The purpose of this text is a straightforward one:
To trigger you to make UX a core a part of your advertising and marketing technique, not an afterthought.
It shouldn’t be a separate workforce hidden in a nook that no one talks to. It wants to sit down on the coronary heart of your advertising and marketing efforts as a result of that’s how companies win right now.
What UX Actually Means
After I first began in UX about seven or eight years in the past, I spent lots of time explaining what UX wasn’t. Many individuals assumed it was the identical as search engine marketing or simply “making issues look fairly.” However UX goes far past that.
At its core: UX is the general expertise somebody has when interacting together with your product, service, or system.
It’s not nearly performance or design—it’s about how the person feels about your product and the notion they depart with.
Good UX vs. Dangerous UX: On a regular basis Examples
All of us work together with merchandise day by day, so all of us instinctively know when one thing works properly—or when it’s a nightmare. Listed here are just a few easy examples:
- Suitcases
Previous suitcases with out wheels? Horrible UX. They trigger again ache, are awkward to hold, and frustrate vacationers. Add wheels, and immediately the expertise is easy and stress-free. - Ketchup Bottles
Glass ketchup bottles require shaking and tapping like a maniac. A squeeze bottle? On the spot ketchup happiness. Good UX feels easy. - TV Remotes
Cluttered remotes with 50 buttons confuse and intimidate customers (my 60-year-old mom nonetheless calls me to ask which button to press). A streamlined distant with solely important buttons creates a stress-free expertise.
The takeaway:
Good UX is straightforward. It removes friction and anxiousness. It makes folks need to make use of your product.
UX within the Digital World
The identical rules apply on-line. Once we speak about UX for web sites or apps, two core elements matter most:
- Usability – Is the expertise easy and satisfying?
- Straightforward navigation
- Clear construction and structure
- Intuitive interface
- Relevance – Does the content material match what the person is on the lookout for?
- Correct data
- Reliable, credible design
Examples: Nice UX vs. Dangerous UX
- Dangerous UX: Cluttered web sites with complicated menus and unclear layouts frustrate customers. Think about touchdown on a web page the place you may’t even discover the primary menu.
- Good UX: Assume Apple or Airbnb. Their clear designs, logical navigation, and related content material make it easy to seek out what you want.
When your website nails each usability and relevance, customers keep, interact, and convert.
Why UX Issues to Your Advertisements
The whole lot results in your web site or app.
It doesn’t matter how a lot you spend on adverts, how inventive your campaigns are, or how robust your concentrating on is. In the event you drive customers to a poorly designed, complicated, or irrelevant website, you’re losing cash.
Your web site is the ultimate mile of the journey. If that have fails, your entire funnel collapses.
The Connection Between UX, Model, and Efficiency
UX impacts each model fame and efficiency metrics:
- Model Influence:
A easy, seamless expertise builds belief and strengthens model loyalty. Comfortable prospects come again, and so they inform their mates. - Efficiency Influence:
A frictionless shopping for course of will increase conversion charges, main on to extra income.
Merely put: Higher UX = stronger model + higher gross sales efficiency.
How Search is Altering: The Position of AI
Search habits has shifted dramatically, particularly within the final 12 months, pushed largely by AI.
Listed here are two key factors to concentrate on:
- 15% of day by day searches are model new.
This occurs as a result of the world adjustments consistently—new developments, new slang, and sudden occasions (like Crystal Palace successful the FA Cup!) - 25 billion visible searches each month on Google Lens.
With higher smartphone cameras and visual-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok, extra customers are looking with photographs and movies somewhat than textual content.
These new behaviors create an awesome quantity of distinctive search queries that no human workforce may handle manually. That’s why Google depends on AI to match adverts with related searches—and why your web site’s UX and content material have to be top-notch.
Key Options That Rely on UX
Right here’s how UX immediately impacts promoting instruments and efficiency:
1. Robotically Created Belongings (ACAs)
Google can pull textual content, photographs, and movies immediately out of your web site to create related advert content material.
In case your website lacks high-quality, related content material, ACAs received’t work successfully.
2. Last URL Enlargement
Google’s methods crawl your website to determine the greatest touchdown web page for every advert.
Poorly structured or outdated websites confuse the system—and your potential prospects.
3. On-Website Navigation High quality
As of February, Google now elements navigation high quality into advert high quality scores.
If customers click on your advert however rapidly bounce as a result of they’ll’t discover what they want, your advert visibility could lower.
The Aggressive Benefit of UX
Final yr, I ran a UK-wide Google-funded program providing companies free UX enhancements by means of associate companies. Out of 200 companies pitched, lower than 15% signed up, even if it was free and required little effort from them.
That’s the chance.
Whereas most corporations give attention to budgets, inventive, and concentrating on, only a few are optimizing post-click experiences. In the event you prioritize UX now, you’ll achieve a big aggressive edge.
Find out how to Get Began
Listed here are some alerts of unhealthy UX that may spark conversations internally:
- CPCs are too excessive
- Conversion charges are low
- Prospects aren’t happy
- Gross sales targets aren’t being met
If these points sound acquainted, it’s time to evaluate your website expertise.
Key Inquiries to Ask
- How are we presently enhancing our web site or app?
- Do we now have a transparent roadmap for the subsequent quarter and past?
- Are our advertising and marketing and web site groups working collectively—or are they siloed?
Advertising and UX should be within the similar room, having the similar conversations. Creatives and content material are two sides of the identical coin.
The Enterprise Case for UX
Right here’s a sensible train:
- Have a look at your present conversion fee.
- Forecast what occurs if you happen to enhance it barely (e.g., from 2% to 2.5%).
- Calculate the extra income this is able to generate.
Then examine that potential income to the price of:
- A UX audit
- Hiring a UX researcher
- Investing in A/B testing instruments
If the income achieve outweighs the fee, it’s an apparent funding.
UX is the Nearer
Promoting is the enabler, bringing customers to your website.
UX is the nearer, turning these visits into conversions.
Each click on leads someplace.
If the vacation spot is irritating or complicated, customers received’t convert—irrespective of how good your adverts are.
Your adverts, your advertising and marketing goals, and in the end your enterprise objectives all rely upon the expertise you ship after the press.
Spend money on UX. As a result of once you enhance the expertise, you enhance every part.
Clinton Koola is a Efficiency Specialist at Google
This text relies on a chat given by Clinton at Hero Conf UK in April 2025. You possibly can watch a recording of the speak under.