Good ads are just the beginning when it comes to growing your business. The real game-changer lies in your landing pages. They hold the key to turning visitors into loyal customers.

That's why you can't afford to miss our latest podcast episode. We've brought together two absolute legends from OMG Commerce - Matt Slaymaker and Bill Cover - to discuss their favorite landing page tips and share real-life examples.

With over $100 million managed annually in online advertising, we've witnessed firsthand the critical role landing pages play in conversion rates and return on ad spend. They hold the power to either make or break your ad performance, while also impacting your word-of-mouth and organic growth.

Here's a look at what we cover:

• How landing page improvements turned a skincare brand's ad campaign from a dud to a success.
• What good landing pages and amazing in-store experiences have in common.
• The 4 C's of a good lander.
• 5 tips for dedicated landing pages.
• Where to start - homepage, landing, or dedicated lander.
• How landing pages and ads work together to create winning (or disappointing) results.
• Our favorite landing page examples and a FREE swipe file of our favorites!

Mentioned In This Episode:

• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
• Unofficial Shopify Podcast by Kurt Elster
• FIXD
• Boom by Cindy Joseph
• Overtone
• FREE Landing Page Swipe File

Transcript:

Brett:

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO, OMG Commerce. And today, I'm not the only one from OMG Commerce on the show today, this is the OMG Experts series, and we're talking about landing pages today and product detail pages. And I could not be more excited. This is going to be practical and helpful and strategic and hopefully a lot of fun as well. So I have with me right now on the show, two legends from OMG Commerce. These guys are seasoned veterans in the e-commerce space, marketing space ad agency space. First up is Mr. Bill Covert. Bill and I go way back. He's been at OMG for seven years, which is a long time in internet years, but he's been in e-commerce for I think going on 13 years Bill, and prior to that was in the ad agency world.

So Bill, welcome to the show, I think. Thank you. Is what your third, fourth time on the show you?

Bill:

Yeah, it's at least third. Yeah, we'll go with fourth actually. That sounds better. Fourth?

Brett:

Fourth. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it's at least fourth and more to come. So excited about that. And then also a return guest on the show, we got Matt, the Playmaker sleigh maker. What's up Matt Slaymaker, how are you doing? What's out [inaudible] Good, good. So Matt is one of our lead Google specialists and strategist, and he's been with us for three years, been doing marketing for seven. He is a pro with all things Google Ads, but he's done more than that too. He is worked on Facebook ads on a number of other things, and he just gets marketing and gets growth for D two C brands and same for Bill.

So Bill's a strategist, we pull him in as we're consulting with new clients and then ongoing clients Bill's always looking for opportunities to grow, to improve, to help clients reach their goals. So today we're talking about something that I think all three of us are quite passionate about, and that is landing pages, good landing pages. So let's kind of set up this way, gentlemen. Why should we focus on landing pages? Why is it so important that we get this right? And I'll let you go first, bill.

Bill:

All right, great. Yeah, thanks for having me. So when it comes to landing pages, the reason why, and I think we're going to unpack this a little bit probably as we get in here, but I would say transition brand experience and customer education. And as I was I thinking about this coming into today's podcast, I was thinking about Steve Krug's book.

It's an old one, an old e bit of goodie called don't Make me Think, which I think is self-explanatory love. And so when you get to a site, the goal for you as a brand in connection to your customer is don't make them think. Don't make them sit there and decide. Tell them where to go, what to do. Orient them who you are, order the best sellers, order the most popular. And so a well-structured landing page does that for you and for your brand.

Brett:

I love that. And my buddy Kurt Elster. So shout out to the unofficial Shopify podcast and the dynamic host, Kurt Elster, he and his partner and their business ethos cycle. They talk about picturing their customer as a drunk guy on the couch late at night, like surfing the web. And it says it's maybe a little bit of an over exaggeration, but if you think about it that way, like, hey, could someone who was intoxicated and a little bit sleepy navigate your website? If so, then that's probably simple enough because yeah, I totally agree. You don't want to make people think or you don't want to make things complex because people will just bail. They'll bounce in no shot of Covering if it's confusing. For sure. So Matt, what about you man? Why? How would you lay that out? The reason why should we focus on Yeah, creating great leaning pages. Well,

Matt:

First of all, I just want to say it's super important, like you said, to tap into that drunken and sleepy audience. They are a big buyer segment, so you got to make sure we're appealing to them. Yeah,

Brett:

Don't forget the drunk segment of your audience sitting on the couch. They're buyers because they, they're ready

Matt:

Buy

Brett:

Ready to buy. They're not thinking about price really, they're, they're ready to pull out that wallet and purchase if they can find their way.

Matt:

Yeah, to me, I think landing pages are so important because I mean, this is where obviously the sale happens and this is where you make your first impression. As it says in the name, a landing page is where somebody lands on your website. So if this is the first time somebody's ever heard of you, you've got to make a really good first impression. So obviously branding is super, super important here. But the other part is this is where we have the opportunity to test things and maximize our conversion rate. So through the landing pages, we have the opportunity to tailor our page and the content on that page to the audience that we're targeting, rather than just sending everybody to the homepage that might look the same product detail pages that are tailored a certain way. Having a landing page where we can customize it to a particular audience is super powerful and important.

