Having a stellar digital ad is critical for programmatic advertising. You want the ad to be eye-catching, engaging and drive the user to complete a desired action. But to really reap the benefits of your digital campaign, every element of the conversion funnel needs to be stellar—including your landing page.
Your landing page is an important part of your campaign’s performance because it’s the digital meeting spot for you (the advertiser) and your audience. A great landing page will move people through the conversion funnel and provide user insights that can steer your business in the right direction.
So, how do you build a page that will deliver high landing page conversion rates? You’ll want to focus on two main components. Read on to learn what they are, and why they matter.
Choose a Type of Landing Page That Aligns With Your Campaign Goal
There are a few common types of landing pages. Each one supports a specific goal, which should align with the call to action of your ad campaign. That goal is what you’ll use to define a conversion. You might decide that an email submission, or purchase equals a conversion for your campaign. After clicking through to your landing page from an ad, that landing page should help to guide the user further through the conversion funnel.
So how do you decide what type of landing page to use? You’ll want to select the type that best supports your campaign goals. That goal could be lead capture, a sale, or booking a demo. Here are three types of landing pages that align with common campaign goals.
1. Lead Capture Landing Pages
A lead capture page offers users something in return for their email address or other information. This type of landing page has one defined goal: exchange a lead magnet for your visitor’s info. Once you earn that visitor’s info, you can continue to nurture them into a lead or customer. Any landing page with a form on it can be considered a lead capture page. For example, demo request pages and eBook download pages are both considered lead capture pages.
2. Sales Landing Pages
The goal of a sales landing page is to convince visitors to make a purchase. They should be informative and convincing. Compared to a lead capture landing page, sales landing pages tend to be longer and include elements like social proof, FAQ, and sometimes case studies. If the goal of your advertising campaign is to sell a product or service, this is the type of landing page you’ll want to use.
3. Click-Through Landing Pages
The goal of the click-through landing page is to encourage a visitor to do exactly what you’d expect! Click-through to another page after the landing page. Whereas a lead capture or sales landing page aims to have the visitor convert on that specific page, with a click-through landing page the goal is to have the visitor convert on a subsequent page. This type of landing page does a good job of warming up the visitor. Rather than making a purchase decision immediately after clicking your ad, they have an opportunity to learn about the product or service before clicking through to purchase or submit their details.
Be sure to select your landing page type based on what the goal of your advertising campaign is. That way, you have a clear understanding of what role that page serves in your conversion funnel, and what information and elements to include on your landing page.
Pay Attention to the Design of Your Landing Pages
Using the right type of landing page for your campaign will help boost its effectiveness. But that’s not the only piece of the puzzle. Your page should be visually pleasing and simple to navigate. Landing page design influences the perceptions of your visitors. To ensure those perceptions are positive, it’s important to take the design of your landing pages into consideration.
Here are 3 best practices to keep in mind when building your landing pages:
1. Pay attention to the content that appears above the fold.
The term “above the fold” refers to the content of a web page that is immediately visible when a page first loads. The opposite, “below the fold,” refers to the content of a page that requires a visitor to scroll to see. When a user clicks through to your landing page from an ad, they may not stick around for long before leaving or ‘bouncing’. This is why focusing on the above the fold content of your landing pages is so crucial. As it’s the first thing visitors see, this content will either capture or lose their attention.
You can use a scroll map to easily identify the location of the average fold on different devices. And, choosing the right DSP will give you access to more tools that enable you to collect details about the user’s behaviour once they arrive on your landing page. For example, enabling StackAdapt’s engagement pixel will help you track metrics like bounce rate.
2. Make sure your page has a clear call to action.
The most important content to include above the fold is your headline, a sentence or two of body copy, and an emphasized call to action (CTA). You don’t want to lead people away from your amazing ad to a landing page that has a CTA buried at the bottom of the page. If it’s not immediately obvious, your visitors might even miss the CTA entirely. To avoid this, make sure that CTA is front and centre—and designed to be seen! Don’t have your CTA as the same font, colour and format as the rest of the text. It should be clear, concise, and obvious.
For example, CTAs like “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” and “Sign Up” are effective because they are short and to the point. Keep in the mind that it’s best practice to have just one CTA, because competing CTAs can be confusing for the user — Unless you are tracking multiple CTA’s differently. In that case, just be sure to only include links that are part of your conversion funnel.
3. Aim for a simple visual design that is on brand.
If there are too many visual elements your visitors may end up distracted from the CTA. Opting for a visual design that is simple will help to keep your page’s CTA front and center. A very simple landing page might seem counterintuitive, but it avoids visual clutter. And just because your page’s visual design is simple, doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging. Beautiful imagery and graphic design that is on brand will help shape a visitor’s positive perception of your brand—and guide them toward a conversion.
4. Ensure the landing page aligns with your ad creative.
Your ad creative is what initially captures a visitor’s attention. When they click through to the landing it should be relatable to the ad so that the conversion funnel experience is smooth. For example, if you’re running an awareness ad, make sure that the above the fold content of your landing page emphasizes the same product or service that is promoted in the creative of your ad. If you’re running a conversion ad with the CTA “Shop Now” in it’s creative, the same product should be showcased above the fold. Add another layer of predictability by making the CTA button on the landing page the same as the CTA on your ad.
Monitor Your Landing Page Conversion Rates
You’ve defined a goal for your landing page and you’ve made sure the design is on point. Once the campaign is live, you can begin to monitor the performance. The main metrics you’ll want to track are cost per engagement (CPE) and conversion rate (CVR). These are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will provide insight into how effective your campaign is after you’ve won that initial click-through.
Tracking CPE and CVR
CPE is calculated by dividing the total ad cost of your campaign by the total number of engagement actions with an ad. It’s a great way to measure the post-click activity of your campaign, which takes place on the campaign’s landing page. Engagement is that middle factor between winning a click and converting, which is why it’s important to track CPE.
Since conversion is the ultimate goal of any ad campaign, the CVR will tell you how well your landing page is doing at actually getting you those conversions. CVR is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors who clicked through to your landing page. That number tells you the percentage rate of visitors who converted when they visited your page.
By tracking CPE and CVR in tandem you can evaluate how well your landing page is performing within the campaign funnel. These metrics will inform your optimization decisions by providing insights into the behaviour of users that engage with your page.
Reach Your Landing Page Conversion Goals
Choosing the right type of landing page and following best practices for the page’s design will contribute to achieving your conversion rate goals. The landing page is an important aspect of your ad campaign’s conversion funnel. While engaging ad creatives will result in clicks a great landing page will be the deciding factor if a user enters the conversion funnel. To earn the best campaign performance, be sure to make landing page optimization a part of your campaign strategy.
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