Landing-Page Optimization – 9 Tips for Driving Email Campaign Conversions

Landing pages are critical to the effectiveness of your email campaigns. That’s because even if your email open and click-through rates are phenomenal, a campaign isn’t a success unless prospects follow through to your marketing goal and convert. Here we share some of our top tips and tactics for optimizing landing pages to help drive conversions and give a boost to your email-marketing return on investment (ROI).

Survey Reveals the Most Effective Methods for Optimizing Landing Page Conversion Rates

What are the best methods for optimizing landing-page conversion rates? A/B testing was reported as the most effective website landing-page optimization strategy in a recent online survey of 176 business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing leaders. In this study conducted by Ascend2 and Act-On Software, the most effective methods for optimizing conversion rates for landing pages included:

• A/B testing (52% of respondents)
• Copy optimization (48% of respondents)
• Segmentation/targeting (43% of respondents)
• Responsive design (34% of respondents)
• Event-triggered email (28% of respondents)
• Usability testing (20% of respondents)
• Customer/survey feedback (18% of respondents)
• Multivariate testing (15% of respondents)

In the same survey, marketing leaders also were asked what they thought were the most useful metrics for measuring landing-page performance. Here are their responses:

• 76% said conversion rates
• 43% said cost per conversion
• 30% said bounce rate
• 30% said revenue per conversion
• 29% said landing page views
• 24% said traffic by source
• 22% time on page
• 6% desktop versus mobile device

Click here for the complete results of this online survey.

Tips for Optimizing Landing Pages to Drive Conversions

Looking to increase your email-marketing ROI? These landing-page optimization tips and tactics can help:

1. Create dedicated landing pages for your email campaigns. The first step in driving campaign conversions is to send email traffic to a dedicated landing page, rather than simply sending prospects to your website homepage. This is essential for capturing, keeping, and focusing their attention on the conversion. If they have to search a website’s homepage to find the promotional link needed to convert, they’re much more likely to lose interest and abandon the page.
2. Be sure there is congruence between your email message and the dedicated landing page. When prospects click through from an email, they should know right away that they’re in the right place to convert. This includes having a headline that follows through from the email message, a design that’s similar, and a restatement of the same offer from the email.
3. Design a clean and focused eye path that takes prospects to the call to action. Avoid cluttering your landing page with a number of distracting images and navigation bar links that encourage prospects to leave the page. Use copy, fonts, bullets, and images to help make the email message scannable and effectively lead your prospects’ attention to the call to action.
4. Feature a primary and prominent call to action that can’t be missed. Use color and white space to make a call-to-action button that is big, bold, and above the fold. In terms of copy, use action words and include benefits of why a prospect should convert (e.g., “Buy now and save 20%”). But also consider offering multiple links for your primary call to action (e.g., top, bottom, and middle of the landing page) to make it easy for prospects to take action when they’re ready.
5. Use A/B split tests to achieve steady improvements in your email campaign results. As the study we discussed above revealed, A/B split testing was considered by leading marketers as the most effective landing-page optimization tactic. Check out this previous NewsLever feature that gives seven steps that are essential for implementing effective A/B split testing to increase your email-marketing ROI.
6. Be sure your landing-page forms are short and simple to optimize lead capture. If conversion for your email campaign is getting people to join your list of subscribers, then your landing-page forms also should be optimized. Click here for landing-page form tips for driving conversions. Plus, if you want to really drive subscriber signups, you may want to consider adding a popover form to your landing pages.
7. Create a sense of urgency. Promoting a limited-time offer or a limited supply, for example, can sometimes be the nudge people need to convert right away.
8. Use responsive web design for your campaign landing pages. Do you keep your mobile subscribers in mind when designing the entire campaign conversion path, from email to website landing page? If you’re not, your conversion rate is likely suffering, considering that a large percentage of people currently use mobile devices to read and click through their emails. For more information about responsive design, check out this article: “Key Email Strategy for Mobile-Responsive Web Design.”
9. Build credibility. Some effective ways to help establish trust in your company and give your subscribers the confidence to convert include using the following on your campaign landing pages:

• Customer testimonials
• Links to case studies
• Customer reviews and success stories
• Product/service guarantees
• Business credentials, such as a Better Business Bureau membership.

When it comes to your email campaign and landing-page conversion rates, is there room for improvement? If your answer is yes, contact the team of experts at FulcrumTech. We’ll work with your organization to identify and implement the best testing and optimization techniques for driving up your campaign performance metrics and email-marketing ROI!

Other Articles You Might Like

• Landing-Page Forms — 7 Must-Do Tips for Capturing Leads
• Email-Marketing Optimization — 7 Steps to Effective A/B Split Testing
• Deer Park Email: Campaign Loses Steam – and Likely Conversions – Due to the Lack of a Dedicated Landing Page