Landing page optimization report best practices for increasing conversion rates

www.naehas.com 525 Middlefield Road | Suite 230 | Menlo Park | CA | 94025 1-877-2naehas

Landing Pages: Integrating Online and Offline

Rab Govil

Naehas Landing Page Optimization ReportBest Practices for Increasing Conversion Rates


Landing Page Buzz

The Google Quality Score is “…determined by your keyword's clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page”

“As many as 50% [of visitors]…bail within 0-8 seconds after briefly glancing at the [landing] page.”

According to a recent Gartner Group Study, “…50% of web sales are lost because visitors cannot easily find products, content, or services they’re looking for on websites.”

http://www.google.com/

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/

http://www.gartner.com/silentlocalechooser.jsp?locale=wcw


More Than 80% of Individuals Leave a Landing Page Within 0-8 Seconds Due To Poor Relevancy, Design, and Offer

Proportion of visitors who leave within 0-8 seconds after briefly glancing at the page

Conversions

Proportion of visitors who leave when the page does not prove compelling under closer examination

Visitors who are attempting to convert but fail somehow, or who would convert if there was an alternate channel such as phone


Top 5 Landing Page Mistakes

• Call to action in the outbound medium is not reflected in the landing page

• Offer has no value or does not match the customer buying stage

• Distracting Navigation options that lead the customer away from the conversion goal

• Tedious and invasive forms.

• Landing page design is confusing or difficult to read.


Data Sources for This Report

PODiInternational consortium which produces the Best Practices research on the best application of digital printing on a world wide basis

Total of over 300 projects in Best Practice collection of case studies. The best practices report has been requested over 40,000 times in just one year

Case studies available at www.podi.org

Naehas, Inc.

MarketingSherpaConduct Case Study interviews with brand- side marketing VPs and directors in both business-to-business and consumer marketing.

Surveyed over 237,000 marketing, advertising and PR professionals to date.

Produced one of the first definitive research report on landing pages called the landing page handbook

Software as a Service company based in Silicon Valley (www.naehas.com)

Provide marketers a Landing Page Application that allow them to create, host and measure personalized landing pages without any help from IT

Customers range from Fortune 500 companies (Canon, USPS, Charles Schwab, Merril Lynch) to small and medium businesses.

Data in the report based on the last 50 landing page campaigns

http://www.podi.org/

http://www.naehas.com/


Landing Page Optimization Rule

Average Landing Page

Con

vers

ion

Rat

e

2X

Optimized Landing Page

Customization & Personalization

40%

20%

Offer and Usability

Creative

Optimizing a landing page can significantly increase conversion rates

40%


Optimized Landing Pages Should Be Customized and Personalized For Each Target Segment, and Should Focus on Converting The Customer


2X

Con

vers

ion

Rat

e


1. The headline should match the call to action in the outbound medium.

2. Personalized pages should greet the individual by name and contain information relevant to the receiver.

3. Customized landing pages should have relevant content for each segment

4. Be sure to segment the target audience for each landing page

40%

Rel

evan

ce

&

Nav

igat

ion

Customized and personalized landing pages should feel as though they were created especially for each individual.


A Customized Landing Page Will Contain Content That Matches That of the Lead Source and Is Relevant to The Target Audience/Segment

The Netflix Ad & Landing Page are a Good Example of how to match the lead source copy to that of the landing page. This way, the viewer feels as though they are in the right place because what they clicked on is what they got.


Customized Landing Pages That Do Not Match Their Lead Source Make the Viewer Feel As Though They Are NOT In The Right Place

The landing page mentions nothing about “same online service” or “same price”

Non-relevant landing page


Both Customized and Personalized Landing Pages Should Have Easy to Remember URLs

Make sure the URL is easy to read and easy to type

Why is this important• Email: Significant numbers will cut and paste the link or type it in. • Online ads: They might come back to it at a later time or send it to a

friend. Do not lose out on the viral part of the response.• Direct Mail or other offline media: Since they will be typing it in, it has to

be easy to read and type in or you are going to be loosing many prospective leads.

