The biggest problem I see with landing pages is that people HATE them! Clients give an almost viceral shutter when I mention this idea to them – and for many of the same reasons mentioned int the blogs, I understand the nesessity of online lead capture, but anything that converts at less than 10% is saying something. problem is what is it really saying- and to whom? For as much time as we all spend testing and tweeking it’s sometimes hard to remember there is always a person behind the click.

Technology is best when used as a way to enhance relationships not replace them,… no matter how enticing the idea may be

thanks for the post
Jan Riley

You bring up some very important points. Let me try to address them.

you say “You can tell me I’m wrong to focus on them, or even to call them landing pages for that matter. But I’m unlikely to believe you.”

Let me be clear – I agree with some of the philosphy of the No More Landing pages folks. But I am in NO WAY suggesting we get rid of “landing pages.”

and I am not saying you are wrong to focus on them, I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying they NEED MORE focus.

When creating ads or driving points,the advertiser ABSOUTELY has to think about and plan for the page or pages the visitor sees when he or she clicks on that ad or driving point. let’s call that a “destination page” as you suggest.

You point out that your “destination pages” are sometimes a category page, a home page, or a product page. When a visitor lands on these pages, they have choices, links. Hopefully, these destination pages have planned pathways where the visitor chooses where he wants to go next. These pathways take into account how the visitor arrived at the site (what their driving point was – a keyword typed into a search engine, a banner ad, typing in the URL, etc.)so the content and links they see are relevant.

Too often, this “planning” does not take place.

you say: “Your blanket statements, though, don’t seem to be fair to what many marketers are doing, which is not as far wrong as the anti-landing-page blog implies.”

I’m not sure if by “anti-landing page blog” you are referring to my blog post or the NO More Landing pages blog – but let me be really clear here, because it is important.

I’m all for testing. Persuasion Architecture is based on the foundation that by planning scenarios ahead of time, you can atually plan for and test every click in the scenario. It’s a beautiful thing. You can not improve results of you don’t test. Clearly defined testing/optimization should be done on all your online conversion efforts.

I do not believe testing and tweaking is evil – I believe it is an absolute necessity.

you refer to “persausion” and “plumbing” – we have something similar at Future now, we refer to it as “persuasion” and “conversion” – if you have conversion stumbling blocks, they affect EVERYONE – and those have to be addressed up front.

Where I agree with No More Landing Pages is – when we provide a landing page or destination page that is a “closed funnel” – a single page where everyone has the exact same experience – that does not take into the account different buying modalities or stage of the buying process or visitor intent – then, yes, we are missing opportunities to do better.

thanks for bringing up those important points.

How do they “land”? They land from banners. They land from direct nav. They land from organic search referrals. They land from inbound links. They land from paid search referrals. In the latter case, you have to call them something. Practically speaking we can call them destination URL’s or landing pages… but we have to call them something.

Obviously, not all landing pages are created equal. Indeed, according to your definition, maybe what I call a landing page isn’t a landing page. Or what I use as a landing page shouldn’t be my “focus.” You tell me.

I’ll sometimes test 2-3 different destination URL’s as part of a certain kind of ad test. It might be a category page, a home page, and the product page. I am happy to call all of these landing pages, or none. What I care about most is that I figure out which performs the best – roughly speaking, in ROI terms. It’s usually fairly clear. Or I could multivariate test one of those pages. And yes, I guess that’s that evil testing and tweaking of a single landing page you’re ranting about. Well you know what? It works!!! Doesn’t have to mean the marketer is necessarily blind to context, to the 360 degree view of advertising.

I’m a very practical guy. I see too many campaigns to give up on just focusing on getting paid search advertisers to implement the basics, which includes something I happen to call landing pages.

You can tell me I’m wrong to focus on them, or even to call them landing pages for that matter. But I’m unlikely to believe you.

Multi-stage experiences? Sure, I’m all for those too. Your blanket statements, though, don’t seem to be fair to what many marketers are doing, which is not as far wrong as the anti-landing-page blog implies.

Whether we’re looking at a very specific variable in a page or an overall online marketing plan, we’re addressing to a certain degree some proportion of (1) persuasion and (2) plumbing. The latter, in my view, is underestimated. It’s all too easy to look over the horizon past the immediate obstacles.

Just read your ‘hitting the landing page wall’ – love it! Particularly the comment about not knowing what’s missing. Testing and optimization is great, and has its place. But the industry has stopped seeing the forest (the experience) through the trees (the landing page).

Anna
NoMoreLandingPages!!!