Situation:
Our client, a financial services firm, was running ads through multiple channels that were generating large amounts of traffic to the website. Although this traffic showed strong engagement rates, they were not converting (filling out lead forms or applications). The client approached us to see if we could help improve the conversion rate resulting in more leads.
Challenge:
The client’s website had good, informative content, but it was not optimized for conversions. Digging into the data we were able to uncover that most of the website visitors would read relevant content but not navigate to a lead form. A lot of the traffic that did navigate to the lead form would partially fill it out before abandoning the form all together.
Our Approach:
The data was clear. We needed to ensure every website visitor saw the lead form. We also needed to simplify the lead form down to only a few questions. Based on challenges with the client’s website, we decided to create custom landing pages that would live on a subdomain. This enabled us to circumvent the restrictions of the website and also limit the content a visitor could see. Limiting the content forces the website visitors to focus more on the lead form.
The client was focused on the three different business solutions they offer. In order to ensure a seamless user experience from the ads to the lead form, we created three unique landing pages. A page was designed for each audience being targeted. They had the same look, feel and language of the ads being run for their solutions.
Results:
Our landing pages went live in February and almost immediately the conversion rate rose 153% (from 1.5% to 3.8%). This rise occurred with no changes in the ad messaging, targeting or spend levels. That tells us that the change is the direct result of the new landing pages we created.
Summary:
When running a lead generation campaign, it is important to optimize all stages of the funnel. Simply having strong ads is not enough. A landing page optimized for conversions is imperative in driving leads. It is a lot more efficient to double conversion rate than it is to double website traffic. Although there are best practices for landing pages, it is important to follow a customer’s journey and see exactly what they are doing on the website. With that data, a unique experience should be created that entices the visitor to fill out a lead form.