Marketing Glossary / Landing Page
Landing Page
Learn more about Landing Page:
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a purposefully designed, standalone web page that plays a vital role in digital marketing strategies for businesses.
Distinct from a company's primary website, landing pages serve specific functions such as capturing leads, driving sales, or promoting targeted marketing campaigns.
In the realm of B2B marketing, an effective landing page can significantly enhance lead generation, ecommerce conversions, and social media advertising, making them indispensable tools for achieving success in the online marketplace.
Landing pages versus websites
Standalone landing pages often outperform B2B homepages and other pages because the call-to-action (CTA), special offer, and other content is created to ensure a well-targeted, seamless user experience for customers after clicking on an ad, email, or link in a social media post. Landing pages also have a single focus, whereas other web pages or homepages are designed to be higher-level and drive visitors deeper into a website via navigation.
Types of landing pages and examples
In the B2B space, some of the most effective types of marketing landing pages include:
Lead generation landing pages
In many cases, B2B ad campaigns drive customers to a lead capture landing page that encourages them to fill out a form. This strategy enables them to download an ebook or report, or sign up for an email newsletter, course, webinar, or live-streaming event.
B2B brands might use call to action (CTA) phrases and buttons like “Download now” or “Sign-up” in their ads to entice users to immediately click-through to the corresponding landing page.
A lead generation landing page should provide further details about the course, event, or webinar promoted in the B2B ad campaign. Likewise, include what trends and insights are covered in the industry-related report or ebook available for download.
Some lead generation landing pages include an explainer video at the top of the page to highlight trends that will be revealed in the report or ebook, or speakers who will present at a webinar or event. Videos can be highly effective for boosting lead generation, as well as a customer’s likelihood to purchase a product or service from a landing page.
When the landing page visitor either scrolls to the bottom of a page or clicks a CTA like “Download,” they are often presented with a form to complete to access the report.
When designing lead generation forms, remember that less is more when it comes to requesting customer information. Aim to use fewer than five form fields whenever possible.
After completing the lead gen form, customers are directed to a thank you page, which provides a link to download the report pdf. A confirmation message indicates that a link will be sent to the prospect’s email address, as well.
Some thank you pages also will try to drive customers into a branded website by prompting users to read a blog post, ebook, or case study at the very bottom of the page.
Ecommerce (or conversion) landing pages
Another leading way B2B companies use landing pages is to generate ecommerce sales. These are measured via conversions, which are the number of visitors who perform a desired action after clicking on an ad.
Sometimes, marketers refer to these as PPC landing pages because they complement a pay-per-click or cost-per-click campaign to drive ecommerce sales. The ads that drive to those landing pages will use a clear CTA, like “Sign up” or “Buy now,” along with a compelling offer such as “Save 30%.”
After prospects click on an ad, they’ll arrive at a landing page, which uses one or many of the tactics below to get customers to buy immediately:
1. Scarcity: Indicating that a promotion is only available for a limited time is an excellent way to create a sense of scarcity and urgency to buy a product or service immediately. Consider using a bright color like yellow or red to highlight that copy and ensure landing page visitors know that the offer ends soon.
2. A clear CTA/Offer button: The next thing a landing page visitor might notice is a clear “Sign up” or “Buy” CTA button at the top of the page. This CTA is often displayed in a bright color to contrast with the rest of the page.
3. The rule of three: After the first CTA, there is often another section below it with supporting copy and imagery, broken out into three clear and concise sections, which explain why customers should sign-up.
Copywriters frequently use the “rule of three” when selling product or service features or value propositions.
4. Package pricing: CTA buttons at the top of the landing page drive visitors further down to a section that summarizes each package that customers can choose. Those package summaries will highlight the original price (if there is a limited-time only sale) and the new price available through the promotion.
B2B marketing teams typically highlight the “most popular” package using a technique called “price anchoring”. This package is likely the most profitable for the company.
Always try to limit the number of product options from which a customer can choose. Otherwise, they may get overwhelmed by the choices and leave.
5. More supporting content and/or a demo video: If prospects need further information about what the B2B product or service does, and how it will help them grow their business, the landing page provides further details to help close the sale.
Again, this information is often grouped into three sections – each with a small graphic, a short headline, and a brief description. Product demo videos in these cases are also brief and walk prospects through core product or service features and opportunities, while also demonstrating the user interface.
6. Social proof: Finally, many ecommerce landing pages provide social proof, or evidence that similar customers were pleased with their purchase, at the very bottom. B2B ecommerce businesses will frequently include a testimonial or review from a happy customer, along with their headshot, name, title, and company.
Customer testimonials and reviews also help to build trust on some of the most successful B2B landing pages that convert browsers into buyers.
7. Final “Buy now” or “Signup” CTA button: Finally, when customers click the signup button at the bottom of the page (if they didn’t do so earlier), they are sent to a page that asks for their payment information.
After a customer completes this page, they will receive a confirmation page, which marks the end of the user journey for the ecommerce or conversion landing page process.
