Custom PPC landing pages for a mortgage broker: +183% conversions
Test run byKlientBoostCRO agency
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsMortgagePal saw conversion volume rise 183% in the first three months after moving paid traffic to custom landing pages and restructured Google Ads campaigns.
KlientBoost ran the work for the Canadian mortgage broker and published it as a PDF case study.
This is a before/after result from a full paid-media engagement, so the landing pages share the credit with the ad changes.
- Conversion volume: +183% after three months. This is the headline number, but it covers every change, not just the pages.
- Cost per acquisition: down 58%, and the agency says it stayed under the client's CPA goal.
- Click-through rate on ads: +54%, which points to the ad and keyword work rather than the landing pages.
- Search impression share: +39%, meaning more of the traffic was simply new reach.
The change
Ad-matched page with the form moved up and less above the fold
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Before the engagement, MortgagePal had little to no paid search presence and no dedicated landing pages for ad traffic.
Variant
KlientBoost built custom landing pages with less friction above the fold. These launched with single keyword ad groups, device and location bid changes, and a tactic the agency calls the Iceberg Effect.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Starting from almost no paid search means much of the jump is new traffic, not better conversion of the same traffic.
- Single keyword ad groups let each ad match one search closely, so the landing page can repeat the same promise.
- A lighter top section asks less of a mortgage shopper before they reach the form, which may help early-stage visitors.
- Lower CPA alongside higher volume suggests the traffic got more relevant, not just bigger.
Caveats: Agency-reported before/after of a whole paid-media engagement, with ads, keywords, bids and pages changed together. No sample size, test date or significance was shared.
Who ran it
KlientBoost ran this test for mortgage broker and published the results (KlientBoost case study (PDF)). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on KlientBoost →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we send each ad group to a landing page that matches its keyword and cuts friction above the fold, then more ad clicks will become leads because visitors see their search answered straight away.
- Primary metric
- Lead form conversion rate from paid traffic
- Guardrails
- Cost per lead
- Lead-to-application rate
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- Mortgage brokers and other lending lead-gen businesses that send paid search traffic to a generic home page. It matters less if you already run matched landing pages per ad group.
Questions
Do custom landing pages beat sending ads to the home page?
Often, because a dedicated page can match one search and one offer.
In this case the gain came with new campaigns too, so the page's own share is unknown.
What is a single keyword ad group?
It is an ad group built around one keyword, so the ad and landing page can mirror that exact search.
It trades more setup work for tighter relevance.
How do I measure a landing page's effect on its own?
Split the same paid traffic between the old and new page at the same time.
A before/after comparison mixes in changes to ads, bids and seasons.
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