A landing page is a simple web page with the primary objective to lead visitors to execute an action.
If you are planning or are currently promoting your products or services online, you are likely to use landing pages to drive traffic or generate leads.
A landing page is usually a web page developed with a purpose. This purpose or objective can be to sell a product or service, generate signups for a newsletter, lead people to make a phone call or fill out a form, etc. A Landing page has to be free of distractions and offer a clear message to make the visitor execute an action. That’s why usually a landing page doesn’t have too many options or links that will take you away from the page or take you to a different website, it can happen, but is not the rule. As a best practice, you send your campaigns to a landing page unless you want to generate traffic to your main website,
How can I measure if my landing page is performing?
Well, if you only use one landing page in your campaigns, you don’t have a choice or something to compare with. The best way to measure the performance of a landing page is to compare this landing page with another landing page. This is what the experts call A/B testing.
A/B testing is a marketing technique to compare landing pages or websites’ performance. In A/B testing, you will compare two landing pages with a slight variation and present them randomly to users. The variation should be minimal; for example, page A can have a button in red and page B has a button in orange. Then you will perform a test and measure, for example, which version gets the most clicks or how many persons call or fill out the form and submit the form. In the end, the winning version will be the one that performed better, per a per-establish KPI. or Key Performance Indicator.
What tools can I use to perform a landing pages AB testing?
Generating two different pages with one difference, like the color of a button or certain header, is not complicated, but running the pages simultaneously, for example, in a Google ads campaign, and showing the pages randomly is another story. Fortunately, there are software tools that allow you to do AB testing in a very easy way. Here are some of them:
Tips for landing pages AB Testing
- One variable at a time. Pick one variable, no multiple variables, for example, location of a phone number, short form vs. long form, button colors, hero image, etc. Don’t pretend to evaluate multiple variables at the same time.
- Perform one test at a time. Run page A vs. page B but not page C and page D. Test A vs. B and then wait for the results; then you can test B vs. C and so on.
- Give enough time to test. Running a test for a few days might not provide enough data to decide. But it all depends. Usually, 15 to 30 days will give you enough data to measure performance.
- Know when to end a test. Even though you always A/B test, you should know when to start a test and finish it to create a new one. The data points you should and the objectives of your campaign can give you a clue on when to complete the test. As I mentioned before, this will depend on your KPIs.
- Measure multiple KPIs. You can’t rely only on Click-through-Rate or impressions or clicks only. Choose multiple KPIs so you can have a whole picture of the test and the results.
- Take into consideration any external factors. If you are running a TV campaign related to your campaign or an external situation is happening, like a natural disaster in the area you are running the campaign, it can affect the results of your A/B test, so consider this.
What is the real value of landing pages AB testing?
A continuous campaign AB testing can provide insights about your campaign performance. By changing a headline in a landing page and testing against a current page, can increase conversions or maybe not, same with a form, maybe by changing a from a large form to a short form or a simple change on the “call to action” button can make the difference. Also AB testing shouldn’t be restricted to only landing pages, you should test your campaigns settings, ad groups or ad sets, improve your target audience, use look a like campaigns, exclusion list for people who already convert, pause a campaign, increase or decrease budget, etc. You have many factors and options when AB testing. The whole point is to improve your results for the better.
Again, You should have an A/B testing plan in your organization to improve your campaigns. two times a year, four times a year, every month, all depending on your goals, but A/B testing is not something you do one time, or once in a while, this is an endless story, and the main goal is always to improve your KPIs whether these are conversions, traffic, brand awareness, email sign-ups, etc. So add A/B testing as a part of your digital marketing plans.
