Retiree association CEO featured on landing page: conversion rate up
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsHomEquity Bank featured the CEO of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) on its landing pages and reported a lift in conversion rate, without sharing a figure.
The bank's digital team ran the test, and it was published as a MarketingSherpa case study in 2017. HomEquity Bank sells the CHIP reverse mortgage to Canadian homeowners aged 55 and older.
- Conversion rate: reported as lifted. No percentage was shared.
- Sample size, duration and confidence were not shared.
- It followed a 20% lift from adding the bank's celebrity spokesperson to the form, which pointed the team toward trust signals.
The change
An endorsement from the CEO of a retirees' association is added to the landing page.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The reverse mortgage landing page with no third-party endorsement.
Variant
The landing page featuring the CEO of CARP, a group the bank's team compared to AARP in the United States, as an endorsement.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- The bank's team saw its older visitors as hesitant online, and an endorsement from their own association eases that.
- A retiree group's leader speaks for the audience, not the seller, so the message feels more neutral.
- Reverse mortgages are unfamiliar to many people, and a trusted third party makes the product feel safer to ask about.
Caveats: No figure, sample size or duration was shared, so the size of the lift is unknown. It relies on a formal partnership with CARP.
Who ran it
HomEquity Bank 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 HomEquity Bank →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we feature the leader of an organization our audience trusts on our landing page, then more visitors will inquire because the endorsement lowers their doubt about us.
- Primary metric
- Landing page conversion rate
- Guardrails
- Lead quality
- Bounce rate
- Scroll depth to the form
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen businesses with a formal partner or association that their audience already trusts. It won't work with a name the audience doesn't know, and you need permission to use it.
Questions
Do third-party endorsements help landing page conversions?
They can, especially for unfamiliar or high-stakes products.
HomEquity Bank said a CARP CEO endorsement lifted conversions, though it shared no figure.
Which is better, a celebrity or an association endorsement?
HomEquity Bank saw both help. An association leader speaks for the audience, while a celebrity brings broad recognition, so test both with your own visitors.