Fine tuning your landing pages - Turbo boost your Online Marketing

March 10th, 2008

Over the last couple of weeks we have spent a fair number of hours finetuning a number of Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns run here at E-Gain. Very few (if any) campaigns are spot on at the first attempt, and most campaigns will take hours of ‘tweaking’ in order to become efficient conversion vehicles. Therefore it is essential, you don’t look at Campaign Setup as a one off for a campaign, and then just leave it. To make PPC work it takes time, effort and testing, and above all patience. However it is worth it, we have had some startling results, with some ROI campaigns seeing 100%+ increases in ROI, due to ongoing ‘optimisation’ just off the landing pages, so what do you need to consider…

Test, Learn, Refine

As we mentioned above, no campaign is perfect - there is always room for improvement. Therefore a good campaign should involve a healthy dose of testing, always followed up by evaluation and learnings from the testing, and then refinement of the campaign as a result. Once this has been done, test - learn - and refine your campaign again.

There are plenty of tools out there that will help you do this, not least Google’s very good Website Optimiser product which allows you to test a number of on-page mechanisms such as strapline, imagery and content, in such a way that you can see exactly what is working, what isn’t and subsequently develop a strategy that will work for your clients. After all - every project and every client is different.

Web Analytics are your friend - Track Everything

As we mentioned above, Test - Learn -Refine is a fundamental part of all campaigns, however Web Analytics are a fundamental part of that process. On all E-Gain Search Marketing campaigns, we implement three forms of analytics in order to:

• Get an overview of where our visitors are coming from
• Find out what phrases our visitors use to find us
• Find out what our visitors do when they land on the site
• Determine what proportion of visitors leave the site on entry (bounce rate)
• Determine how many of these visitors convert and above all what mechanisms do they use to convert - brochure downloads/orders/bookings/newsletter signups etc
• Determine the ‘trends’ of visitors visiting the website
• Determine how they interact with the site as a whole

There are a number of tools out there that allow you to do this, from base level Google Analytics (which is a very very good starting point), to Omniture (would suggest for Enterprise level sites), to more niche analytics such as SpeedTrap (behavioural analysis) to more sophisticated eye-tracking tools. As mentioned previously, we use three tools on our sites to identify the above behaviour, and allow us to tailor our strategies accordingly.

Know your audience

This to me is critical with landing pages. There is no point having a one page conversion mechanism for a client if the product or service they offer is not an ‘everyday product’. I can use an example of a company I recently spoke to whose niche product similar to health insurance was not converting. However a first look at the conversion mechanism (a one page ‘funnel’ into signup), highlighted the consumers requirement for further information, particularly from online referrals such as Paid Search and Behavioural activity.

It is therefore imperative you know your audience. The above scenario does not fit for all. In some instances, you will need to make the conversion metric far more streamlined - for example I would suggest Apple could/and probably do (haven’t analysed it for the purposes of this post), a far more ’streamlined’ conversion funnel given both the strength of their brand and the type of product they offer

Above all, test - learn - refine, and make sure you track everything.

Engage with your audience - Your calls to action

Your calls to action are your mechanism for your customer to communicate with you, whether it be

• Contact Form
• Product Purchase
• Brochure Download
• Whitepaper request
• Newsletter signup
• Competition Entry
• Blog Subscriber
• Price Alert Request

These mechanisms need to be obvious and above all prominent. Incorrect implementation of your calls to action can significantly impact on your ROI, and ultimately on your bottom line.

Secondly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I am constantly amazed by the amount of websites that only have one call to action, even if its a contact form. Above are 8 possible data capture mechanisms, and I could have gone on. Not all customers convert at the first attempt (according to a recent presentation at Search Engine Strategies 2008 in London - a research study by ComScore suggested that most users converted roughly 3 visits after their initial entry to a site - and this entry to conversion mechanism in many cases could be longer than 30 days+).

Say your are selling widgets. Your primary call to action is going to be based around the purchase of your widgets, however by providing

• Newsletter signup - Collect potential customer information and then email these ‘consumers’ with information regarding deals, news and other information
• Competition entry - As with the above - these people have allowed you access to your data (I would add at this point, permission of the ‘customer’ is essential to send email marketing to), so use this data to send them relevant news and information. Above all - understand your customer and make sure these timings are right - don’t overuse this as this is likely to make the whole process counter productive
• Brochure Download - this I would suggest is two fold - one you know your client is further down the ‘conversion matrix’ and thus is in decision making/buying mode rather than browsing, so they require a different type of approach. A simple follow up a couple of days later could work wonders here.
• A widget blog - you can get people to subscribe to your blog and raise further brand awareness of your widget

Above all make sure people can find these conversion mechanims. Don’t hide them away at the bottom of the page (you will be amazed how many people do), and make them obvious without making them offputting - as there is a fine balance.

Therefore make sure your landing pages have relevant and obvious calls to action - as soon as your customers get to the site, and make sure they have the relevant ’support material’ to make that decision.

First impressions are key - Dress to impress

Much like people I guess - landing pages need to create a favourable first impress. In most cases - that first impression can be the difference between you getting the sale, and you losing the sale. Your website is your shop/your sales channel - so it needs to be treated as such. A users mind is made up within the first 4 seconds of them visiting your site (obviously this is going to vary by sector/product), however it is not a long period of time in which to engage and communicate with your customer so those very first important impressions are crucial.

Therefore make sure your pages engage from the off.

• Use colours intelligently in order to raise awareness of key calls to action.
• Use fonts, font size and font weight carefully in order to attract awareness and prominence to your key messages on your page
• Use imagery in moderation in order to convey your message more effectivelly
• I personally would advise not using any highly interactive elements as the primary part of your landing page strategy such as Flash. IF the user does not have this installed - your are very likely to have lost that sale in a very short period of time.
• Make sure your site is up - website downtime is a Very bad turnoff.

Getting your landing page strategy takes time - but in the end it can pay off handsomely. Above all make sure your landing page strategy doesn’t end with the landing page - follow this process through to the rest of your site. A well thought out conversion funnel can pay dividends (John, Paul and myself used to work for a major PC manufacturer and were responsible for the redevelopment of the conversion funnel - from entry to conversion - a redevelopment which saw a 300% increase in conversions due to streamlining of the conversion funnel)

Entry Filed under: News and Views, PPC