Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
As marketers, it’s our job to create compelling offers, massive email lists, to write badass copy, and craft high converting capture pages. Over the past few years, there’s been a huge advancement in the quality of capture pages.
If you’re not staying up to date with landing page software, design, and graphics, your conversions are going to fall. With that in mind, it got me thinking about the most common mistakes people make with their capture pages. Here are 5 common capture page mistakes:
In this guide
1. Asking For Far Too Much
I’m just going to say it. All you need is a user’s email address. Names are better, sure. Do they increase conversions and response rates, sure. With that said, the maximum amount of information you should ask for is a user’s name and email address.
Unless calling up leads is an essential part of your marketing strategy, DO NOT ask for a phone number. Never ask for a zip code, address, or anything of the sort. Every extra field of information you request, your conversion rate will decrease by at least 10%.
A few years ago a friend of mine challenged this idea. That asking for a name as well as an email address would drive conversions down. I decided to run a split-test campaign, just to prove him wrong. To my surprise, I was right, by a mile.
I set up 3 capture pages with the same variables, but one asked for name and email, one just email. The first one asking for just an email generated a 30% conversion rate, asking for a name as well dropped it to 23%. 7% may not seem like a big difference, but when you’re generating tens of thousands of leads, it really adds up.
The other case studies were similarly shocking. Always ask for as little information as possible, otherwise you’ll kill your conversions.
2. Bad Opt-in Form Placement
I always thought it was pretty obvious that having the opt-in form above the fold would increase conversions, but I had no idea how strong the effect would be. Did you know that over 75% of website visitors spend their time above the fold?
It’s apparently true, the vast majority of visitors never scroll down a page, it’s kinda ridiculous. Does that mean you’re wasting your time with anything below the fold? Not at all, it just means you need to attempt to monetize the traffic that doesn’t scroll down below the fold by placing an opt-in form above the fold.
3. Using A Bad Headline
The headline is the first thing a visitor sees when visiting your capture page. It’s the most important aspect of the page, more important than your actual offer. I can’t tell you how to write a powerful headline, that’s beyond this article. The best advice is to carefully craft 10 different compelling headlines.
Once done, duplicate your capture page 10 times using a different headline for each version. The headline is the only variable worth split-testing immediately. Run some traffic at the pages, see which ones convert the highest. You’ll find they convert very differently, conversion rate differences of as much as 50% – all because of the headline. Don’t be lazy on the copy, it’ll ruin your efforts.
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Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →4. Slacking On Design
Attractive design is a fundamental component of a high converting capture page, without a doubt. But I have two thoughts here. What you want to do is the opposite of what everyone else is doing in your niche. Design has exploded in recent years, just look at websites from the 90s and compare them to today; they’re incomparable (they’re just that bad).
However, many niches now are becoming saturated with faddy over-hyped design. Design is similar to copy – it’s seductive. The problem is all the marketers are using similar ‘almost futuristic’ graphics now. In many niches, they convert very well, but if you’re in the Internet Marketing niche or one alike; you might find an ugly ass capture page convert better than one using quality graphics.
It has something to do with people associating sexy design with scams and disappointment. Again, the only thing you can do is split-test, like with all conversion optimization tactics.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below. Also, opt-in to the email list on the right for more conversion tips, tricks, and secrets.
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
Tyronne Ratcliff, March 3 2013, 07:06
Great tips Dave, having a headline that grabs your visitor’s attention is half the battle. My latest conversation: 5 Powerful Lead Sources Online
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We ran this exact split test in 2011. Name field costs conversions, every time. Same rule as ten years ago, just wearing different chrome now.
Ran the name-and-email versus email-only split myself in February. Went from 24% to 31% just dropping the name field, matches the post almost exactly. Week two is when I noticed the leads without names were actually harder to follow up with personally, so there’s a real trade there nobody mentions.
Kelsey’s numbers track with what I saw running a team out of Dubai for six years — the split test always favours fewer fields, without exception, in every niche I ever tested it in. What the conversion rate doesn’t measure is what happens three weeks later, when you’re following up on a list of nameless leads at two in the morning your time because the person on the other end is nine hours ahead and already asleep by the time you’ve read their email. I used to think the fix was just working harder on follow-up scripts. It wasn’t. The fix was accepting that the metric on the capture page and the workload on the other end of it are two different graphs, and a page that wins on one can quietly cost you on the other.
Kelsey’s trade-off is the interesting bit — you optimized the top of the funnel and made the bottom of it worse. Reminds me of stocking a bike shop window with only the cheapest models to get feet through the door, then wondering why nobody wants to talk components once they’re in. The metric you’re winning on is never the whole story.
The insight buried in mistake #4 is the real one — matching your design language to what your audience already associates with trust, not what looks expensive. I have clients run the opposite experiment: deliberately plain page against the polished one. Which are you actually building for, the page that looks good to you or the one your buyer already trusts?
Simone, good question, but I don’t have time to run two versions of anything. Polished or plain — which one wins tonight with zero testing budget?
Sorry if it’s obvious, but if 75% of visitors never scroll past the fold, is there any real point building out the rest of the page at all?
Not a silly question, Bonnie — you’re circling what’s usually called the F-pattern in eye-tracking research, mostly from studies done in the 2000s. It explains why the fold matters so much, though the original research was done on text-heavy pages, not one-action capture pages. Worth being a little skeptical of how directly it transfers.