I wrote a few more words on the ad landing page, and the conversion cost doubled. The boss was so distressed that he cried...

Not long ago, I participated in a click test on a trade-in ad at an appliance store.

In the landing page of this advertisement, the merchant focuses on introducing the types of home appliances that can participate in the old-for-new program. The content itself is very attractive, and if users read it one by one, they should quickly make the decision to participate. However, next to the "Register Now" button, there is a "View Details" button just in case the user doesn't know how to operate it.

This button has a huge temptation - every time a user who intends to participate in the event is ready to register, he will click on that link first. As a result, no user registered successfully.

According to the original idea , the merchant thought that the "View Details" button could provide some help to users who did not know much about the event details, allowing them to better participate in the event, but the effect was just the opposite. This button shook the confidence of every user who was close to completing the event.

Coincidentally, a friend of mine also encountered a similar problem when placing information flow ads for game downloads: he could have simply put a "Download Now" button on the landing page, but the boss insisted on adding a "Go to Official Website" button.

The optimizer refused, believing that this would affect conversions . But the boss insisted: Let people go to the official website to learn more.

That’s right, the monitoring results of the click heat map are the same as what the boss thought: most users will go to “Enter the official website” to touch it (Note: the brighter the color, the more people click it).

However, after analyzing the user browsing path, the optimizer found that after the user arrived at the official website, he never returned to the landing page.

In order to eliminate interference from other factors, the optimizer even conducted AB testing by random sampling of large samples with controlled variables. The result was the same as he worried about at the beginning: after adding one more button, the conversion cost was twice as high as when there was only one "Download Now" button!

Why does adding a button result in such a big difference in conversion rate?

Because this button directs users out of the conversion funnel .

Let’s look at the picture together:

The original ideal situation is: users are attracted by the entrance creativity and landing page in turn, and the next step is to click to download the APP/click to register, and a conversion is completed.

But now there is an additional button to view details/official website, and it becomes : users are attracted by the entrance creativity and landing page in turn, and then go to the official website to learn more. After learning more, they find the button to return to the landing page, and then download the APP /click to register, and a conversion is completed .

To put it simply, the conversion that could have been completed in one step was broken down into three steps by the bosses.

If the user follows these three steps and completes the conversion, that would be fine. But the users all ran away. Not only this case, but many similar advertising cases have shown that these two extra steps will not only not help the boss retain users better, but will drive users away faster.

I think Occam's razor is a particularly appropriate explanation. He emphasized: Never waste too much and do things that can be done well even with less things - for example, you can obviously keep users in one step, but you have to use three steps to "drive" users away.

Oftentimes, advertisers always want to give users more information, so landing pages are always filled with text and various buttons that are supposedly for users to learn more information. Yes, this is very much from a user perspective. Normally, when users want to buy something or make a decision, they want to know more. But you have to know that no matter how much text you put in or how many buttons you add, you can never give users exhaustive information.

Due to the limitations of individuals' own way of thinking, users do not have the ability to distinguish how much is too much and how much is too little. Even if you only give them part of the information, they can still make a choice . Moreover, compared with complex information, simpler information is more conducive to users' thinking and decision-making.

Looking back at the two examples mentioned at the beginning of this article, whether it is "Learn more details" or "Go to the official website", it is creating trouble for users and is a path that should not exist.

If it weren't for the boss's superfluous and unnecessary actions, users might have downloaded and converted on the landing page the first moment they became interested. Why can’t you wait until users sign up or download your app before guiding them to learn about you? Is your KPI based on the number of APP downloads or visits to the official website?

An important feature of an excellent landing page is knowing how to keep the page simple. No matter how complex the content is, it should be presented and interacted with in the simplest possible form.

We can go to the mobile version of major shopping websites to see how they design the checkout function.

On a clean page, users only have two choices: buy or leave .

However, other pages will have various shopping guide links, such as the following picture:

I think most users won’t notice the difference — they’re busy filling out forms to buy something. But sellers know that if they put these links back, users will click on them and the sales opportunities will disappear. During the checkout process, there is no need to tell users anything else that is not related to checkout. Any interference will cause users to give up the idea of ​​purchasing, so everything that can be deleted should be deleted.

The same is true for the registration process of various e-commerce platforms. Users can log in directly with a third-party account (such as WeChat ) without having to provide any personal information. Only when placing an order will they be prompted to fill in the recipient's address and phone number. However, if the platform is eager to obtain user information and requires users to fill in their telephone contact addresses during the registration process, it will inevitably reduce the user's registration conversion rate . Applying Occam's razor principle, it can also be said that filling in this part of the content is not necessary during the registration process. Since it is not necessary, "do not add entities."

Having said so much, I hope that when you make a landing page, you will clearly know your tasks, confirm which actions are necessary and which are dispensable in the current stage, and provide users with a smooth decision-making path .