SMX East 2009Landing Page Usability UsefulnessorThrow me a page, people!Scott Brinker (@chiefmartec)President & CTOwww.ioninteractive.com

Why?…do we (marketers) build landing pages?

Simple: to win more conversions.But HOW do we expect that to happen?

Option A:Technology & psychology to “optimize” them to convert.

Option B:Givethemwhattheyreallywant.

“Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for.”

To do that, we turn to some wisdom from a great book on landing page optimization…

* Apologies to Tim Ash.

The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey“Please all, and you will please none.”

The donkey was the bottleneck.

If you want to please everyone,you need a lot more donkeys.(These are digital donkeys.)

No, but it’s making us impatient.

landing pagead copykeywordintentSearchers expect the pieces to fit together.

“Message Match” — A Demonstration

“Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for.”

“data recovery”

“data storage SOX compliance”

“data retention”

“snap server NAS”

“backup window”

“data storage”

“business continuity”

“Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for.”

>16% conversion rate

“Holy cats, man,how many landing pagesare you talking about here!?!”

Dozens of landing pages, yes.Hundreds, possibly.Thousands, well, probably not, but…

Creating more landing pages won’t harm the rainforest.

Case StudySuccessfully deployed over 700 landing pages during a 5 month period.30% increase in conversion rate20% decrease in cost per acquisition (CPA)New pages deployed in hours

30% increase in conversion rate

20% decrease in cost per acquisition (CPA)

New pages deployed in hours

6-7 landing pages/day sounds like a lot.But how many search ads do you create?landing pagekeyword, adIf they’re not connected for you, why would they be connected for your respondents?*

Is it humanly possible?

7 Steps to a Landing Page Flying MachineAdopt some kind of CMS for landing pages.Create a set of a reusable design templates.Establish a library of branded and matched art (images, video, interactive widgets, etc.).Standardize data collection and analytics.Use parameterized Flash objects to generate beautiful pages on-demand.Implement simple and fast A/B testing (such as Google Website Optimizer).Optimize your team process and practice.

Once you can turn the crank, it’s fresh squeezed landing pages for everyone.

3 ways to juice your search marketing with landing pagesmessage matchcampaigns & promotionstest-driven marketing

Campaigns work.

Sales promotions work.

Test-Driven Marketing:Controlled experiments to discover what people really want.

It’s not about the number of tests…It’s about what you’re testing.

Find what they’re looking for and give it to them.That’s landing page usefulness.

“Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for.”