'Net Features : landing page optimization

What's Your Landing Page Score?

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:15:00 GMT

Landing pages are an important part of the digital marketing mix.

The better optimized they are for conversion, the greater profits your enterprise will have in the long run. Website Magazine has covered the practice of landing page optimization in great detail (see some links below) but often it's nice to have an indepenent review of these important assets to make sure they're satisfying expectations and working for, and not against, us.

WorldData today launched LandingPageScore.com, a free tool to help marketers check the design and marketing effectiveness of landing pages in relation to established best practices - and hopefully improve their response rates along the way. Over 200 rules are tested through the platform and could give marketers a solid understanding (or at least some general insights) of which practices might result in better performance.

In addition to this new application, Worldata also previously released SubjectLine.com last year, which provides information for marketers looking to improve email open-rates and response rates overall.

Worldata is planning on releasing apps for the service on App Store and Google Play soon.

Related Content at Website Magazine:
- 25-Point Landing Page Optimization Review
- 10 Ways to Optimize for Lead Generation
- The Golden Age of Conversion Testing

Real-time Landing Page Optimization with Unbounce

Linc Wonham — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Landing page optimization firm Unbounce and marketing software company HubSpot have announced an integration they say will provide a powerful publishing platform that enhances landing page performance.

Unbounce is a self-serve hosted service that provides Web marketers involved with paid search, banner ads, email or social media a simplified way to create, publish and test promotion-specific landing pages without the need for IT or developers. The company’s solutions are designed to give marketers the power to create, publish and optimize their landing pages on the fly.

“Integrating with HubSpot gives our customers the ability to capture lead information directly from their landing pages for real-time optimization,” says Unbounce CEO Rick Perreault. “HubSpot is well-known in the industry as providing a full-featured marketing platform for lead capture and management. We are pleased to be working with them to create a seamless experience for our customers.”

Features of the newly integrated Unbounce publishing platform include the following:

Build Pages Quickly – Templates and tools are provided to create and publish custom landing pages without IT support.

One-Click A/B Framework – Allows marketers to test their campaigns and learn about customers by testing different content, offers and calls to action.

Real-Time Analytics – Easily view reports on conversion rates and number of new leads with live, actionable data.

Focus on Your Strengths – Unbounce creates a turn-key solution so that marketers can focus on what they do best, creating engaging and creative campaigns without the headache of webpage coding.

“Unbounce provides the tools for companies to easily create and publish landing pages, ideal for A/B testing,” says Arjun Moorthy, VP of business development at HubSpot. “This integration gives their customers the ability to easily optimize landing page performance and transfer this data into their existing HubSpot accounts.”

Start with Data in Landing Page Optimization

Administrator — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:30:00 GMT

A Thorough, Modern Definition of Landing Page Optimization

By Brian Deagan

The term “optimization” is dangerously close to becoming a victim of overuse and relegated to meaningless buzz word status. But the word does retain a valuable definition that marketers and Web masters alike must internalize and apply. To prevent optimization’s definitional decline it is crucial to understand the meaning of the term in its evolved state.

The pillars of support for strong optimization are content testing and audience targeting. The effective combination of these two core direct digital marketing functions fosters success. Historically, however, many organizations have taken a divide and conquer approach to the roles and responsibilities of testing and targeting. As these organizational silos take shape, production speeds slow and landing pages are drained of their effectiveness.

The right approach to landing page optimization can be thought of as a triangle where the three points of intersection are labeled “data,” “testing,” and “targeting.” The data, at the top of the triangle, flows down to each function. A central location for the data is important because the data environment must constantly feed the content testing and the audience targeting.

Landing Page Optimization Starts with Data

The ideal data environment for landing page optimization is a universal profile management system. The system is designed to do two things. First it stores valuable data points like enterprise customer data and purchase history information. Second, it captures behavioral information like browsing patterns on a landing page affiliated Web site, and keyword or banner click entry points to the landing page. The combination of known information on authenticated site visitors and behavioral information helps marketers build unique segments and lay a great foundation for successful testing and targeting strategies.

Test and Target in Tandem

Once the data situation is properly setup the optimization process can begin. The most important truth to understand about good landing page optimization is that testing and targeting must work in tandem. When launching a new landing page project, a strategy conversation that begins with an initial need to test content may end by identifying a real need to target shipping rates based on geographic region. The ability to be flexible and easily add testing or targeting strategies to the landing page environment is important to meet conversion goals and adapt to a constantly changing consumer.

Selecting Landing Page Optimization Software

Like anything else in the on-demand software business, optimization tools fall on a continuum of low cost and capability to high cost and complexity.

It is easy to love Google because they offer helpful tools for free. But it is important to understand that free means there is a trade off somewhere. In the case of Google Optimizer, the trade off is a free testing tool for one that is incapable of targeting. Low (or no) cost tools are tempting, but the combination of testing and targeting is mandatory for landing page optimization success. The trade off just isn’t worth it.

