Back in February we announced our partnership with Google to develop Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) functionality, and AMP landing pages in the Instapage platform. They invited us to speak at their global AMP Conference where we discussed How to Balance AMP Limitations with Optimization Features.
Since then, our engineers and product team have obsessed with building this new feature.
Today, as the leader in post-click optimization, Instapage is excited to introduce the ability to create landing pages using the AMP framework. The AMP framework allows for faster page load speeds on mobile devices, enabling marketers and advertisers to provide a better user experience for mobile browsing. With this new capability in Instapage, marketers and advertisers can create AMP landing pages directly from our platform.
*Update: As of September 2018, you can A/B test and publish AMP pages to WordPress, too.
*Instapage provides the only landing page builder with the capability to build mobile-optimized landing pages using AMP.
Why we built AMP functionality
In 2015, Google highlighted the shift towards mobile after recognizing more searches take place on mobile devices than desktops. And by 2019, ad spend on mobile will account for 62.5% of all digital advertising. So, mobile usage has been growing and mobile ad spend is now the majority.
Now, consider these startling revelations about page load speed:
- The average mobile site takes 19 seconds to load over a 3G connection, and 77% of mobile sites take over 10 seconds to load.
- Google learned that conversions fall by 20% for every additional second a webpage takes to load. To compare, sites that loaded in 5 seconds had 2x more mobile ad revenue than sites that loaded in 19 seconds.
- 40% of consumers will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.
- 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing.
The conclusion? If page load isn’t instant, it’s not fast enough. Creating a positive landing page on mobile is essential since the landing page is where conversions happen. If your landing page loads too slowly or creates a disjointed experience from ad to post-click, visitors will bounce.
Why accelerated mobile pages matter
Google looks at landing page experience as one factor to determine ad rank, which ultimately contributes to your click-through rate. And while publishers have embraced frameworks like AMP to speed up web content delivery on mobile devices, the marketing industry has not caught up. As more consumers and B2B buyers spend more time on mobile, marketers and advertisers are forced to adapt with mobile-optimized campaigns.
AMP pages are attractive to advertisers because they allow for more compelling mobile user experiences through near-instantaneous load times and smooth scrolling, while still supporting some styling and branding customizability. Unlike regular mobile pages, AMP pages are automatically cached by Google AMP Cache for faster load times on Google search.
Benefits of AMP landing pages
To summarize AMP’s key benefits alongside Instapage, let’s recap how AMP affects your advertising campaigns and the user experience:
- The ability to build landing pages using the AMP framework quickly, directly from the Instapage platform, and without needing a developer
- Faster page load speed on mobile devices
- Better user experience for mobile browsing
- Using AMP pages can help increase your Quality Score
- Google will favor pages that use AMP
Mobile isn’t the future of the web. Mobile is now, and brands that comply with this preferred framework will be positioned for success and have a significant advantage over competitors.
How to create an AMP post-click landing page in Instapage
AMP functionality is an Enterprise-plan only feature, and building a page is quick and easy. Follow the steps here.
Step 1: Create a new page
Select AMP Page from the modal:
The next screen prompts you to name the page. This is different than the standard builder where it asks which template you wish to use (or build from scratch). AMP pages are built from scratch, so no template options are available.
Step 2: Add elements to the page
The second difference you will see is that Timer and HTML widgets are absent from the toolbar, but you still have the remaining widgets:
And these options, too:
Note: Collaboration (“Comment”) and Instablocks™ are both functional within the AMP builder. Unfortunately, heatmaps and Global Blocks are not applicable.
AMP landing pages have a 75KB limit, and each widget in the Instapage AMP builder is weighted. As you build a page, a validator operates in the background so that your page doesn’t exceed the 75KB limit. If you reach 80% of the limit, this warning indicator appears near the bottom of the screen:
Step 3: Validate the page
As you continue building and approach the 75KB limit, another indicator appears requesting you validate the page to confirm it is within acceptable limits:
Should the page pass validation, you will see these on-screen messages:
Step 4: Publish
After you finish and click Publish, you will be notified if you exceed the 75KB limit:
If you don’t see that message, your page is ready to publish. At this point, insert your subdomain and domain:
Once the page is live, you will see the AMP logo next to the page in the dashboard:
How to get started with AMP landing pages
Enterprise customers can sign into their account and start building AMP landing pages today. If you are not an Instapage Enterprise customer, or have a Core, Optimizer, or Team & Agency account, request an AMP demo today.
Read more on how to create AMP landing pages on Instapage and discover why Instapage is the most robust automation platform on the market.