Top 2 Reasons Landing Pages Boost Your Conversion Rates
Before we dive in, I want to take a minute to define a landing page. In the purest sense, a landing page is where people “land” due to advertising (AdWords, emails, direct mail, TV commercials). But when we talk about landing pages that boost conversions, we’re not talking about any page on your website that someone lands on after clicking on a digital ad. The landing pages we’re talking about are standalone web pages that are singularly focused on capturing conversions. All landing pages are web pages, but not all web pages are landing pages.1
A landing page is a simple web page that people are directed to as a result of clicking on an ad. They are designed to convert specific visitors to leads by convincing the visitor to act by watching a video, filling out a form, making a purchase, etc. You can randomly find landing pages, however rare, but the real goal is to match the look, feel, words and offer of the ad so there is congruity between the ad and landing page.
There are two key reasons landing pages can boost the conversion rate of nearly any campaign:
The Message Match
The message match is the ability of your landing page to reinforce the messaging presented on the link that was clicked to reach the page. You don’t want visitors to bounce before they convert. A headline on a landing page that matches the purpose of the ad provides a seamless connection between the ads your visitors viewed and where they landed after they clicked.
The Progressive ad and landing page campaign below is a great example of a message match. The ad copy and the headline on the landing page match, reassuring people that they’ve come to the right place.
The Attention Ratio
Your attention ratio – the number of outbound links on a page compared to conversion goals – should be 1:1. Each page should have only one action for visitors to take (a call-to-action). Every additional call-to-action decreases the likelihood that visitors will complete the one action you want them to take, detracting from your conversion rate.
Check out the Shopify landing page below. This is a great example of a 1:1 attention ratio—there is only one call-to-action on the page and only one button to click. This leaves visitors only two options: convert or leave the page.
Any campaign can benefit from the help of a targeted landing page, but paid promotions, such as Google AdWords or social media marketing, should never run without a landing page. According to Hubspot, landing page efforts can generate more than 200% more leads than above-the-fold calls-to-action on websites. They are also a Google Quality Score metric, which means your campaign will be penalized without a dedicated landing page, resulting in lower ad visibility and ultimately less traffic to your website.
Build a landing page, boost conversions and maximize your ROI. You’ll be amazed how simple it can be.
1 Hubspot
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.