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- 🧠You’re Losing Serious $$$ On Your Pre-Click Strategy...
🧠You’re Losing Serious $$$ On Your Pre-Click Strategy...
Conversion issues often start before the click happens.
Kody Nordquist
April 08, 2025
Welcome back to the 89th edition of Nord Media
Before we get started, is there anything specific you want to learn about? Let me know, as always, I appreciate all of you who reply each week and share feedback with me.
Everyone obsesses over what happens after the click. Landing pages, offer stacks, and checkout flows. Yet most of the time, the conversion was already lost before someone even hit the site.
Why?
Because the creative didn’t set them up to say yes. If your hook only makes sense after they’ve read the landing page, it’s not a hook, it’s a disconnect.
Today, we’re breaking down the 3 layers of pre-click context that shape post-click behavior, why most creatives miss the mark, and how to design sequences that match shopper intent, not just look good.
Let’s dive in:
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The 3 Layers of Pre-Click Context
Ads are not isolated assets. Shoppers don’t click in a vacuum. Their mindset is shaped by everything that happens before they land, where they saw the ad, how much they know, and what they were doing before they clicked.
If you want more post-click conversions, you need to understand the environment pre-click.
Here are the 3 layers that shape how someone behaves after they land:
Platform context
Not all clicks are created equal. A click from TikTok doesn’t carry the same intent as one from Facebook or YouTube.
Each platform has its own consumption behavior, scrolling mindset, and ad tolerance.
If your creative doesn’t align with the native expectations of the platform, your click will be weak and so will the conversion.
Buyer awareness
How much does the shopper already know about the problem, the category, or your brand?
Cold traffic needs clarity and education. Warm traffic needs reassurance and relevance.
When awareness and creative don’t match, your offers are bound to underperform.
Intent signals
What led them to your ad in the first place? A Google search, a blog read, a retargeting view?
Every signal tells you where they are in the journey and what they need to hear next.
Ignoring that context creates friction. Aligning with it makes conversion feel easy.
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Design for the Journey, Not Just the Feed
The goal should be to build intentional journeys.
Instead of treating every asset like a standalone, they sequence creatives based on where the shopper is in the funnel, what objections they might have, and what message they need to hear next.
This will keep you aligned.
Here’s how to do it:
Start with intent, not aesthetics.
Every ad should be built around the shopper’s current mindset.
Cold traffic? Focus on education, intrigue, and problem awareness. Warm traffic? Lead with social proof, product benefits, and urgency.
Don’t let your design choices overpower your messaging logic.
Map your sequences to the buyer journey.
Think of creatives as a step-by-step progression.
Ad 1 grabs attention and introduces the core belief shift. Ad 2 builds trust with proof, outcomes, and clarity. Ad 3 creates urgency or introduces a limited-time offer.
Each piece earns the right to move them forward.
Bridge the gap between the ad and the landing page.
Your creative should pre-frame the offer so it feels inevitable once they click. Don’t surprise people with something totally new on the LP.
Use your ad sequence to seed expectations, remove friction, and create continuity.
When your creative matches shopper intent, the landing page doesn’t have to work overtime.
Bonus Takeaways
A click isn’t a win. It’s a setup. The goal is to pre-frame the conversion.
Creative testing without context = misleading data. Test sequences, not single assets.
Don’t send warm traffic cold messaging. Match the moment.
The landing page shouldn’t do all the work. Start selling in the ad.
Design is only effective when it supports the message. Don’t lead with aesthetics.
A hook should stand on its own. If it needs the LP to make sense, it’s not doing its job.
Closing Thoughts
If you’ve ever felt like your landing page is solid, your offer is strong, and your checkout flow is tight but conversions still aren’t where they should be this is probably why.
The problem is the events leading up to the click.
Your creative is the first pitch. The first impression. The first chance to shape intent.
So treat it like a journey, not a standalone asset. Build sequences that speak to where your shopper is, not just what you want to say.
The more aligned you are with their mindset, the more likely they are to say yes.
Hope this helps you think differently about your next campaign.
Spending over $30k / month on ads and looking for support scaling your business?
Nord Media has availability to take on a few brands in the coming months.
Why Nord Media?
Nord Media is an growth marketing agency. I launched Nord Media a little over three years ago and have scaled it rapidly due to solid client performance and results that speak for themselves. Overall we currently manage $5M+ in monthly ad-spend across a variety of brands and verticals.
The team at Nord Media focuses on three core areas:
→ Paid media
→ Google Ads
→ Creative Strategy
This ensures that our team only focuses on core aspects that we’re extremely good at. For everything else we have a dedicated partner network that we work with.
» Let’s see if we’re a good fit «