http://www.zfda des.com/cgibin /zfdat/site/prod uct/index.html? id=001597211& zone=zbs

www.zoffer.com

Too many nonsensic al words and symbols

Simple to remember and read

http://www.zfdades.com/cgibin/zfdat/site/product/index.html?id=001597211&zone=zbs

http://www.zoffer.com/


Personalized Landing Pages Have On Average A 30% Better Conversion Rate

Personalized Landing Pages:

– Contain relevant information specific to each receiver

– Contain Unique URLs for each receiver

– Provide tracking at an individual level

– Provide the prospective lead with relevant offers that may better catch and keep their attention.

www.acme.com/bill.foster

To take advantage of this exclusive offer, visit your personal website before Dec 15th:

EXAMPLE


Directing Customers To Personalized Landing Pages Significantly Increases Response Rates

• Direct customers to landing pages using unique personalized URLs


Customize Your Outbound Media With Targeted Messaging Specific To Your Audience.

Retail/Quick Printer Commercial Printer Management

Commercial Printer Production In-Plant


Additionally, Match Your Targeted Messaging On Your Outbound Media To That On Your Landing Pages

Personalized landing pages should greet customer by name

Make offers relevant to each segment in order to improve conversions

CANON EXAMPLE


Relevance: Canon Example


For Canon, Optimizing Their Landing Pages Resulted In A Significant Opportunity Pipeline & Significantly More Leads


In Addition, Using Personalized Landing Pages With Their Direct Mail Campaign, Canon Saw A 93% Conversion Rate


Using Personalized Landing Pages With Their Catalog Distribution, World’s Finest ® Chocolates Saw a 150% Increase In Sales

• Displays customized content

• Is personalized with name and past order information

• Offers product recommendations and product history specific to each visitor

Example World’s Finest Chocolate Personalized Landing Page


Statistical Results for WFC’s 5th Catalog Mailing

* Results for the consumer prospect are not statistically significant

SegmentAudience Size

Response Rate

Response Lift

AOV Lift

Control AOV ILP AOV

B2B House File 54K 1.68% 9.32% 12% $311 $348

Consumer Prospects* 10K .28% 238% 140% $102 $302

Consumer House File 40K 2.45% 8% 3% $89 $92


Segment Your Audience To Increase Content Relevancy on Both Customized and Personalized Landing Pages

• Potential evolutionary path:– Stage 1: One-size-fits-all– Stage 2: 3-5 segments based on type of media source– Stage 3: Add other relevance factors to the mix

• Repeat vs. new visitor• Time of day, geography• Key sites, keywords• Other customer-specific information

• Ultimately, you are likely to find 2-3 relevance factors that give you most of the lift from targeting

Segmentation


When Segmenting, Be Sure To Test The Messaging In Order To Optimize Response Rates

Retail/Quick Printer Commercial Printer Management

Commercial Printer Production In-Plant

Canon SegmentationOut of 4 test segments, 2 proved to be most valuable


Best Practices for Designing Customized and Personalized Landing Pages

• The landing page headline should match the call to action from the outbound medium

• Build the landing page specifically for each segment – beware of over-segmenting your audience

• Use Personalized Landing Pages whenever you have data files for your segment audience

• Use easy to remember URL’s. Personalize them when possible.


Optimized Landing Pages Have Segment-Targeted Offers and Simple Usability


Con

vers

ion

Rat

e

2X


40%A compelling landing page should have a target audience-specific offer and simple usability1. Make the offer relevant to the

ultimate goal or objective of the landing page.

2. The landing page should quickly explain how the offer will benefit the customer.

3. The call to action should be clearly stated and easy to accept

4. Forms should be simple and pre-filled when applicable.

5. Do not include distracting navigation when possible.

Offe

r &

Usa

bilit

y


There Are 4 Components That Make Up A Successful Offer

The successful progression from entering a landing page to completing the conversion action includes the following components:

Offer

Forms

Navigation

Thank You Page


Determine The Right Offer For The Right Segment. Offers May Differ Between Segments

Offer Forms Navigation Thank You Page


Business to Business Offer Examples

Offer Responsiveness (1-5) Qualified(1-5) Optimum

Offers

ROI calculators 3 5 15

Whitepapers/ Guides 3 4 12

Case studies 4 3 12

“Relevant” giveaways 4 3 12

Video clips or demo 4 3 12

Webinars 2 5 10

Live events 1 5 5

Free giveaways 5 1 5

Tradeshows 2 2 4



The Offer and Call To Action Should Be Specific To The Segment Audience In Order To Increase Likeliness of Conversion

• Make sure the value of the offer is clear AND specifically targeted to your campaign’s target audience.

