Landing pages – Part #2: Principles & cost saving solution

Matthieu Dejardins — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:26:52 +0000

Back to the basics

Oups, I forgot to start from the beginning and I think I need to complete the landing pages part#1 with a « landing page » Definition. So, a landing page is where people « land » when they click on an ad banner, search engine result or email link, or when they visit a special promotional URL.

Consistency, simplicity & personalization:

Now, I feel better, here are 3 key principles that you should respect:

Well-designed Netgear.com PPC landing page focusing on generating product awareness and including various call-to-action: Flash Demo, “More details” or purchase (“Buy Now). The comparison spreadsheet behind the four quick product presentations is very efficient to drive user to the right item.

1/ Consistency equals to conversion: ideally you want an individual to experience precisely the same wording, look, and feel through the entire conversion process. Ad headline => click link words => LP headline => LP submit button.

2/ Keep it simple (Kiss’ principle for adepts…): include design elements that can have a direct impact on bail factor (e.g. certification, awards, operating system compliance). Graphics must apply directly to the key benefit of the page, rather than generic « feel good » stuff like unknown logos and clip art.
Do not overload your visitors with text: your layout should look fairly straightforward. Overall length of copy, combined with perceived readability (tiny type, reverse type).

3/ Speak to your customer: PERSONALIZE!!! You must use a wording in your headline that is relevant to your client and consider him as an “individual” visitor. Do not point out a product specification like « worldwide leader in X » or « quickest solution on the market », rather emphasize on what concrete advantage it brings to your prospect (e.g. type of use, solution to a problematic, etc.). I have taken the example of Netgear NAS PPC landing page because I find they replied to the main eCommerce website problematic. They are using Digital River platform to process online transactions and this landing page was added on the corporate site (netgear.com) as a prior qualifying layer to drive sales to online store catalog (buynetgear.com).

Efficient landing page as a synonym of major savings (PPC, banner, etc.)

Yes, it is magic, you are saving $$$. You have 2 reasons for that:

1/ I know this one is obvious. You are optimizing conversion so, it means that you are paying less clicks or less CPM banner ads (I hate this model) to close a sale. Let’s take the example of a branded term that I am paying $0.5 per click with a 80 click per sale ratio (number of clicks required to close a sale). In this case, the CPA is $40, Wow! Now, taking into consideration that I implemented new landing pages instead of my traditionnal product pages (which is nice but really looks like a catalog page), let’s say that I improved my click per sale ratio by 20 clicks (now to 60 clicks per sale) which is totally realistic, I will decrease my CPA to $30 saving already $10.

2/ Now, let’s consider that Google also integrates this into the “quality score” formula. At this step, it’s worth mentionning that they have outlined the three main components of a quality website. Do not hesitate to take 2 minutes to read these guidelines. Adviso provided a nice example on how well-designed landing page affect the « quality score » and could reduce your PPC advertising costs and improve the positioning of your ads. The most important difference (-36%) concerned a very competitive expression with just one keyword. Why not try it. I also found out that the domain name also plays a very important role if it contains your main thematic and/or keyword. In my previous job, I was selling a PDF software. Using a domain name such as www.pdf-reader-creator.com was upgrading me from a low/medium quality score to a high/very high one. Moreover, from a CTR perspective, generic domain names in ads outperform non-generic. You can read a more scientific article about it from MarketingCharts which is based on the UK study conducted by MemorableDomains.co.uk.

Slide 3

Definition: a LP is where people « land » when they click on an ad banner, search engine result or email link, or when they visit a special promotional URL.

Tags: ad banner, banner, click, click per sale, conversion, cost saving solution, landing page, landing pages, lead generation, page optimization, ppc, quality score, search engine

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