Landing Page Letdown and Conversion Impact

According to a new study* by Engine Ready, a San Diego-based search marketing firm, the best conversion comes from visitors who arrive via a bookmarked URL or a URL they type directly.

To be a bookmarked URL, we all know it means the site is a favorite and that would clearly indicate a loyal shopper is visiting. Long live the loyal shopper! And for someone to type your URL directly, we’re talking about a site with a solid brand and an easy to remember URL.  Again this visitor is likely another very motivated shopper with intent to buy.

According to the study which included e-tailers in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG), home improvement and clothing categories: “These brand-driven consumers have the highest conversion rate (at 3.3%) and spend just over $170 per order. In terms of engagement, direct access visitors averaged 312 seconds on-site per visit and viewed an average of six pages each time.”

Not far behind, sitting in the second most valuable spot are visitors who arrive via a link from another Web site or email. According to the study, these visitors are “converting about 3% of the time, and spending about $168 per order. And while they spent some 246 minutes on-site and viewed an average of four pages on each visit, these referral visitors had the highest bounce rate (when a visitor leaves a Web site without viewing any other pages or before a specified time frame, such as 10 seconds). Referral traffic bounced off of the landing page nearly 50% of the time. ”

Did you read that? Referral traffic is bouncing nearly 50% of the time. Why? Well I would say it’s because the landing page isn’t measuring up. Visitors are compelled enough to click links from other sites or emails and yes, this is good. But unfortunately, all too often, the landing pages miss the mark - i.e. they fail to deliver the right message at the right time. Now of course, there could be occasions where mystery links are unclear so visitors click thinking they are going to see one thing and instead they see another. That’s a whole other issue.

But regardless, when someone hits a landing page, the e-tailer has a very small window of opportunity. If the first impression is anything other than relevant, the visitor will move on. To make the most of that first impression, it’s all about creating a personalized landing page and web experience that fulfills a visitor’s needs (throughout the click-stream process). So what can e-tailers do to fulfill visitors’ needs and improve the overall web experience?

In my opinion, the only way it will improve is when e-tailers start thinking differently by shifting more budget into the overall online experience. Gobs of money are spent driving web site traffic - this is well documented. But not enough is being spent to ensure the visit is a good, long one that results in conversion.

Clearly this sweet spot (aka the landing page) has room for improvement…because all to often it’s not putting the unique interests of the customer first. For the 50% of the traffic that does stick around, you can bet they’re seeing what they want when they want it. Ideally they’re having a personalized web experience that changes dynamically, in real-time depending on the keyword they arrive with, the length of their visit, the depth of their visit, their click-stream path and so on.

This respect for the landing page is exactly what Danskin, a Sitebrand customer does. Using the Sitebrand Retail Marketing Suite, Danskin ties its web marketing initiatives to other initiatives like email and keyword campaigns to create a more integrated and holistic marketing program. By doing so, they are able to create landing pages that are personalized by user-generated search terms. I repeat…landing pages that are personalized by user-generated search terms. Naturally, this strategy leads to higher conversion because visitors are seeing what they want when they want it. If you’re interested in all the details, you should read the Danskin Case Study.

*Note: I didn’t have a link to the study when I first posted, but thanks to a comment by Brian Lewis from Engine Ready, I can now tell you that the complete study - called “PPC vs SEO - The Final Round” - can be downloaded at: http://engineready.com/company/industrystudy/index.html

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Posted in Carolyn Gardner, Conversion, Email marketing, Optimization, Personalization, Search Marketing, Web Analytics, eCommerce