ABOUT GENERATION
Generation is a global nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC that drives economic mobility by placing adults into careers and advocating to improve the workforce system.
To date, Generation has helped more than 115,000 graduates across 18 countries, with 86% of them employed 180 days after graduation. They are industry and sector agnostic, helping adults who face systemic barriers train for careers in 47 different professions such as web developer, data analyst, solar panel installer, elderly caretaker, sewing machine operator, and more. The majority of Generation graduates earn above a living wage within a year of completing the program, and this percentage increases over time.
GENERATION’S BUSINESS CHALLENGES
Generation’s global marketing function targets both B2C and B2B users. Because they work with learners and employers, they need to run different campaigns when targeting funders and employers versus when targeting learners.
Juliano Allegrini was hired as the global head of marketing in 2021 and his first challenge was a B2B pilot for employers to get them involved in the job placement process. The challenge was figuring out how to drive high-quality employers to the Generation ecosystem using a mobile-first approach and targeted messaging.
Until that point, Generation had used a sales-driven approach versus a marketing approach. Now, they wanted to shift towards a more B2B approach in terms of account-based marketing that functioned as a strategic campaign, versus an individual-to-individual basis.
Juliano and his team knew they needed a robust landing page solution to help them accomplish their goals and searched the market for a viable option. Specifically, they sought a solution that allowed them to create personalized, fast, mobile-first designs that they could track in real-time while removing any developer constraints. For them, Instapage was the clear choice.
LANDING ON INSTAPAGE
When Generation first began working with Instapage, the intention was to continue the conversation from ad material before integrating into the main website and going the conversion route. They liked the idea of personalizing their landing pages depending on the country they were targeting or to match the ads they were publishing. With Instapage, the customization and personalization functionalities run deep, and the Generation team wanted to take full advantage.
The idea was that a user would click on an ad and be directed to a landing page that would further explain the messaging that was initiated in the ad. From there, if they felt they wanted to apply to Generation or get more information, they could visit the main site. Essentially, the landing page would act as a stepping stone prior to a transaction, especially for people who are on their phones and are looking for a completely mobile experience.
Another significant consideration in choosing a landing page solution was keeping in mind Generation’s global footprint. Each country creates their own ad campaigns, landing pages, messages, and designs – and the teams have varying levels of marketing expertise. With limited resources, a landing page solution would have to be user-friendly.
Instapage was a clear choice for us for various reasons, including how flexible the platform is. More than that, we wanted to provide a tool to each of our countries that could function for either B2B or B2C campaigns and that, importantly, was intuitive enough to be used on their own without having to hire additional resources. Pricing, mobile-first design, integration with Salesforce and other tools, and ease of use are all factors that played into our decision to use Instapage.
EASY TO USE, POWERFUL RESULTS
Going into 2023, the Generation team had a goal of increasing stickiness, which they defined as visitors’ engagement plus activity within their site. Although they were successful in increasing traffic to their pages, they were hoping to see visitors engaging with their site more intentionally.
They suspected that they weren’t seeing the engagement levels they wanted because their current landing pages were not mobile-friendly and were slower to load. With Instapage, they were able to create responsive, mobile-first, personalized landing pages that delivered in a big way. After redesigning every single landing page to be mobile-first in Instapage, they saw an outstanding 13x increase in results.
When they just used their website as a direct traffic source, stickiness was around 22%. Using Instapage’s landing pages as a go-between increased stickiness by 2.3x and overall engagement increased by 90%.
Switching to personal messaging and a responsive, mobile-first design was (and continues to be) key.
Motivated by their results, the Generation team eagerly uses all the Instapage features that are available to them, including carousels, exit intent pop-ups, tabbing modulars, testimonials, and support from the professional services team.
THE RIGHT SOLUTION AT THE RIGHT TIME
The Generation team is a small one and the organization is a non-profit, so time and resources are limited. When it came to overhauling the sites for each of their 17 countries at the same time, the task seemed daunting. However, with Instapage as a partner, they had a reliable way to stay on track and having access to Instapage’s professional services team and customer support in general made all the difference.
With Instapage, the customer service is great, speed is great, conversions are great; we have everything we need in a landing page system. It’s very easy to use and implement and there is so much flexibility in the platform. If you don’t have a full web team in house ready to go but you have a lot of traffic, Instapage is a great tool to use.”