On the other end of the spectrum, many tools that provide both testing and targeting cost a fortune in money and time, given their complexity. As usual, the right optimization software falls in the middle where reasonable cost meets up with a full feature set. The middle spectrum optimization tools are the ones technologists seek because they are easy to use. Marketers need them because it is easy to update copy or swap images without ongoing input from an already stretched IT group.

An Optimized Landing Page Example

Without sacrificing anything regarding the load time, here is an ideal setup for a landing page that takes advantage of the best optimization strategies.

Our example landing page has eight different dynamic content zones. Six of those zones are identified as content testing zones. The testing zones can rotate many different versions of content based on the data available about the page’s visitors. The content variations can range from a few lines of copy to different product offers. The remaining two zones are setup for audience targeting. Both zones use geographic data, one to populate a localized phone number and the other zone targets on the daypart to display local store hours. This example is a single landing page, but it is completely optimized for every unique visitor, dramatically increasing the page’s chances of success.

Extend Landing Page Optimization by Learning From Other Channels

While these optimization principles are outlined primarily within the context of landing pages, they also apply to each function of direct digital marketing. Good optimization in email marketing, mobile marketing, and onsite targeting improves overall direct digital marketing campaign performance. But cross-channel optimization also adds valuable data points that can be leveraged to create better landing page experiences. Remember that landing pages are one part of an overall direct digital marketing strategy. The data that powers them, and the data they record, must connect to a central database that focuses on the site visitor and coordinates the experience across the entire direct digital marketing landscape.

Achieving Optimized Landing Pages

A successful landing page creates two outcomes for marketers. The landing page conversion translates either to a lead for other marketing programs to nurture, or an immediate transaction that triggers a retention/up-sell marketing cycle. Data powered optimization is the best and most proven approach for achieving both outcomes, whether a transaction happens immediately or must be nurtured for several months.

Next generation optimization software platforms do not view testing and targeting as separate functions. Both share the same focus – optimizing the landing page experience for each individual site visitor. When data, testing, and targeting all have a seat at the table, a more complete and effective landing page strategy is served.

Once a central database environment is properly configured, develop a landing page strategy that is not beholden to the limitations set by specialist vendors that encourage silos. Software tools exist to help avoid silos and prevent trading off testing in favor of targeting, or vice versa.

Web masters and marketers control the landing page optimization software market. If content testing and audience targeting are demanded, vendors will adapt and supply. The end result of applying a thoroughly defined landing page optimization strategy is a more coordinated user experience that dramatically improves conversion rates and performance. That outcome is as important as it is feasible. Don’t settle.

About the Author: Brian Deagan, a thought leader in direct digital marketing, is cofounder and CEO of Knotice, a direct digital marketing solutions company.

Discovering a Better Call To Action

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:17:00 GMT

Web professionals must always be concerned with achieving multiple objectives - that will never change. Drawing people towards a website and keeping them coming back are often what dominates the headlines, but driving consumers through a website and down the conversion funnel is where many should be spending their time instead. Effective calls to actions are of paramount importance in this process, so let’s look at how to discover and develop “better” calls to action.

A call to action is defined as any action which visitors can take to complete your selling process. In a perfect marketing world, calls to action would be so perfectly crafted that users have no choice but to do exactly what you tell them. The problem is most never reach that marketing nirvana. They remain mired in tradition ("buy now," "add to cart") or are not specific enough ("click here to order") to motivate a user to do anything out of the ordinary. When consumers are provided with information, they're able to make better buying decisions. So, why not give them the information they need to make better buying decisions, and buying from you ... right now!

So how does a Web professional accomplish that? The calls to action that consumers encounter online should couple an imperative verb with an implied benefit. For example, “buy now” contains no reference to the benefit consumers will receive by doing so, and neither does "add to cart." A better call to action alternative might be one of the following:

Buy Now & Save on Shipping
Add to Cart – Save 10% Today

The question to ask when looking at your existing calls to action include:

whether the call to action is present at all;
if it is placed within the active window;
whether text calls are used along with image calls

There are some basic ways to review the effectiveness of the calls to action currently deployed on your website. While there is no substitute for testing different variations of landing pages and the specific calls to action for your own offers, taking even a cursory look could reveal where improvements are possible.

Here are a few different items to test with your calls to action:

Test the wording of both the button image and the text link, and ask what or where the implied benefit works best – in the image or the text?
- Also test the combination of words and phrasing (verbs and benefits) to determine what works best for your specific business niche.
If not using an image, or not using text, test the addition of one of these elements and measure the response.
- Also test the size, shape and font of the images and text.
Analyze how placement of the call to action and the actual prominence of the call to action affects conversion rate. While above the fold is better for the life insurance industry, perhaps it’s not for home and garden websites. The only way to know for sure is to test out various combinations.