• Make offers bold and easy to take advantage of.

• If it is an interactive offer such as a value calculator, clearly state how long it will take for them to interact with it or what they will get.

The offer button clearly states the value of the offer

When providing personal information, studies have shown that the response rate it better if symbols representing security are present



Test Various Offers To Maximize Conversions

Two separate offers allow for better testing of which one is more effective with the target customer

Note that the only way out of the page is to either leave it or click the conversion button



The offer should be located both above and below the fold if necessary

• Design the landing page using 800x600 resolution to ensure that you capture 89-94% of internet users

Resolution Proportion of Population Using

1024x768 54%

1280x1024 21%

800x600 14%

Unknown 5%

1152x864 3%

1600x1200 0%

640x480 0%

Rule of Thumb Make sure all critical elements are visible without scrolling by keeping them in the upper 300 pixels of the page



• Make sure the value of the offer is clear and easy to take advantage of.

• Place the offer above the fold on the page. If it is a scrolling page, repeat the offer again below the fold.

• If the landing page takes them to second page for conversion, repeat the offer and the value of the offer again on the second page.


Best Practices For The Offer and Call To Action To Increase Likeliness of Conversion


Best Practices When Using Forms On Landing Pages

• Use the minimum number of form fields possible.

• Forms should be used to collect new information only. If you already have customer information either pre-fill the forms or only as for new information.

• Provide Trust: Forms are scary. If you tell people exactly what you will do with the information and what you will not do, your conversion rates will improve. Make it clear using verbiage such as: "We will only use your email address send you what you ask for.” or “We will never sell or share your information with third parties without our permission. Privacy Policy"

• Pre-fill forms whenever possible.



Asking for too much information on forms often scare potential customers away

Barix Clinics: Poorly designed landing page and conversion form.

• You can’t read the titles on the brochures

• The form is extremely detailed and very intimidating

• The page lacks a clear and direct call to action

• Where’s the submit button???



Best Practices for Using Forms To Increase Conversions

• Use check boxes or radio buttons as much as possible, but never at the same time.

• Pre-fill forms as much as possible using information from bought lists or in-house databases.

• Use Red for the conversion button to improve your conversion rate.

• Make sure information is saved as they go, so that if they accidentally hit the back button they will not have to start from scratch

RadioCheck Box



Landing Pages Should Be Easy Navigate and Understand

• Stay away from Flash landing pages. Flash cannot be indexed by search engines and often takes too long to load.

• Do not include the navigation bars from your home website on your landing page.

• Remove all distractions (navigation bars, additional offers/products, multiple offer conversion buttons, extensive conversion forms, etc.) that aren’t pertinent to the conversion goal.

• Make the conversion button as obvious as possible.

Simplifying a Landing Page’s Navigation & Usability Will Increase The User’s Understanding of Your Ultimate Goal



Poor Navigation Distracts Customers From Your Intended Conversion Activity

The landing page does NOT mention anything about 5 start resorts or low annual fees as stated in the ad!

They have unnecessary and distracting links and navigation bars.

Call to action and conversion offer is unclear and does not stand out



Use The Thank You Page To Provide Additional Information Relevant To the Customer

Use the ‘Thank You’ page to your advantage. This page is being seen by prospects that have taken the time to provide you some information or bought something from you. They are in prime reading and interacting mode at this time.

