Stripped-down PPC landing page with 3-field form: +88% conversions
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsBusinesSuites replaced its text-heavy PPC landing page with a stripped-down page and a three-field form, and the conversion rate rose 88% while cost per action fell 45%.
The office space provider ran this as a 50/50 split of paid search traffic, with help from its agency 3Q Digital, and it was published as a MarketingSherpa case study.
Many changes shipped together, so no single element gets the credit.
- +88% conversion rate versus the old pages.
- -45% average cost per action.
- BusinesSuites rolled the new page out to all paid search, and the lift continued.
- Leads from the new page behaved differently in the sales pipeline, so the sales approach had to change. Watch lead quality, not just form fills.
The change
Long copy, addresses and maps give way to a short page and form.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A paid search landing page with long blocks of text about the services, lists of location addresses and maps, and a six-field quote form.
Variant
A short page with a market headline ('We have offices available in' plus the market), one office photo, a few bullets, award logos and a three-field form. Addresses, maps and the phone number were removed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Less copy and no distractions point every visitor to the form.
- Three fields feel faster than six. Name and contact fields were merged, and the company field was dropped.
- Visitors early in their search needed to know BusinesSuites served their city, not the exact street address.
Caveats: Bundled: copy, layout, form length and location details all changed at once, so the lift can't be tied to one element. Sample size and duration were not shared, and the data is from 2015.
Who ran it
BusinesSuites ran this test and published the results (MarketingSherpa case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on BusinesSuites →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we cut our paid landing page down to a clear headline, one image, short bullets and a short form, then more visitors will convert because there is less to read and less to fill in.
- Primary metric
- Landing page conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Cost per acquisition
- Lead-to-sale rate
- Lead quality as scored by sales
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen businesses with steady paid search traffic and long, text-heavy landing pages. It may not fit when visitors need lots of detail before they will enquire, or when your sales team can't handle less-informed leads.
Questions
Do shorter landing pages convert better for PPC?
Often, when visitors already know what they want.
BusinesSuites saw an 88% lift, but alongside a shorter form and other changes.
How many form fields should a lead form have?
As few as you need to follow up.
BusinesSuites went from six to three by merging fields and dropping one that didn't predict lead quality.
Can shorter forms hurt lead quality?
They can change it. BusinesSuites found the new leads knew less about the company and needed a different sales approach.
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