“Oh, the humanity …”
The folks at SilverPop recently published a study, “Eight Seconds to Capture Attention: Silverpop’s Landing Page Report”, where it reviewed the email campaigns of 150 top online companies. Long and short? They discovered that email campaigns that opened with promise and decent click through ratios generally died on the vine with ill-conceived, poorly designed or just plain, lazy-ass landing pages. Bored, confused prospects quickly took their conversion clicks — and wallets — elsewhere.
Even the “big boys” with the deep pockets still fail to think about their email/landing page campaign as a whole project. So what happens is that all the care and craft is lavished on the email part, while the landing page — if used at all — gets “ugly sister” attention.
Silverpop examined 14 different elements in their study:
- Use of readable URLs
KEY FINDING: B2C companies were more likely to use readable URLs than B2B firms.
This is probably less important in a PPC campaign, but for email I can see where a readable, memorable URL makes good sense. - Repetition of email promotional copy
KEY FINDING: Nearly 50% of the landing pages studies failed to repeat the email’s call-to-action. - Primary conversion goals
KEY FINDING: 6 out of 10 companies use landing pages to sell products/services, other goals include lead generation, branding, and education (educate target audiences, support product usage.) - Location of the landing page
KEY FINDING: 17% of e-mail marketing campaigns — mostly B2C — dumped recipients at the company’s website home page as opposed to a unique campaign landing page. - Whether the look of the page matches the email and/or website
KEY FINDING: 35% of landing pages failed to match the look, feel and tone of the original email. - Landing page design
KEY FINDING: Only 36% of the landing pages used the recommended one-column format, 25% of the pages used 2-column formatting. - Placement of the primary call-to-action
KEY FINDING: 9 of out 10 landing pages had the main call-to-action above the fold. But of those pages that had copy continuing past the natural fold, only 11% had additional calls-to-action adjacent to the below-the-fold copy.
I’ll review the remaining 7 elements in soon-to-come Part II. Here’s a sneak preview:
- Inclusion of navigation bars
- Use of forms
- Copy length and need for scrolling
- Use of subheads within the copy
- Types and numbers of links
- Inclusion of hero shots and animation
- Email opt-in requests
More surprising and illuminating KEY FINDINGS to come. Keep in mind that many of these issues will also apply when driving traffic to a landing page from a blog post or a feed reader.
Stay tuned for Part II (and more details about Maven’s Landing Page Makeover Clinic, coming to your feed reader very soon!)
Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc.
15 comments... add one
#1 Brad Isaac → 07.03.07 at 12:10 pm
Those are all good observations. I didn’t realize so many B2B companies didn’t realize their customers were human. lol
I’d say the most common mistake is dropping people on the homepage. It’s like “Come get your dreams fulfilled” then they land on Wikipedia’s homepage? A company is lucky if the customer isn’t distracted with an email, instant message, voicemail or something else in between clicking the link in the email and landing. How do they expect to make it through the search function before falling way off track?
#2 Tim Erway → 07.03.07 at 12:39 pm
Very interesting how email respondent behavior differs from natural and PPC search traffic.
We tested 2-column with navigation for PPC bumped conversions nearly 10%. The opposite was true for email traffic. Single column with no navigation was almost 20% better.
#3 Sherwin → 07.03.07 at 7:49 pm
Dear Brian,
I love Copyblogger. I love it so much that I added it to my feedreader. I’ve been reading it for quite a while now, and I’ve also forwarded some of your copywriting resources to my friends. It was the only copywriting blog I read.
Brian, I have bad news. After reading this article from the Copywriting Maven, Roberta Rosenberg, well I…I… *sigh* I just don’t know how else to say it so I’ll just come right out: I cheated on you!
I went to her blog and added it to my feedreader! :-( Brian, I’m so sorry. I still love Copyblogger. It’s still my #1 copywriting blog. Can’t we love two copywriting blogs at the same time?
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me…please? Brian? Please?
#4 mikey → 07.03.07 at 9:57 pm
Hi Brian,
When you say “recommended one-column format”, was that their recommendation based on their findings?
I would have thought 2-column would work best - IF - the second column (on the right side) was a call to action, or short form to complete.
I guess as Tim says - the key is to test for your own site & measure (isn’t that always the answer?!)
Cheers,
Mike
#5 Rico → 07.04.07 at 2:43 am
By readable URL, you’re talking about the simple ones right? Not the ultra-long string full of obscure codes?
#6 Mason → 07.04.07 at 6:25 am
I strongly agree with both posters above who mention testing a variety of landing pages.
The age old two-column vs. one-column argument is almost pointless to continue. Some two column designs work better with some traffic, other times one columns will win. The number of variables involved is far to large to make a sweeping statement.
Testing wins out : )
#7 Roberta Rosenberg → 07.04.07 at 9:54 am Copyblogger
Sherwin - I have no trouble being the “other” copywriting blog in your feed reader. You have 2 feet, 2 ears, 2 eyes, right? Why NOT 2 copywriting-focused blogs :=)
Mikey/Mason - it’s always in the testing. We can look at the results of other marketers and see what’s worth testing for our own pages.
Rico - yes, simple, readable URLs like the one for this post.
#8 Tom Chandler → 07.04.07 at 10:31 am
The biggest Landing Page faux pas remains not having one, still an epidemic among corporate marketers not quite up to speed.
Also, I alluded to this in an earlier Roberta post, but the results of a recent corporate campaign are in (enterprise level software — lead generation, not sales).
We did better with a two-column landing page, which reinforces my belief about rules of thumb, and sets up a coming post on my blog.
As usual, valuable information — the kind we used to get only by expensive testing — is offered free of charge by the Maven. Great stuff Roberta!
#9 Rab Govil → 07.05.07 at 7:45 pm
I have been enjoying this blog and would like to share some of the testing we have done with landing pages.
In our test with email and landing pages, we tried two version of emails. A real short three sentences one and a more detailed one that drove people to the same landing page (http://www.naehas.com/case_ncdm.html).
Response rate on the shorter email was 2x the long one but alas the conversion rate was 1/3 less. In terms of total responses, the smaller version with the landing page still delivered more leads.
In all our testing, we have not found a big conversion difference different columns. It still always comes down to a few factors : relevance, offers, usability and creative with creative being the lowest leaverage item. We have also taken some of our learnings and put them in http://www.naeahs.com/freereport.
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#12 Darin Dixon → 07.09.07 at 11:43 am
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#13 Special K » Blog Archive » Take care of the landingpage → 07.09.07 at 3:04 pm
[…] interesting study about the relationship between a banner/email campaign and the landing page. It doesn’t come […]
#14 Anna Talerico → 08.09.07 at 10:20 pm
I’m not suprised at the results of the SilverPop study. Landing pages are plagued with numerous weaknesses and problems that are only magnified when combined with message mismatch and poor design. Whether users are coming from email, banner, or search engine marketing, conversion rates for landing pages are in the single digits. Should we really be satisfied with 3% conversion rates? There’s a lot more potential for marketers to reach and engage users - and we’ve been able to tap into that potential by creating conversion paths instead.
#15 SEO Practices → 08.13.07 at 2:31 pm
Great information thanks, I know of the importance of landing pages, I’m trying to convince my boss to check them and start experimenting with different options.
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