– Actions you could take on the Thank You page• Promote another initiative such as a newsletter or webinar• Ask for their feedback• Send them to your home page if there are other interesting

programs or offers they can take advantage of. • Further promote your product or other similar products that would

be useful to them. • Direct them to your product website



Example Anritsu’s Conversion Thank You Page

Refocus visitor to the offer

Product is the star and the headline is revisited

Provides additional

resources for information



Summary Offer and Navigation


•Pick the right offer to match the business objective and the appropriate tradeoff between quality and volume

•Make sure that the value of the offer is clear and easy to avail

Pre-fill forms for up to 30% increase in conversions

Eliminate all navigation other than what is necessary to get the customer to take the required action

Thank you pages are under- leveraged and should be used for further promotion


The Creative Aspects Of A Landing Page Are The Visual Components That Help Guide Visitors To Conversion


Con

vers

ion

Rat

e

2X


20%“Great landing page design is about leading the eye on a journey that ends in conversion”

-MarketingSherpa

1. Does the landing page design take the eye to or away from the conversion button?

2. Are there too many elements on the page?

3. Do the colors and verbiage guide the viewer to the conversion button?

4. Does the landing page provide the viewer with all the information they need without overwhelming them?

Cre

ativ

e


Creative Use Images To Help Direct Viewers To Your Conversion Goal

• Make all images clickable. This is a great opportunity to have it pop up with additional technical information that would otherwise have made your landing page too crowded.

• If you are using an image of a paper, report or product for the offer, make sure you can read the text on the image. You may want to create a special extra-readable thumbnail made with larger than normal copy.

• Photos of people, even imperfect non-studio shots, have been proven to be more effective and more trustworthy than clipart.

Place the “Hero” or product shot on the LEFT

hand side of the page

Use the area below your image to your advantage. Extensive studies have shown that the two most-read content areas on space ads are headlines and product shot captions. Don’t waste this big opportunity!


Use a white background for the text including your headline and registration form.

Short and specific form

field with white text boxes

Creative Keep Color Choices Consistent With Other Aspects Of Your Campaign

Use colored boxes or screens to draw the eye to important segments of text, such as a bullet list of features or form field

Keep the color scheme of the page consistent with campaign colors and the colors used from banner ads, direct mail pieces, and emails. The more your landing page resembles your creative – the thing that made them respond in the first place, the better your conversions will be


Creative Best Practices for Copywriting

• Headline Make sure the headline stands out (ie. large font, bright color, etc.), appeals directly to your target audience, and refers to the place where the visitor came from.

• Call to Action Make the wording on the submit button creative. It is one of the first and last things they will see, so use the copy on the button to your advantage!

• Body Copy– The copy font should be at least 12 points, flush left, and

never run longer than 52-60 characters across.

– Use bullet points as much as possible instead of paragraphs

– Highlight your key points, whether it’s by position, bold text, white space, color, font, etc. However, be aware of highlighting or bolding text. If those few words or sentences are all an individual sees, will they have enough information to want to convert?

– Use “you” and “your” instead of “we” and “our.”

Ord

er o

f Im

port

ance

Very Important

Important


Creative Simple and To The Point Copy Can Increase Understanding Of Your Ultimate Conversion Goal

Bullet points are much easier to read and more often read compared with paragraphs

This is a concise and compelling headline with a big font size and bright color.

It’s easy to pick out the hotlinked text.


A Review Focusing Attention To These 3 levels of Landing Page Design Will Significantly Increase Conversion Rates


Con

vers

ion

Rat

e

2X


Relevance

40%

40%

20%

Offer and Usability

Creative

Optimizing a landing page can significantly increase conversion rates


Example A Well Designed Consumer Landing Page

• This is a great example for the following reasons:– Logo in upper left with

tagline below

– It clearly explains in three steps the benefits of choosing them

– The call to action area is clear and concise

– The submit button is creative (represents a green traffic light) and very obvious

– There are privacy symbols and copy at the bottom, which often makes people feel more comfortable about giving information

– Hero shot is on the left and has a caption below


Statistical Results of Free Offer Testing

• Free offers can include:– white papers, Demos, Case Studies, Gift Cards

• With Personalized Direct Mail, conversion rates are often higher than non-personalized mail.