How to optimize a landing page
Landing page optimization is the process of researching and testing the design, copy, and other elements that are the most effective at generating the highest return on investment (ROI). The key benefits include:
Boosting the number of leads generated
Increasing ecommerce sales (or conversions)
Having deeper engagement with customers
Improving the visibility of an offer or CTA
Driving more traffic further into a branded website or blog (after the fact)
Let’s review some proven strategies for optimizing landing pages.
1. Choose an appropriate design
The layout and design of a landing page help visitors quickly understand the business’s offer and why they should care. It should be uncluttered and visually appealing without confusing prospects about why they are there.
Remember that a balance of imagery, offers, and copy is more powerful when generating new leads or sell througha landing page. The landing page should also help prospective customers achieve their end goal as quickly as possible.
For example, if the user wants to request further information about an online course they saw promoted in an ad, they should be able to do so without ever leaving the landing page. They should also be able to fill out the B2B lead capture form immediately after the landing page loads.
The design should be simple, making the CTA buttons easy to find and understand. Again, CTA buttons should be in good contrast to neutral background colors and images.
Using imagery on landing pages is essential because they create an emotional connection and help users visually learn what the B2B brand represents. Additionally, they help to balance the page and increase a customer’s desire to read the accompanying content.
To help prospective customers reach a support person for further information via phone, email, or chat, there should also be clear and short contact copy and/or links displayed at the top of the landing page.
As a best practice, many “watch the video” links drive users to a pop-up video rather than one embedded on the page. This strategy helps the landing page load quickly, which can significantly boost conversion rates. Be sure to optimize (e.g., reduce the file size) the images on landing pages, as well, to speed up page load times and drive more customer leads.
Finally, well-optimized landing pages should provide social proof via customer testimonials, reviews, or quotes, which help build trust and generate more leads. This copy is often combined with visuals, like headshots to help visitors quickly learn the business’s value propositions.
2. Optimize headlines and copy
It’s essential to have a clear headline and supporting copy when developing B2B landing pages.
Why are landing page headlines important?
Direct and clear landing page headlines help marketers drive immediate action. As a best practice, try and limit landing page headlines to 10 words and and under.
A good B2B landing page headline should also:
Grab the user’s attention immediately using a bold or larger font than the supporting copy
Be relevant to the message conveyed in the ad, social media post, or email that drove a user to the landing page
Help to boost search engine rankings so customers can find it organically
Highlight a product or service’s unique selling points (USPs) or value propositions
Empathize with a target customer’s pain points (e.g., growing their career, and saving them money or time by accessing a product or service online) while offering valuable solutions
How to support headlines with good copy
Like the headline, the supporting copy on a landing page should be brief but also dive deeper into each value proposition or unique selling point conveyed in the headline.
Anything more than two or three lines of text will clutter up the page and make it harder for a customer to scan and capture the key points quickly.
Use bullet points to help organize content when necessary, as well when listing key product features and benefits. Bulleted lists will make it easy for landing page visitors to grasp the reasons why they should buy it. Again, remember the rule of three when highlighting value propositions.
Use A/B Testing
When launching a landing page, B2B marketers use A/B Testing to assess the effectiveness of headlines, copy, and images. This method of landing page testing and optimization measures whether different parts of a landing page are as effective as they can be to drive the highest number of leads or conversions possible.
A/B landing page testing for copy, CTAs, and design are usually the highest priority because they have the biggest impact on conversion rates. In most cases, marketers create two versions of the same copy or design and use conversion rate optimization (CRO) software to measure which one has a more significant impact.
The same software, such as the LinkedIn campaign manager tool, can help marketers run similar tests for online ad campaign design and copy.
3. Monitor Your Results
In addition to Conversion rate optimization software, B2B marketers can use real-time ad campaign reporting and analytics tools, as well as conversion tracking data, to optimize and measure landing page and online advertising ROI – both during and after a campaign has run.
As marketers gain insights from completed online campaigns with landing pages, they can refine and enhance future strategies. of three when highlighting value propositions.
Landing pages are integral for B2B ad campaign success
Landing pages are an integral part of a B2B lead generation, conversion, or social media ad campaigns. That’s why it is crucial to learn what strategies and tactics work well and apply them to any new landing page design.
It’s equally important to optimize pages using CRO tools and incorporate A/B testing for copy, CTAs, and design. This testing approach can also help optimize the ads that drive traffic to a landing page.
Landing page optimization is a learning process, so take what has worked well from one campaign, then iterate and improve upon the success of future campaigns.
The landing page examples provided in this post have hopefully inspired marketers with ideas and strategies for getting started. To learn how to create social media advertising landing pages with LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager tool, review this how-to guide.
Social media landing pages
When a user clicks a social media ad, as is the case with certain LinkedIn ad types, a micro lead-capture page often appears to conveniently get the user’s information without them ever needing to leave the platform.
Most LinkedIn users already have an account, so their personal information is automatically pulled into the pop-up landing page. They simply need to provide their preferred email address to download an ebook or report, or sign up for a webinar or event, which saves valuable time.