Key Takeaways
- Landing pages are the strongest predictor of paid media ROI, and marketers who are confident in their landing pages are far more likely to outperform ROI targets.
- Too many teams still send paid traffic to homepages or product pages, missing a major opportunity to improve conversion rates, message match and post-click performance.
Your paid media budget is under a microscope. Every dollar has to prove itself, and the pressure to show ROI has never been higher. Research from Unbounce and Ascend2 recently dug into what actually drives return on paid media spend, and the answer might surprise you. It’s not smarter bidding or fancier ad creative. It’s what happens after the click.
The findings from the The 2026 State of Paid Media ROI Report are hard to ignore. Marketers most confident in their landing pages are 4.5 times more likely to land significantly above their ROI targets. Yet 53% of marketers still send carefully targeted, expensive paid traffic to homepages and general product pages, undermining the very campaigns they worked so hard to build. Add in the fact that 90% of marketers report budget and resource constraints, with post-click activities often first on the chopping block, and you have a clear picture of the opportunity ahead. The teams winning right now aren’t spending more. They’re optimizing the destination.
To unpack what separates high performers from everyone else, we sat down with Steve Oriola, CEO of Unbounce. In this Q&A, Oriola breaks down how landing page optimization is directly link to paid media ROI, why AI adoption lags on the post-click side even as it accelerates at the ad level, and how to think about attribution and conversion strategy whether you’re running short B2C sales cycles or long, multi-touch B2B pipelines.
Demand Gen Report: Steve, thanks for taking time to talk with us today. Did you identify any meaningful differences in paid media ROI performance between B2B and B2C respondents? If so, what stood out most?
Steve Oriola: Glad to answer your questions. Based on this request, we sorted the data by that variable and found that the differences were very minor. For example, for the question ‘how is your paid media ROI performing relative to your goals right now?’ responses were:
- B2B 53% above target, 35% at target, 12% below target
- B2C 45% above target, 37% at target, 17% below target
Our interpretation of this data is that what we’re seeing in trends has more to do with the macro environment (e.g. economic conditions, growth of AI) and less to do with channels. As such, all responses below combine B2B and B2C respondents.
Demand Gen Report: Among marketers specifically, which post-click experiences were most associated with exceeding ROI targets?
Oriola: The key ‘post ad click’ experience is optimizing your landing pages. The research was clear on this: Landing pages are the strongest predictor of paid media ROI measured. Marketers most confident in their landing pages are 4.5x more likely to be significantly above their ROI targets (31% vs. 7%). It’s also the lever marketers are pulling to improve paid media spend efficiency. Marketers above ROI targets are more likely than others to optimize destination pages in an effort to maximize spend (42% vs 38%). So, to start with, spend time on your landing pages and you’ll be ahead of the game. Landing page optimization can take many forms. Unbounce periodically publishes a Conversion Benchmark Report that gives marketers conversion benchmarks for landing pages based on data from over 57 million conversions. The report also helps identify simple changes that can have a big impact on conversion rates. For example, reading level data shows that volume of difficult words leads to a significant drop in conversion rates, with a -24.3% correlation between the number of difficult words used and conversion rate. Using a reading level of 5th to 7th grade has the highest median conversion rate. A/B testing can also significantly improve post-click experiences by letting your prospects tell you what converts best.
What Separates High-Performing Landing Pages From the Rest
Demand Gen Report: The report shows strong links between landing page confidence and ROI outperformance. What do high-performing teams do differently on landing pages than lower-performing teams?
Oriola: Simply having a landing page (vs. sending traffic to a home page or product page) puts you ahead of more than half of marketers, so you’re off to a good start if you’re already focused on landing pages. High performing teams design landing pages that are optimized for the desired action – typically conversion when you’re talking about performance marketing, but a page can also be designed for consumption in some cases. So you’ve got a landing page and it’s optimized for your goals. You’re already crushing it, but the next part is what’s key. Some teams ‘set it and forget it’ at this point, but high-performing teams know this is just the start. You A/B test, iterate, A/B test, iterate, A/B test….you get the point. It’s about incremental conversion improvements over time to get more and more out of your paid media budget. That’s where the gold is.
Demand Gen Report: For marketers with long sales cycles and multiple touchpoints, how should they interpret ROI in the context of this research?
Oriola: We know that dedicated landing pages work best, regardless of the length of the sales cycle. Those sending most of their paid media traffic to dedicated landing pages are significantly more likely to report that landing pages have the biggest impact on ROI (36% vs 16-26% of others). The difference is the role that the landing page plays. For shorter sales cycles, the landing page is often the entire sales process. There’s no salesperson, no nurture sequence — the page has to do all the persuading in one visit. The conversion goal may be purchase or sign up now. You’re creating urgency and the copy is around problem solving. For longer sales cycles, the goal of the page is to capture and qualify a lead, then hand off to a human or nurture sequence. The page may be longer with more content that educates. So the measurement of ROI has to focus on different metrics for a shorter vs. longer sales cycle.