Brett:

Yeah, I love it. And I think we'll share some tips as we go if you be a few product detail page tips and few homepage tips. And of course landing page tips because sometimes we do send traffic directly to a product detail page or directly to the homepage, wherever the case may be. But I love the analogy when we're thinking about a landing page or where someone shows up on your site and thinking about that just like an in-store experience. And Matt, you and I talked about this actually all three of us talked about this before we hit record. That if we think about that in-store experience, when someone first walks into the door of a brick and mortar store, what is that experience? Do they immediately know where to go? Do they have confidence that if they have a question, someone is going to be there to answer it?

Do they feel like, Hey, based on the mood, the lighting, the vibe that I'm getting, the products that I'm seeing, am I in the right place? Is this for me or is this not for me? And I'll use a bit of an example. I used to a lot of local advertising. And so you can imagine you've always got the local car dealer who's like, Hey, we're home with a fair and honest deal. And so then you're like, Hey, maybe if you're naive, you're like, Hey, maybe this is a fair and honest car dealer. So you show up at the car dealership and then you're like, wait a minute, I think this is every other car dealership guy with slicked back hairs walking out the door, khakis, fake smile, sticking his hand out. I stick my left hand and I'm not sure why, but sticking his hand out at Shake your hand, you're like, ah, I got to get out of here.

This is not the right place. Or another example in when I was in college, I worked at Lowe's, the home improvement center, and that we were one of the top rated Lowe's in the nation. We had a lot of pride in that. And there's another big box home improvement store that I actually don't think is bad at all, but the location here is not very good in our hometown. And there's always a difference to me if I go into our local Lowe's, like there's three or four people ready to help me in the different departments, whether it's plumbing or lumber, you've got a pro there handy that'll talk to you in this other box store, you can walk the aisles. I'm like, there's nobody there to help. You never get your question answered. You're not going to find what you want. And so thinking about that experience, I spent a lot of money at Lowe's. I don't ever go to this other store because of that in-store experience. And maybe the ads are just as good, or maybe the ads are even better at that other big box store. But I go to Lowe's because of the experience in the store. And I think there's just, there's so many applications we can tie in there. But what are your thoughts though, guys, when you look at landing page and comparing that to an in-store experience, any other insights or thoughts you'd share there?

Matt:

An example I'd give you is that's how I feel about Chick-fil-A. So anytime I go to that branding experience and the experience that I get from those customer service people, the sales representatives or anytime you say thank you, they're always saying, my pleasure. They've always got a smile on their face and they create this super positive experience that makes you want to come back again and again, it's more than just the chicken. That is the reason I'm going there. It's because of the overall experience that I get when I go there. And you can't say that about every fasting company. Totally.

Brett:

And then the chicken is arguably the best as far as fast food in my opinion. But you're 100% cor, correct. I can't remember a single time, and I've been to a lot of Chick-Fil-A's, spent a lot of money at Chick-fil-A. I've got a family with eight kids. And so we frequent Chick-fil-A. I can't remember going to a Chick-fil-A and experiencing a grumpy employee, I can't remember it. And maybe it's happened, but it hasn't stuck out. It's overwhelmingly positive. It's overwhelmingly fast. If you get anything wrong, they fix it. They're happy. They're saying My pleasure all the time over the top man. And it's fantastic. And that's why you can go to any Chick-fil-A anywhere in the country at 2:00 PM after the lunch rush. And you're still probably going to be a long line. You won't have to wait very long because they're efficient. But there's probably a line.

Bill:

Yeah, and just thinking about that sales rep example, we have a local water sports store where I buy wakeboards and there's lots of different kinds of wakeboards and lots of different kinds of bindings. And I'm a bigger guy, I've got a wider stance and things like that. And there's specific ones for park or there's specific ones for behind the boat sleigh maker's familiar too with these concepts. And just for the uneducated park is the water park, the ramps and stuff, because you don't want fins on that one. Totally. Right. And it's got to stand up to a few more riggers maybe. So you go in and mean even if you've been wakeboarding, if it's your first time buying nothing. And so going in, you're like, okay, these things are running like 500 bucks with the total package bindings in the board and all this stuff, and then you got to buy a life jacket and a helmet.

I mean, you're spending hundreds of dollars. And it's like, how can I get something that's entry level that I'm not going to spend too much on, but it's going to stand up to what I need it to. And you need a sales rep to help you with that. So is your landing page that sales rep or I think of if you're going to a running shoe store or something like that, you might be running on pavement, you might be running on trails, who knows? I mean it might be for something else, distance versus sprints. These all require different products and you don't want to buy the most expensive, I mean, I think we all want to get what's the bottom of the top tier somewhere in there.

Brett:

It's your maximum value. How can I get the best for the amount that I'm comfortable spending?

Bill:

Yeah, maximize value 100%.

Brett:

And one thing that I think, and I want to talk about advertising in a minute, how that ties into landing pages. But one other thing that I think is often overlooked in the space of e-commerce is word of mouth and referrals. And this is something that as we dig in with clients, more sophisticated clients, especially those that are using post-purchase surveys like No Commerce and others, they start to get a lot of feedback saying, Hey, someone referred me, my friend or family or whoever, and that's why I'm here. But you got to think about if that in-store experience or in this case the onsite experience, the landing page, the homepage product detail page, if that's not stellar, people are going to be way less likely to make that referral. And I remember back when I was in a lot of local advertising, I worked with this local printer and they were the cheapest.

They were pretty fast, but they were actually quite grumpy and they were difficult to work with. They're just like some difficulties in working with them, but they were always the lowest price. So I always used them, but I never referred to them because I was like, eh, you probably won't have a good experience. You'll probably be grumpy at the end of your day if you go with this company. But I use 'em cause I'm cheap and I'm feeling cheap right now. So there's one of those things where if you think about the landing page, yes it helps with ads and there's a big benefit there, but your landing pages also can increase or decrease or kill word of mouth. And I think that's really important to underscore here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Matt:

Cool. So I'm a bit of a marketing nerd obviously. So I share this stuff with people who don't care. But there'll be times where I see a really cool product that has just a beautiful landing page and I'm like, look how cool this is this product. It looks so awesome. And it's not even because of the product itself, it's because of how they demonstrated what the product is and the benefits, how they communicated this. And we'll take a examples there,

Brett:

And we are a little more like that cause we're in the marketing field, we're a little more prone to share those pages, but it does happen more with anybody. They're more likely to share a page, more likely to refer if it's a great experience, if it's beautiful, if the message is clear, if it all works, they're more likely to refer. So love that. Let's talk about the relationship between advertising and landing page because we run a lot of traffic, gentlemen. We spend millions and millions a month on YouTube and Google on Amazon ads and people come to us wanting us to help them generate more customers and develop new customers. And typically the focus is on better ads, better targeting, better campaigns, all those things which are super important. But how would you talk about that relationship? Because something that is often overlooked is how are your landing pages performing?

So how would you talk about the relationship between ads and Lander and how you look at them?

Bill:

Yeah, sure. So the way I look at it is the ads job. And as a digital marketer, my job is to find a relevant audience, relevant keywords and to qualify them so I can find a relevant audience or maybe some percent of that audience that I think is relevant. Maybe there isn't purchase intent, something like that. The ads job is to then qualify that person and to have them go, okay, yeah, that's me, that's what I want. I want that now. And to have them click, whereas the landing page, his job is then to transition them and to up that conversion rate to drive the sale and to orient them from that ad click. Love that.

Brett:

Yeah. Would you add anything to that, Matt? Yeah,

Matt:

No, to put it simply, I think the goal of the ad is to reach the right people at the right time with a message and an image that compels them to want to learn more about your brand or your product. So the goal with the ad really is just to spark that initial interest, reach people who are already interested maybe in looking for this kind of stuff or like Bill said, maybe they're not even looking for this kind of stuff yet and we get in front of 'em at that stage. And then the goal of the landing page is to move them further and to drive that actual consideration and intent. And maybe that's not always somebody actually buying something. A good landing page isn't looking just for the sale. There might be other opportunities, whether it's a lead generation opportunity where people aren't ready to buy just yet that, but you can provide your email address for 20% off later on, or join a wait list for an ultimate purchase later. And then even for those people who aren't willing, they're ready to give that kind of stuff yet leaving such a positive brand impression that they want to come back later on. So I think that's what the landing pages Jo job is ultimately in the end.

Brett:

Love it. Totally agree. I think another way to say it is the job of the ad is to get the right person to click to get attention, to get the right prospect to stop and pay attention and then to get them to say maybe, right, maybe this is the product for me, maybe I want to take it a step further. And so they click and then once they get to the landing page, it's the landing page's job to do everything else to convince, to get that email sign up, to get someone to add the car, to get someone to purchase. That's the job of the landing page. The job of the ad is to get the right person to say maybe, and hopefully they come in predisposed and pretty excited and ready for your message on the landing page. But the art of closing really happens on the landing page.

And so I think that that's super important to underscore and to emphasize in this case. And so I want to give an example, and I'm curious if you guys have examples too of how this can play out. So I was working with a longtime client of ours. They sell a derma roller, so it's one of those microneedling rollers and it's got some product in it and very effective at helping reduce wrinkles and just in improving the overall glow and look of the skin. And we were running some YouTube ads and the YouTube ads were getting great engagements, so people watching the videos, people clicking on the videos way above average on all of those metrics. But the ads weren't performing, we were not hitting their cost per acquisition, target wasn't working. And so we paused for a bit and the client was like, Hey, I want to get to work on this landing page because they actually understood landing pages really well and they were like, Hey, I'm going to rework this page.

So they reworked the page and that totally changed the dynamics of the campaign. So we found a lot of people would look at that and say, well, we got to run better ads, got to run better ads, got to get better targeting, got to get, get better. But in this case, it was the job of the landing page and sometimes you could identify that when view rates are good, click through rates are good, and then conversion rates are bad, that's probably the landing page not doing its job. And so that's where you potentially need to focus. So any other examples gentlemen? Any other thoughts there on when we've identified that it was the landing page and not the ad that was the problem?

Bill:

Yes, and playing off your example real quick, just thinking of a derma roller, I don't know what that is, just because I'm in the industry.

Yes. Would've no concept of it other than I worked on brands who sell these and so are you, he's trying to hide the fact that you D roller. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there you go. You just exposed me there. I'm huge into it. I got a whole derma roller collection. Yeah. So what's your favorite brand of Derma roller? Exactly. See? Gotcha. Okay. Sorted by color. So I think when we're in our own industry, we're so jaded, we're exposed to all the ways this works, we believe in it, we're already sold. What percentage of people got to that landing page and went, do domer rollers really work? And it's like, okay, you might have the best one in the world, but what percentage? People don't even know that this category is a good idea. And are you answering those questions on your landing page or are they going to go to Google and ask?

Because once they go to Google and ask, your competitors are waiting. So totally. You just grew the category for your competitors.

Brett:

Excellent point. Yes, someone, your ad made you a beautiful job of getting attention and getting someone to click and maybe be curious, but if the landing page doesn't do its job, all you're doing is sending that prospect to go shop your competitor and to do another search and to end up somewhere else. So you're growing the category, not growing your own business, which is not the way to succeed in marketing. So what about you, Matt? Any examples or thoughts on how this plays out this role of ad and lander?

Matt:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think you can have all the right targeting set up and beautiful ads, but if you're directing them to a page that doesn't clearly demonstrate what the value of that product is, what the differentiators are, why you should take action right now, then I don't think it's really going to matter. You're not going to see good results from that ad and from that good targeting. So an example is we have a supplements company and previously their landing pages were really core. They were essentially just product pages where the details were very minimal, so the differentiators really weren't there. Essentially all that they had were a couple lines of what the product was, so some features that came along with it and then reviews. So from there it was pretty empty. They updated one of these with the goal of this being something that they could use for a YouTube video where it focuses on one particular supplement and they added a lot of content below the fold, which was essentially talking about all the benefit, what the problem is, so why you really need a probiotic supplement, what the war inside your gut looks like, why you might be suffering from this.

Then they told the story of their brand below that too. We set out to do blank, we're different because of blank. Most prio probiotics fail because they don't have enough blank. And then they littered throughout that their social proof of testimonials, real stories from people, and we a b tested that not just for the YouTube videos but for their shopping ads as well. What if we sent people who were landing on that original probiotic page to this long form probiotic page and we saw double the conversion rates from that long form page? Wow. Because instead of just kind of answering the bare minimum of here's what it does, it then get expanded upon that and said, here's why this is important. Here are the benefits of that and here's why we're better than everybody else.

Brett:

I love that so much. I've got a couple of follow ups there, but I want to ask this question first. Just curious what your take is. Do you guys prefer longform landing pages or short form landing pages? What's say you

Bill:

Yeah, that that's a Turkey question. I am not a fan of very, very long landing pages, ridiculously long landing pages. I think a little bit, it feels disrespectful a little bit. No offense to those people out there. You probably know who you are and what I mean is just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, going to get a lot of hate mail from long, long form landing page. Yeah, I don't think this person that I'm thinking of is offended or even I make, it's going to be a radar email too. Yeah, it's going to be really long. But what I prefer when I'm working with a client or a brand is send me something that's too long and it's way easy to, way easier to whittle it down than it is to make it longer. So I prefer that we start there. So love that, Matt. Thoughts in

Matt:

General, I don't think long is necessarily a problem as long as you're not wasting my time. If the most important information is up near the top and there's a call to action up at the top, I can take action right away and I get my answer or the questions that I have answered, then I don't necessarily mind there being additional content below there. So if that below the fold content is just additional reviews and testimonials and information about the brand that I don't necessarily mind it being long, but obviously it's something that you have to test out and like Bill was saying, it's so much easier to have something that's already long and have too much content and have to trim that down, then have to come up with more content out of thin air.

Brett:

Yeah, totally agree. And I think the right answer here is the page needs to be as long as it needs to convince someone to say yes. And I fully agree with the points you guys were making here, that it needs to be scannable. I think for those that come to your page and they're already convinced or ready, they should have an option to buy quickly. I think Bill, to your point, if someone's got to scroll through an endless landing page or they're forced to watch a 30 minute video sales letter to be able to add to cart, I know there's some strategic reasons to use that, but I always balance on those pages. I will 100% of the time always bail there. So you know, don't want to make someone scroll all the way to the end of what's the equivalent of six pages of text before they have the add to cart option, but you also need enough information to be able to convince someone.

I love an example and we'll get into a lot more here as we go, but room dividers now a former client friend, but they sell room dividers for apartment complexes and workspaces and things like that, but this is often the first time someone has ever bought a room divider when they go to this site and it's kind of confusing and new and what size do I buy and will I be able to install this? Do I need to be a builder? What is this? Their pages are amazing in terms of showing pictures, diagrams, measurements, quick videos that show you how to choose the right one, how to install it, and this would be overboard for something simple like a phone case or something like that. I don't need a lot of diagrams for a phone case, but a room divider never bought one. I'm a little bit intimidated, so give me the details but make it easy to scan because that's how people consume pages and then they look for details and they may deep dive into that interest them. And so page needs to be as long as it needs to be close the sale.

Matt:

In talking about scannable content, I think that's where visuals are so important. Yeah, they always say a picture of paints a thousand words, it says a thousand words, but you can just visually digest information through a picture much more than you can through a paragraph. And I've seen that there's studies that show that people actually remember about 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read and 80% of what they see and do. So that's where you were saying Brett, whether it's doing videos through your landing page or visuals, that kind of stuff is so important in terms of making it easily digestible for people.

Brett:

We think and remember in terms of pictures, if I say quick think of a whale, you don't think w h a l e, right? You think of a whale, right? If I say beach, you don't think of the letters, you think of the beach and an umbrella and surfing or something like that. So we think in pictures, so we need pictures.

Bill:

My friend Todd who works with us, he sent me a Neil Patel article last night and it said that 10% of how's the man shout out to shout out to Todd, right? Smart marketer. It said 10% of people remember write no sound, but remember audio learning 20% remember something in writing and 80% remember from visual and doing. So video is key.

Brett:

I think it really is, and oddly enough, I'm one of the, I love auditory, I love listening to stories and I love podcasts.

That's probably why I'm a podcaster, but that's not the norm. People need to see and experience things that a good landing page does that. I think one last thing and then I want to get into some very specific tips. We've been sprinkling tips as we go, but I want to get into some specifics. So one additional thing to keep in mind is that people are coming to your landing page with questions, with unresolved objections. They're coming to your landing page with a healthy dose of skepticism and doubt and you've got to be ready for all of those things. I like to talk about the fact that we live in the show me state, well, bill and I are Missouri guys, a Matt's Texas guy, lots of love for Texas as well, but we're the show me state, right? And our state animal is the donkey.

So you got to show us before we'll believe anything and apparently we're quite stubborn, but you got to kind of think that way with your landing page. I have to show that these objections are not true. I have to show that this is the right solution for you. I have to overcome all of those hurdles, all that doubt, mistrust, objections that this visitor has so that they go from a maybe to a yes. So keep that in mind that people aren't just coming eager and ready to buy with the wallet out, fully convinced. I know they're coming with doubts and objections and you got to those. So awesome. Let's dive into specific tips. So lay out some of your best of your favorite landing page tips. Who wants to go first?

Matt:

Is that me? Sure. Go for Matt. All right. Yeah, great. So obviously it depends on what the goal is for that landing page. If is this a dedicated landing page, is this a product page, your homepage? Let's talk about a dedicated landing page. So I'm going to give my top five elements that I think you really need to make sure that. Can you explain

Brett:

What a dedicated landing page would be, Matt, and how we would use this? Yeah,

Matt:

A hundred percent. So a dedicated landing page is a landing page that's tailored for a specific campaign for a specific audience. So let's say that you have a top of funnel YouTube campaign where the goal of that is to use your video to reach people who've never heard of your brand before. So instead of sending people to your homepage or your product page, won't send 'em to a page that either relates to that video and that audience in some way, but portrays your brand and is focused on the product that you mentioned in that video. So it's tailored not only to the video but the audience itself.

Brett:

Awesome, thank you. So tips for your dedicated landers.

Matt:

Yeah, so I think the top five elements that you really need to have, and I'll list them all out, then go into a little bit of depth on each of those is your value proposition, your benefits and features, your branding, your differentiators, your social proof, and a strong call to action slash offer. So your value proposition is essentially just what is the point of your product, what is the value that you are going to get out of this? So if you are a company that has sells, let's just say that you are a product that helps women grow their hair back. You could just say that we are a shampoo that grows your hair back. Or you could put this in the form of a value proposition, which is really answering the what, which is the problem and the solution that they're trying to get to.

So essentially regain your confidence with our hair regrowing shampoo. So that's the value that they're really getting out of that. I think every dedicated landing page really needs to have that. The second part is benefits and features. So this really goes into the why. So what is the value that the person is getting out of the features that come with it? So if you sell an iPhone and the iPhone has a certain amount of storage space, what's the benefit of that? So the storage space is the feature, but the benefit is now you have more room for pictures and for memories and things like that, you have more apps that you can use, text messages that you can send. The third element is

Brett:

Just so quickly, Matt, some of the really great examples there, if you think back to old Apple ad campaigns, right? With the original, did we look at the iPod, right? One of the original examples, they didn't talk about the number of megabytes of storage or whatnot, but there were like 3000 songs in your pocket and I was like, this is amazing. 3000 songs in my pocket or I love the old campaign. It really I think helped launch the iPhone into kind of the stratosphere. There's an app for that. So you've got this problem, this thing, there's an app for that solved and here we'll just show you in the ad. And so yeah, really making that value prop come to life. Love, love that,

Matt:

Right? Yeah. Because in the end, features are really just what leads to the benefit and the benefit is truly what people are really after. From there you've got strong branding differentiators. So this answers the who, so who are you and what makes you different from everybody else. If you're in a crowded space, especially things like supplements for example, where there are hundreds of brands that sell probiotics or brain supplements, things like that. What is the reason that people should trust you amongst everybody else? And then the fourth element, how you can really show that is through your social proof. This elaborates on the credibility aspect of it, why should people choose? You provide things like testimonials, reviews, third party publications. So if you've been mentioned in Forbes, cnn, some of these publications out there, that kind of stuff really helps move the needle in terms of people trusting you. And then the last part of it, once they've digested who you are, what you're selling and why this is important, having a strong call to action or an offer that actually inspires them not only to take action but to take action right now. So does your call to action create that sense of urgency? If it doesn't, then people are going to leave and not maybe come back later on. So I think that's the other element you're really got to make sure you have.

Brett:

That's awesome. And Bill, I want to hear your tips in just a second, but Matt, what are some examples? Because I think we always learn better when we're looking at those who are doing this well. What are examples that we should pay attention to

Matt:

In terms of a dedicated landing page that I think does well? Yeah, so there is a company called Fixed out there. So if you go to fixed.com, you'll find this F I

Brett:

X D,

Matt:

Yeah, f i xd.com. So these guys, if you pull them up on your mobile phone or computer right now, I think they do all these elements really, really well. They do. So at the very top of the page, they have their value proposition that is super clear says meet the car Sens, meet the car repair sensor. That is saving people thousands of dollars. So instead of just saying it's a car diagnostic tool, which is just what it is, it paints that out in a very clear way. You're saving thousands of dollars. That's the value that you're getting out of this. Then in a

Brett:

Quick frame on that, just so people get the idea, like check engine light comes on, you take the fixed device, plug it into the computer port on your car, and then on your phone you get a readout of exactly why that check engine light is on, plus how much it should cost to repair it. So really answers questions for you and helps you not get screwed over later at the mechanic. So yeah, keep going man, right?

Matt:

Yeah. And from there the next thing they jump into is over 2 million fixed sensors sold 10,000 plus five star reviews. So there's your social proof, there's the credibility that they've already created. Then they get into why every driver should own a fixed sensor. So what it does, so car diagnostics like Brett just mentioned, maintenance alerts, issue severity. So it kind of shows that benefit that you're getting out of this. From there they go on to explain why they're different from other people, why you should trust them over others. But then what they do really well is they have an offer that is happening pretty much all the time. It says Shop six, shop fix today before this offer times out and they have this timer that's constantly ticking, but it's 67% off, and so they're always kind of promoting, make sure that you're getting this at the best possible deal. So you get to that page and you have that sense of urgency to go ahead and buy right then and there, which I think they do really, really well.

Brett:

Love it. Great example. We'll need to have the show notes, but go check it out for yourself@fixed.com. Bill, what about you? Top landing page tips.

Bill:

All right, sweet. You bet. So I would love to turn all of these into Cs at some point, but I have connect, so how does it change their life? Connect with the customer and where they're at and psychologically understand their pain point and address that and say, look, I get it. This is what you're going through. Here is how we help. I mean, it could be a very simple product. They have a pain point content. So I think dream big. Imagine what your brand can be, what your landing page could look like. I think some of the most awesome landing pages are just very visual and give me a great brand impression and a great brand impression. Gives me a great product impression and I want to identify with that product brands like that.

I think Peloton has amazing landing pages and they do the connect thing as well. If you are living in an apartment in a high rise, it's a big deal to have to get up, go down the elevator and go to the gym in the morning. Whereas you could have a Peloton just in the corner, you could wake up and you can do your whole workout routine with an instructor right there. You don't have to go to the gym. They make that very obvious, here's your pain point, we're the solution, and then call to action. So not just certainly tell them what to do, you may think it's obvious, it may not be obvious, but also what are the steps? What are the next steps? One thing, example would be the Goldie Locks Purple Mattress YouTube ads, love it. Next time you see the eggshell test ad, click and look at that landing page and look how it matches the ad and also watch they show you what this is.

When it arrives at your door, this thing is going to arrive in a box that looks like this. If you don't like it, here's what you do. So it answers all these questions. It walks you through yourself having bought this product vicariously.

Brett:

Yeah, it kind of leads you through the process, right? I heard this great marketing analogy one time that people will not go physically where they haven't gone in their mind burst or where they haven't imagined themselves going. And I think that's what that page does. It shows, hey, this is what it's going to be like when it shows up in your doorstep and when you open the box, it's going to look like this because there's some unknowns. There's still some people out there that are a mattress shipped to me. Is this going to be like a giant box? Can I get it through my door?

Is it going to be, it's going to be messed up, damaged. That is a hurdle that will keep people from buying. But once they see that, okay, actually the box is not huge, it's all air compressed and then it puffs out. Once you open it, then they feel confident and say, okay, yeah, this makes sense.

Bill:

Yeah, they also took the risk away from the buyer by saying, if you're not happy, put it back on the porch. You don't have to put it in the box. We'll do that, put it back on the porch and call us.

Brett:

Which I love that too, because that's the other thing. And then sometimes why I don't buy things or what gives me hesitation from buying things on Amazon. I know Amazon will take it back. I know I can return it. I don't want to. I've got stuff in my house that I knew I wasn't going to use, but I'm like, ah, it's too much words to return.

This who sits in my closet, or I give it away to somebody, which is fun, but that creates a hesitation. If I don't want this mattress, you mean I got to box what I got to compress it and box it up? No, just put it on the porch. We'll take care of it. Love that.

Bill:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The next tip would be trip wires. I think anyone who's doing a quiz is doing this. So something short of a purchase that I can do to segment those who were very interested. And now with GA four, maybe that's just in GA four, okay, they looked at this, they looked at five products that were all the color of red or something, and you can just track that as an event. But if you're doing a trip wire, like a quiz, then they're serious, they're curious, they, they're bounce, but they just didn't purchase yet.

So now we've isolated that group. We can go after that group with better messaging and okay, why didn't you buy? Maybe you need a sale. Maybe you had an objection or an FAQ or something like that. And then avoid paralysis by analysis. So don't give me one product unless you sell just one product, unless there's one obvious hero product. Give me three products or maybe some product categories guide me. Remember that sales rep like, Hey, what's the most popular? That's where I want to go. Don't make me think, don't give me 30 products. Give me a reasonable amount for what you sell and what your brand is and your category. And okay, I'll figure it out from there.

Matt:

And speaking about guiding me, I think that's another benefit that comes from the quizzes that you just talked about. So the obvious benefit of the quizzes, ultimate obviously when they go through all the options, they fill out all the questions at the end, it'll ask for their email address and that's where you send them the result. So the brand gets the email address and the user gets the result. But the other benefit of that is you're guiding the user to a product that is best for them based on the results that they gave. So I know there's this skincare brand called Curology that's a huge part of their system. They really just make custom skincare routines. So based on the inputs that you put in, do you have greasy, oily skin? Are you prone to acne? Things like that, what are you looking for? They're going to send you a bundle that is tailored just to you. I've seen this work for supplements companies, hair care companies as well. What are you looking for? What color is your hair? Things like that. And it tailors and guides the user to what is going to be best for them, which obviously helps the brand in terms of getting the user to the product that they're most likely to buy, but also helps the user because it's getting them a product that's most likely to best work for them. So

Brett:

Yeah, I love that example of quizzes and guiding someone to the right choice. And I think one of the tips that I would have, and actually I've got four and they all actually do start with the letter C bill, how crazy is that? But one of them is confidence. We've got to instill confidence in the shopper before they're going to make a purchase. And I love the example of Madison Reed and for former client, but we help them grow on Google and YouTube, but they are at home hair color. And so they've got this quiz, it's like a personal hair care consultant. And this is a very important thing. I've a lot of ladies in my family that color their hair and this is not something to take lightly. It's not like, yeah, I'll just try this if turns my hair. Weird color, no big deal.

Some people do want a crazy color and that's awesome, but they want the color they want and they don't want to get this wrong. And that's why a lot of people go to the salon and pay hundreds of dollars for the coloring. But at Madison Reed you can get it refresher the price and you do it at home, but they've got this color consultant, you take the quiz and it's very thorough, but it's still easy to fill out. And at the end, not only are they increasing satisfaction by delivering the right product, but they're giving you confidence in the process to say, ah, I was just asked the right questions and now I'm confident that what is going to be delivered to me is going to be right. And so then people actually make the purchase. So I love that.

Bill:

Now's how you've got visibility into that customer group.

And this could be a whole nother podcast on segmenting your cohorts, but yes, now it's like, okay, so you're male and you have dark hair, now I know how to talk to you.

Brett:

And so exactly, all kinds of segmentation there. If they don't purchase now, you know how to remarket to them. Or if they have their email now you know how to email them. You so many benefits there. Another thing, and you really alluded to this bill, but I'm going to kind of clarify maybe just a little bit, but congruent. I think the experience need to be congruent where if you made a promise or an offer on the video or on the display ad, in the display ad that you created, that needs to be front and center on the landing page. If you're talking about a holiday promotion or a Mother's Day promotion, that needs to be clearly visible.

If you had a look and a style and a tone in the video, that look and style and tone needs to be on the landing page because the first thing someone's going to say just like when they walk in the door of a retail store is, am I in the right place? And so you got to have that congruent experience between ad and landing page. And then I think that the two other Cs that I'll just throw out really quickly is it needs to be convincing. It needs to overcome those objections and really handle anything that's lingering or any objections to buy. And it needs to be compelling. It needs to promise that benefit, bring all those things to life enough to make someone say, yes, I'm going to purchase. Awesome stuff. Guys, this has been amazing. Just a couple of quick things here as we get close to wrapping it up.

Where do you usually suggest people start, right? So we run a lot of YouTube traffic, a lot of search traffic. Google shopping are now more performance max. But where should someone start? Should they start by building dedicated landing pages? Should they start by optimizing their product detail pages? Should they work on their homepage? What advice or what thoughts do you guys have there?

Bill:

That's a great question. So yeah, it's kind of recommending a supplement to someone who doesn't exercise and doesn't sleep supplement. Should I pay? Well, tell me what you were trying to do, but you got to do the basics. So if your homepage needs work, I mean, go after that. Go after the product page, do the lowest hanging. It's always going to be the most ed page, right? It's always going to be, yeah, page, get yourself a video going. A dedicated landing page is third, fourth, somewhere even further down the list.

Do the basics. But then by that time, you've got enough content and enough to kind of pull from these assets and it's like, okay, the U G C, the FAQs, the video, the banner header. And I would say also I come from e-commerce development and we talk about minimal minimum viable product and working iteratively. I've met, I have friends who worked for two years on their store and didn't launch it, and I'm like, why? Oh, there's a misspell over here. I'm like, are you kidding me? Get that thing out there and start generating revenue and iterate as you go. Just write. I don't just go to chat G p T and have that thing. Write your landing page and prop it up and then start to, I'm not I, that was an exaggeration. Do a little more than that, sorry. But just start to get something out there and then start to plug in your assets and get traffic to it and test and things like that. So work iteratively, but just start with copy, then get some images in there and get a video in there and go from there. I like it. What about you, Matt?

Matt:

Yeah, no, I totally agree with what Bill said. It doesn't have to be absolutely perfect when you launch it. The important thing is that you're just in the initial stage is starting to collect some data and like Bill said, you can iterate from there and you can ab test from there. Maybe you have the version, but then you spin up a secondary version where you split traffic 50 50 and you see what version does better. Maybe that original version that you thought wasn't as good as this next page is actually performs better than that new page does. So it's always something that you can be testing. But in terms of where to start as it comes to homepage, product pages, dedicated landers, I agree with what Bill said, and you alluded to Brett, your homepage is always going to be your most visited page, not just on the ad side most often, but all your organic traffic is tending to go to your homepage, your direct traffic, when people type in brand name.com, that's usually going to your homepage.

So I'd really think you got to start there. From there, I'd make sure your product pages look good, because shopping ads, performance max ads, a lot of this is going to be driving to your product pages and that's where the bottom of the funnel and middle of funnel traffic really lives. And I'd like to start from there. Establish a firm foundation and then at that point develop your dedicated landers where your YouTube top of funnel traffic can send potentially your remarketing traffic. Search traffic can go to those pages as well. But start with the low-hanging fruit, like you guys said.

Brett:

That's awesome. And so I'll give just a couple examples here of pages that I think you should check out. And then we're going to talk about a free resource that is in development right now, but by the time you listen to this, it'll be available. So Matt talked about dedicated landing pages later. That's the pages you use for top of funnel Facebook or YouTube traffic love Boom by Cindy Joseph and their five makeup tips for older women. We've sent literally tens of millions of dollars worth of ad traffic to that page and it's Covered. And so it's very simple. Starts with five makeup tips for older women and then has some celebrity social proof and some other social proof and then great offers. And it's a brilliant page, so we'll link to it. You should definitely check that out. Actually, I think the celebrity has been removed.

Yeah. Oh, you're right. The celebrity has been removed, but they did have a celebrity, and I don't can't say it, but there may be a celebrity there or there was a celebrity there who was very well known. And yeah, she was on friends. She was on Lisa Cdre or Courtney Cox, if that helps. And I may or may not have had a monster crush on her as a teenager when I was watching that show Totally places. I know you're my age. It does. But I also, Monica, I thought all three friends were amazing. So yeah, great. Dedicated later should definitely check it out. And when it comes to homepage, I'll shout out another one that that's owned by Ezra Firestone, overtone coloring conditioner. So if you want your hair pink or blue or green, this is color depositing conditioner that's temporary. Their landing or their homepage is beautiful.

It answers all the questions. It shows the product. It's got social proof, it's got all the elements we really just talked about, which is a great one. And then we're going to link to a bunch more because I know one, you're potentially driving or working out, and so you can't capture all of these. But let's talk this free resource. Fellas, all three of us have been collaborating on this. It's going to be Dino Mite, but what is our free resource Bill? You want to kind of plug this real quick?

Bill:

Yeah, you bet. So we are offering with this podcast a swipe file of our favorite landing pages. So these aren't necessarily ones that we work on, brands that we work on, but just showcasing anything we've seen over the years on the internet, students of landing pages, great branding and getting people from, I've never heard of you two, I want to buy right now. Yeah. And a number of these are clients. I think we have worked with them and help them grow their, they're marketing, but a of just people we shop and love and admire and respect. And so anything else you would want to say about this? Matt? Plug this resource. I mean, Matt, the Playmaker s slave maker had a hand in this guide, in this swipe file. So I think people should get it for that reason alone. Absolutely.

Matt:

No, I think just to go along with what Bill said, it covers every industry and it covers every need. So whether you're looking for product pages, how can you improve your product pages, dedicated landing pages, your homepage, it covers all those. And then depending on your different goals, so if your goal for your campaign is to drive sales, there's landing pages that cover that. If your goal is to drive lead submissions, like the boom example that Brett was talking about, there's really good examples for that as well. So regardless of what industry you're in, business size, things like that, there's an example for you.

Brett:

Yeah, so check it out, request that you can go to the show notes of this show or also look on the guidesPage@ogcommerce.com and you can find the landing page, swipe file and guide. And just a closing thought here as we wrap up. I think there's very little that can change the math and change the results of your advertising, of your campaigns, like a landing page, if your conversion rates are not great, and e-commerce standards are in that one to 3% range. Typically, brands that are really scaling have landing pages that Cover a little bit higher than that. But it does depend on a number of factors. If conversion rates are not great, focus on those landing pages. It will pay off in spades. And when you get it all working together, awesome ads, great targeting, great campaigns, end landing pages, then that's when the magic happens.

So Any closing thoughts, gentlemen?

Bill:

Sure. Yeah. So one closing thought. Make sure to understand. I said at the beginning, your client, or sorry, your client, your customer's pain point and understand their skepticism. I think FAQs are kind of a commodity. We think, oh, faq, that's just the throwaway thing at the bottom with the accordion interactivity there. But think about that. People have a reason they almost aren't going to buy from you. I've even seen on a jeans website after purchase the question, the post-purchase questionnaire, why did you almost not buy? And it's like, whoa. That's a great question. Yeah, love that. That's a bold question. But you're getting these questions through your chat on your onsite chat, and that's stuff, if you're getting these questions, collect them and figure out the common questions and then figure out the answers because your customers have these questions. And that can be just right there on the landing page.

Matt:

Yeah, I'd say when thinking about the value of landing pages, think of what is the value of improving your conversion rate from 3% to 5%. That could be the difference of 3 million of revenue to $5 million in revenue. So the best brands that we work with in terms of success are the ones that are constantly iterating and constantly moving the needle and trying new things in terms of landing pages. So whether it's AB testing, their homepage, their product pages, they're always testing some element, whether it's new images, videos, copy length, things like that. So don't be afraid to dive in and don't put it on the back burner. Don't think that this isn't really all that important or that you really just need to be focusing on the ads. All that is really important. But like we talked about earlier, you can be reaching all the right people with all the right ads, but if you're not sending 'em to a page that is likely to Cover them, it's not going to matter that much in the end. So

Brett:

True, true. Thank you, gentlemen. Awesome stuff. Much appreciated. And hey, we would like to hear from you. If you got a couple minutes, we'd love that review on iTunes or wherever you consume podcasts and or shoot us a note, man. It would make our day to see a note from our amazing listeners. And so with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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