If the demo can’t prove the headline in 60 seconds, change the headline.
Most campaigns are expensive fiction.
We dream up the perfect customer journey in a conference room that smells like optimism and dry-erase markers. We comp visuals that would make our mothers proud. We buy reach like we’re collecting Pokémon cards.
Then someone actually clicks the ad. And our beautiful landing page loads to reveal… a product that can’t deliver on a single promise we just made.
This is the eternal war between ux and marketing. Marketing sells the dream. UX design delivers the reality. And users get caught in the crossfire, wondering why nothing works like the video said it would.
Here’s a radical thought: what if we stopped doing that?
Start with what actually exists
The best campaigns don’t advertise potential. They advertise what you shipped last Tuesday.
Find the smallest, most boring thing your product does well right now.
Not the roadmap item that’ll change everything.
Not the feature that’s 90% done (spoiler: it’s not).
The mundane thing that works.
I call it the first credible win — something a new user can achieve before their coffee gets cold.
Send an invoice. Export a report. Get a notification that isn’t broken. One tiny victory with a timestamp and screenshots.
If you can’t name this win, congratulations — you’ve discovered why your last three campaigns felt like shouting into the void.
Collect receipts, not mood boards
Before anyone touches Figma, become a detective:
- A number that won’t make you sweat in front of investors
- A customer quote that isn’t your mom being supportive
- A screen recording that shows the outcome, not just pretty interfaces
- One limitation you’ll admit to (because perfect products don’t exist, and everyone knows it)
Most teams skip this step and wonder why their landing pages read like horoscopes. Vague, aspirational, and somehow always promising transformation.
Your page doesn’t need more gradients. It needs proof.
Write the page before you buy the traffic
This is where ux and marketing usually have their first fight. Marketing writes the ad copy based on dreams. UX builds a page based on what actually works.
Result: cognitive whiplash for anyone brave enough to click. Do it backwards instead. Write the landing page first:
Who needs this. What changes. How it works. Proof it’s real. One clear next step.
If you need a brand video to make this convincing, start over. And maybe update your LinkedIn to “seeking new opportunities.”
The brutal honesty test
Your campaign headline should be something your product can prove in 60 seconds.
No, not 60 seconds of setup, disclaimers, and “here’s what we’re building toward.”
Sixty seconds of actual demonstration.
This test is uncomfortable. It should be. It forces you to advertise reality instead of potential. And reality, it turns out, is pretty good marketing when you’re the only one doing it.
Keep the story straight
Users don’t experience your organizational silos. They experience one continuous journey:
Sponsored post > landing page > signup flow > first session > confused help desk ticket
If your ad talks about “workspaces” but your onboarding mentions “projects,” you’re paying customer acquisition costs to teach vocabulary lessons.
If the ad shows dark mode but your app loads with a blindingly white welcome tour, users will think they clicked the wrong link. Boring consistency beats clever creativity. Every time.
Appoint a truth-teller
Every team needs someone with permission to kill beautiful lies.
Simple rule: every superlative needs documentation. Every claim has an expiration date.
When the product changes — and it will, probably while you’re reading this — update the landing page the same day. Because nothing destroys trust faster than promises your current product can’t keep.
Someone needs to be the grown-up. Make it official.
Measure what actually matters
Clicks are expensive if nothing happens afterward.
Track the unsexy metrics that matter:
- Time-to-first-win: ad click to actual value delivered
- Activation rate: visitors who achieve something useful within their first week
- Abandonment points: where people give up and go update their Slack status to “why does everything suck”
- Documentation-assisted conversions: users who needed help docs to succeed (this isn’t failure — it’s due diligence)
These numbers won’t win awards. They’ll win budget approvals.
Speed is credibility
A slow landing page makes every sentence feel like marketing speak. Trust me on this.
Keep it fast. Under 2.5 seconds to load. One font family. Images that justify their existence.
Not because some SEO guru said so — because waiting feels like lying.
The creative becomes obvious
When your page tells the truth, the ad practically writes itself.
Grab the headline. Screenshot the proof. Point to the action.
You’re not creating art — you’re making a movie trailer for something that already works.
This is why working backwards saves time. Fewer rounds of “can we make the logo bigger?” Fewer late-night Slack arguments about whether the CTA should be “Start Free Trial” or “Transform Your Business Today!”
Know when to pause
If your proof is thin, don’t stretch it with adjectives and hope.
Fix the product first. Then advertise it.
It’s cheaper than paying for disappointed clicks at scale. Trust me on this one.
More simple UX Marketing rules
Don’t advertise what you can’t demonstrate today.
Don’t create discontinuity between expectation and reality.
Don’t promise what the current product can’t deliver.
Don’t let claims outlive their evidence.
And if your agency responds to this brief with another “big idea” presentation, save everyone’s time and find people who understand that ux and marketing are supposed to be teammates, not rivals.
Look, the internet has enough fantasy content.
Your users don’t need another beautiful lie with a call-to-action. They need to click something, try it, and have it actually work the way you said it would. When ux and marketing finally get their act together — when campaigns advertise reality instead of roadmaps — something miraculous happens:
Conversion rates go up. Support tickets go down. Users become advocates instead of refund requests.
Revolutionary concept, right?