traffic to a Marketo Landing Page for conversion:

Create a Program template with My Tokens populating keywords (if for example you are using Single Keyword Ad Groups). Once you have a template ready, (1) Clone the program (2) Update the keywords / copy with My Tokens on the program level and (3) give a unique URL slug to the landing page based off the keywords it's presenting from paid search.

This method should take a bit more time to set up in terms of the template, it will although ensure you increase your Ad Relevance / Quality scores due to the relevance of the content + potential increase in conversion.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Erik