Conversion Critic: Analyze Landing Page

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Search marketing agency Engine Ready released ConversionCritic today, an online tool for search marketers designed to help them analyze and improve landing pages. The service is free of charge right now and is definitely worth a look if you're aiming at generating a few more sales from landing pages.

ConversionCritic scores pages based on 37 criteria, for example, "Does the copy focus more on selling the benefits versus the features of the product or service?" The tool then provides feedback on the marketing effectiveness, offer clarity, readability and engagement or suggested modifications of the landing page. I tested Website Magazine's new professional membership landing page and was pleased with the results, but did see some room for improvement.

“The dynamics that persuade a visitor to be your customer are numerous and complex, and depend on your product/service offering, competitive influences and the demographics of your target audience,” reports Engine Ready’s CEO Jamie Smith. “ConversionCritic is a great online tool for search marketers to see exactly which on-page factors are contributing to higher conversions and what improvements are needed to further increase the conversion rate.”

Landing Page Optimization Review - 25 Key Points

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:09:00 GMT

There are hundreds of variables on landing pages that can be tested (and thousands when tested in tandem) and ultimately used to influence visitor conversion. With PPC prices rising and SEO competition increasing daily, developing compelling landing pages is perhaps the most important way to keep costs low and the return on your advertising spend at levels that will keep you in the black. Here is a list of 25 essential elements that web professionals should be taking into consideration with any landing page review.

Review the 25-Point Landing Page Optimization Review Questions

Landing Page Optimization: Guaranteed ROI

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:15:00 GMT

Today at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, SiteTuners is “putting its money where its mouth is” by offering the web marketing industry’s only “Guaranteed ROI” pricing plan for landing page optimization tests guaranteeing customers will make money.

SiteTuners’ “Fixed Price with Guaranteed ROI” pricing plan sets a fixed price for landing page testing and guarantees a minimum 5 percent improvement over the original landing page tested. However, if SiteTuners does not improve the conversion rate during its landing page optimization by the 5 percent, it will pro-rate its fees and return a portion to the company. If SiteTuners cannot document any conversion improvement, companies pay nothing.

“Most competitors typically charge high fees or retainers – and do not give any guarantees. That works out well for the testing company, but can leave the client in the lurch,” said Tim Ash, president of SiteTuners. “We are confident in our ability to deliver results, and are the only major landing page optimization company to offer this Guaranteed ROI - allowing companies to make higher profits with zero financial risk.”

SiteTuners has a very strong track record of significant landing page conversion rate improvements and has worked with companies such as Red Envelope, 1-800-Flowers, Verizon Wireless, American Red Cross, Rand McNally, Advanta, McAfee, Black & Decker, Fair Isaac, and Texas Instruments. SiteTuners offers a full range of services including conversion consulting, landing page optimization, and self service landing page testing tools.

Previous coverage of SiteTuners and articles contributed by Tim Ash, President of SiteTuners:

Fewer Clicks Equals More Success

Mike Phillips — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Have you ever read an article about how to improve conversions, and the author says something like, "you need to turn browsers into buyers," to which you scratch your head, sigh and return to your regular tasks? Probably so. The reason this happens so often is there is little on the Web in the way of practical guidance on how to actually make those browsers become buyers. Let's change all that. One of the most effective ways to improve conversions is to reduce the amount of time it takes for users to get to the purchasing page. It's also one of the easiest.

Landing pages and search boxes are powerful ways to shorten the distance to a sale, so identifying the holes in our own marketing and merchandising on landing pages and throughout your entire site will show areas for improvement.

Landing Pages: Websites featuring immense product databases with tens of thousands of products should be linking directly to landing pages and allow affiliates the option to direct their own customers to custom pages of top-selling products in a specific category. This reduces the risk of your customers (browsers) navigating through many different products to find the one that initially brought them to your website. Designing, developing and promoting landing pages (especially on a massive scale) is time consuming, but the benefits of increased conversions are a motivating force.

Search Boxes: After your customers arrive on a landing page the hard work begins. While only a portion of users arriving on a custom landing page will be in true "buying" mode, granting quick access to refined information through search boxes is one way to turn the browsers into buyers. Functional site search has been shown to increase conversions dramatically as users are directed away from traditional search return lists and toward the products they are looking for specifically. Imagine, all it takes is removing a few clicks from the browsing process.

Live Support: Far from the norm, live support functionality on a website goes a long way towards reducing unneccessary clicks and improving conversions. If you're able to staff a team of live operators (either by phone or chat), they not only assist users to find the information they need when they need it, but provide an opportunity to build all-important trust with consumers, increasing the long term value of each visitor and customer.

Improving your conversion rate only slightly has a strong multiplier impact on your sales and revenue numbers and is the ideal way to take advantage of the traffic you already have today.