Your landing page is losing auctions your bids are winning
Ad Rank is not just bids and keywords. The page on the other side of the click quietly taxes everything.
Two advertisers bid on the same keyword with the same budget. One pays less per click, shows higher, and converts twice as often. The difference is rarely a secret bidding trick. It is usually the landing page.
Landing page experience feeds Quality Score, and Quality Score is a multiplier on everything you pay. The bigger cost, though, is invisible: visitors who click, wait, squint at a generic page, and leave.
Match the message, then the intent
The page should continue the ad's sentence. If the ad promises same-day quotes for commercial roofing, the first line of the page should say exactly that, not welcome visitors to a family business established in 1987.
Beyond message match, match the stage of intent. Comparison queries deserve comparison content. Emergency queries deserve a phone number above the fold, not a brochure.
Speed is a ranking factor and a courtesy
Most paid traffic is mobile, often on indifferent connections. Every second of load time sheds visitors you have already paid for. Compress images, cut scripts, and test on a real mid-range phone rather than a flagship on office wifi.
None of this is exciting work. It is also the reason the interesting experiments later on have something to build from.