Demand Gen Report: Many teams send paid traffic to product pages or homepages instead of dedicated landing pages. Based on your findings, what’s the business case for changing that behavior?
Oriola: Home pages and product pages serve an important purpose. They are designed to primarily inform and they are optimized for consumption. They are not typically designed for conversion. Marketers know that paid traffic has to show ROI, and we show ROI with a conversion. A landing page that is optimized for conversion will justify your paid media spend, but a page that’s optimized for consumption as well is more likely to support the buyer’s decision-making process and move prospects through your marketing funnel. In short, there is a need for product and home pages and a need for landing pages…they serve different purposes. Today, 53% of marketers still send carefully targeted paid traffic to general pages like homepages or existing website pages, undermining the targeting work they’ve invested in. This means we still have work to do!
How to Optimize Landing Pages for Pipeline Quality, Attribution and Message Match
Demand Gen Report: What kinds of conversion actions should marketers prioritize on landing pages if they are optimizing for pipeline quality, not just lead volume?
Oriola: This can vary widely depending on details like industry, geographic location, sales cycle, contract value and more, but I can provide some generalized commentary here. This is where introducing some productive friction may be beneficial. We have data that shows that the fewer number of fields a form has, the higher the conversion rate. But we also know that the willingness to complete an average number of fields shows intent. The type of field matters as well. For example, if a prospect completes a data-validated phone number field, they have clear interest in engaging with your team. Transparency also goes a long way. With the emergence of AI search where it’s that much easier to pull information from community spaces like Reddit and G2, producing biased comparison pages, not disclosing pricing, and other tactics like these actually break down trust between you and the buyer and lead to fewer qualified leads. The more information you provide, the more qualified your buyer will be.
Demand Gen Report: How should marketers think about attribution when reporting and analysis remain a major constraint for many teams?
Oriola: I like to flip this question to the positive, and here’s what I mean by that. Often, marketing teams will focus on what they can’t do. For example, “we can’t attribute all the way through to the trial conversion metric.” As a leader, I want to know what we can do and how much confidence we have in that data. Then, we’ll make the best decisions from there. So we can’t get data all the way through trial conversion…OK. But can we see trial starts by platform, by ad, by ad group, or by landing page? And then optimize there? Let’s control what we can. There’s a reason why attribution is a pain point for small and midmarket businesses. It’s complex, highly technical, and it can be expensive – in terms of tech stack and personnel. Often, the ROI really only comes at the enterprise level, so SMBs and midmarket companies must work with what’s available.
Demand Gen Report: What role do you think message match plays in paid media performance, especially for niche or high-consideration offers?
Oriola: There’s nothing worse as a consumer than showing up on a page and wondering “how did I get here?” and message match is the best way to prevent it. So then why does it keep happening? ‘Message match’ is so crucial, yet still so often overlooked. The report shows that 21% of marketers say they can’t keep up with creating relevant landing pages that match their messaging for every campaign. The truth is that message match is a quick win for marketers when landing page conversion rates for paid search are underperforming. Simply ensuring your page copy aligns perfectly with your ad messaging is a primary lever for improvement. A tip for implementing it: Marketers can take the guesswork out of this by using features like dynamic text replacement, which programmatically adjusts headlines and body text to match the specific search terms and ad copy that prompted the visitor’s click.
Why AI Adoption Lags on the Post-Click Side and How to Fix It
Demand Gen Report: The research found broad AI adoption in paid media, but much lower use in landing page creation and optimization. Why do you think teams have been slower to apply AI on the post-click side?
Oriola: Marketers are stretched…we know that. According to the report, 90% of marketers report paid media budget and resource constraints, and say post-click activities are often the first to get cut. When resources tighten, landing page creation and message match are sacrificed by nearly half of marketers (45% combined). When you have limited capacity, you go to where the money is being spent and seemingly that’s at the ad level. I know how large those budget line items can be, so it makes sense to go there first and apply AI to drive improvements. Creating ad variants with AI has proven to be efficient and effective. But that’s only half the story. This report proves that landing page deserves its fair share of attention.
Demand Gen Report: If a demand gen leader could act on only three findings from this report in the next quarter, which three would you recommend and why?
Oriola: Only three (laughing)? OK, here goes…
- You know you need to optimize your ad destination pages…do it! 40% of marketers say optimizing destination pages is one of the most effective ways to maximize paid media spend, but only 31% have actually invested in landing pages in the past six months.
- Post click matters…a lot. 90% of marketers report paid media budget and resource constraints, and say post-click activities are often the first to get cut. When resources tighten, find other places to cut. This isn’t a place to skimp.
- And once again for the folks in the back…don’t send paid traffic to a home page or a product page on your website. Yes, 53% of marketers still send their carefully targeted and highly expensive paid traffic to general pages like homepages or existing website page. Develop a conversion-focused landing page and watch your ad account gain efficiency.
