It can be frustrating when you spend time (and money) creating a marketing campaign that for some reason just doesn’t convert. Whether you’re trying to drive hotel bookings, leads for next year’s weddings or day bookings for your spa, if the campaign flops it can be disheartening. Often the reason can be the campaign landing page. Are you directing the traffic straight to your homepage or are you using a dedicated landing page?
A landing page is a page created for a specific campaign and with the goal to convert visitors to customers. Unlike web pages, landing pages typically don’t have external links or navigation to other pages and their specificity is what sets them apart.
Landing pages help convert your paid traffic into profitable direct bookings. The simple reason is that your homepage is designed with a more general purpose in mind. It speaks more to your overall brand and is typically loaded with links and navigation to other areas of your site. Therefore, directing paid traffic to your homepage means a user can be overwhelmed with irrelevant information and is likely to leave the site within seconds. So if you’re a spa hotel targeting UK visitors for example, you can customise your landing page to show the package price in the relevant currency and use a map to show your proximity to the airport.
Landing pages have a single message for a single campaign, so they’ve focused on converting the traffic that lands there. Landing pages allow you to send the right message to the right person at the right time.
So now you’re clear on what a landing page is, how do you make sure your landing pages are successful and increase your campaign conversions? Here are our top 8 tips:
1. The Blank Slate
Your landing page is built for a single goal. Remove any element from your landing page that doesn’t reinforce the main message of your offer. Ditch the header navigation to remove choice fatigue and keep users focused on the task at hand, making it absolutely clear what action they should be taking. If you have a secondary conversion (and it’s fine if you do), make sure it’s 100% obvious that it’s not the main action you expect users to take.