Media Non-optimized Optimized

Optimized with Personalized

Landing PagesDirect Mail 15.0% 25.0% 40.0%Email to house lists 10.0% 15.0% 25.0%Email to 3rd party lists 5.0% 7.5% 20.0%Banner Ads 3.0% 5.0% NASearch 4.0% 6.0% NA


Statistical Results of “Buy-Now” Offers

• Buy-Now offer examples include:– discounts, free complimentary products etc.

• One caveat is that dependent on the industry, the numbers can change drastically. For example, in the trade show conference industry, the numbers are almost a magnitude smaller

Media Non-optimized Optimized


Landing PagesDirect Mail 7.5% 12.0% 30.0%Email to house lists 6.0% 7.5% 15.0%Email to 3rd party lists 1.0% 1.5% 3.0%Banner Ads 1.0% 1.8% NASearch 1.5% 2.5% NA

Non-optimized Optimized


Landing PagesDirect Mail 0.1% 0.2% 0.7%


Test and optimize to deliver the lift

Response Rate

Static Personalized Highly Relevant

500% lift

400% lift

300% lift

200% lift

20% lift

Right Message

Right Time

Right IndividualSegmentation


Designs to Test for Optimal Landing Page Conversion Rates

• Test the landing page on different computers in order to see the placement of the offer presentation

• Test different headlines

• Test Stand-Alone Images vs. Images with Captions

• Test hero shots on left and right side of page.

• Test shorter body copy vs. long copy.

• Perform field Analysis of what people are filling out

• Test single page landing pages vs. those with multiple pages


How Do I Get Started On Optimizing My Landing Page?

1. Define in very precise terms what are the business objective of the landing page ( Lead Generation, Ecommerce, Event Registration etc.)

2. Define your measurement criteria and baseline measurement

3. Select whether you will do this internally or use an outside hosting/ technology provider

4. Do your segmentation and really understand who are your trying to reach and sell.

5. For personalized landing pages, understand the data elements you have and can leverage for personalization

6. Figure out your offer and key persuasive elements (Testimonials)

7. Do your template (wireframe) for your page. Think testing and reusability at this time

8. Get your copy written and polished.

9. Create your landing pages and launch your campaign

10. Measure, Test and Iterate


Other Landing Page Examples


A Good Consumer Landing Page

• The value proposition is clearly explained at the top of the page with a strong call to action with “Get Your Insurance Quote”.

• There are literally zero traffic leaks.

• The only information they are requesting of the user is a zip code.

• The call to action is very clear with a nice clickable green button.


NCDM Events Marketing

Challenge– The Key Goal was to drive registration to two NCDM shows

(2005 & 2006). Typically, brochures are sent either 1 or 2 times to each prospective attendee (very expensive).

Naehas Solution– Create individualized and general landing pages– Send out relevant postcards to lead prospective attendees to

the landing pages– Measure all activity on the campaign dashboard - helps

determine where lowering costs won’t affect attendance and profits.

Results– The Relevant Postcard (Naehas) Paid Registration Efficiency

was 1.5X Attendee Brochure.

NCDM, the National Center for Database Marketing, is the premier educational and exhibition event for

the database marketing industry.

http://ncdmevents.com/winter/


Relevant Postcards – by Job Function

• Multiple message segments

• First and last chance mailings


Individualized Landing Pages (ILPs)


Alumni Postcard - 2006


Non Alumni Postcard - 2006


Doing the Direct Mail Analysis - Apples to Apples

• Audience of recipients was broken into three buckets– Relevant Postcard Recipients– Brochure Recipients– Combination Recipients

• Methodology– Three buckets/segments are a subset of all recipients and

registrants– Email, Word of Mouth, Referrals – all other methods or

marketing are not part of the analysis– Methodology for attribution to the direct mail

• Matching of First Name, Last Name, and Zip

Brochures Relevant Postcards

Email, WOM, etc


Contacts receiving relevant postcards are 5 times more likely to register and pay than those that receive just brochures

• Relevant postcards are 5X more effective in driving paid registrations – .58% vs. .11%– PRE = Paid Registrations / Audience

• Combined pulled well:– The most responsive group received some combination of relevant

postcards and brochures - 3.78%

Landing page optimization report best practices for increasing conversion rates

Documents

Transcript of Landing page optimization report best practices for increasing conversion rates