Auditing your landing pages is an essential part of maximizing your return on ad spend (ROAS). While all businesses should monitor performance data of all web pages, it’s especially true for gated landing pages. After all, there’s an advertising cost associated with every user who visits, so you want to make sure you’re making full use of every ad dollar.
The good news is, an audit is a great way to identify areas of improvement and maintain a high ROAS. Your analytics data will inform the audit, to give you a clear picture of what landing pages are not performing well. Next, adhere to 7 auditing best practices.
1. Is your offer in good shape?
For a landing page to perform well, there has to be a market for what you’re offering. Here are several things to examine to make sure that your offer has value:
Your target audience wants what you’re offering. Your research should verify that the people you’re trying to reach find your offer valuable.
Your competition is manageable. Once you establish demand, make sure there’s not an overabundance of supply. It’s okay if you’re not the only company offering that free ebook or the latest gym equipment, but if the market is flooded with others making the same offer, it’s time to rethink it.
Don’t dismiss “soft” offers. It’s tempting to try to make a sale quickly, but many prospective customers aren’t ready to buy until they’ve first put their toe in the ecommerce pool to get familiar with a company’s brand and products. So start things off by offering complementary stuff, such as a white paper, webinar, or free trial.
Know the stage of the marketing funnel your visitor is in. Even the best designed landing pages won’t resonate if what’s being offered is appropriate for prospects who are at a different place in the sales funnel. You’re going to be making a different kind of pitch to someone who’s just learning about your product compared to someone who’s aleady signed up for a demo. Understanding your audience’s mindset based on past behavior is key to developing high-converting landing pages.
This graphic shows the three stages of a marketing funnel and what offers are appropriate for each one: