Meta published a white paper with research findings on the experience of 500 landing pages. The insights provided by the research can help design better landing pages, with higher conversion rates and a better user experience that translates into repeat customers and referrals.
One yoga company reported a 13% increase in sales following Meta’s recommended best practices.
Their yoga company reports:
“Most of our traffic comes from mobile consumers, so it was important to create a seamless mobile landing page experience,” said Tiffany Tran, lead designer at KlientBoost. “By focusing on the complete user experience from ad clicks to landing pages, our conversion rates have increased dramatically, which has led directly to more signups.”
target page
The meta-research defines five types of landing pages that users can land on:
- Home
Provide an overview of products and services and provide a path to the next page - Product list page
Ability to provide product details, research, compare and navigate to product purchase candidates - product detail page
Answer product questions and provide a clear path to add products to cart - Form-driven landing pages
Designed to get visitors to fill out forms - login page
The main purpose is to get the visitor to another page
Each landing page has specific optimization methods. However, what all have in common is a frictionless user experience.
The white paper observes:
“Consumers’ expectations for a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience are higher than ever.
In a recent survey, 80% said the experience a business provides is as important as its product. …A survey by Emplifi found that 32% of consumers would stop doing business with a brand they love after a negative experience. “
Best Practices for Conversion Optimization
While each form of landing page has its own specific optimizations, Meta found that there are three main optimization features.
The three main important considerations for optimizing landing pages are:
- speed
- Details and Answers
- Mobile Optimized Page Elements
speed
Meta Research recommends pages load within three seconds, as their research found that over 50% of visitors abandon sites that take longer than three seconds to load.
The research report cites an advertiser that optimized pages for speed and increased bounce rates by 56% and reduced cost per page view by 12%
5% lower cost per purchase.
Suggested actions to speed up web pages:
- “Minimize HTTP requests
- Reduce time to first content paint (FCP)
- Deliver optimized assets
- Lazy loading unseen content
- Remove unused 3rd party code”
Details and Answers
An interesting insight provided by the study is that there must be continuity between the ad a visitor clicks on and the destination page. This means that the images and messages in the ad should be delivered to the target page.
Additionally, these pages should answer frequently asked questions, detailed information about the product itself, such as its makeup, specifications, value proposition, reviews, and provide images showing the product from different angles and in use.
So if it’s an outdoor product, present it in an outdoor setting in a way that buyers might see themselves using it, as the Meta white paper calls it, “Lifestyle shoot.“
Here’s what the white paper recommends:
- “Provide product photos from different angles or lifestyles so customers can easily see how the product will look in the real world
- Share relevant product details by outlining specifications for sizes, explaining key points of features, and rendering good size charts on mobile devices so consumers can be sure they’re buying the right product.”
The white paper also recommends monthly rethinking of the mobile user experience.
Mobile Optimized Page Elements
This seems simple enough, but the Meta whitepaper offers some thoughtful consideration. The main recommendation is that the target page should provide product information in the first two viewports.
The white paper recommends:
“Include key product information in the first two viewports, including review summaries, price, promotions, free shipping (if available), and core product attributes.”
Other suggestions include dividing long content into multiple sections with appropriate headings, call-to-action elements that span the entire width of the page, and sticky CTA elements.
Regarding the sticky CTA element, they cite the experience of a retailer that saw a 3% increase in sales after making product filters sticky.
They also found that conversion rates were better if page space was optimized and prioritized by actions such as making chat and promotion elements non-sticky.
Landing Page Scorecard
An evaluation scorecard is included at the end of the white paper to help businesses create higher-converting landing pages.
The white paper itself is 33 pages long and is worth downloading for more details on how to increase sales with conversion optimization tips gained from researching data.
Citation
Read the meta overview
Stick to Landing: How to Optimize Your Landing Page to Improve Your Ad Performance
