Dedicated one-button AdWords landing page: trial rate ~22% to ~28%
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSending AdWords clicks to a dedicated landing page built around one main sign-up button lifted conversion to free trial from about 21-22% to about 28%.
Patrick McKenzie made this change for the new web version of Bingo Card Creator and reported it on the Kalzumeus (patio11) blog.
It was a before/after comparison against past averages, not a split test.
- Conversion to trial: about 21-22% to about 28% over the last 1,000 visitors.
- The main button got over 180 clicks and the text link above it about 40 more, from those 1,000 visitors.
- The author worked out that the same ad spend now gave about a third more trials, cutting acquisition cost by about 25%.
The change
A dedicated ad page built around one main sign-up button
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
AdWords clicks landed on general site pages. These usually turned about 18-22% of paid clicks into trials.
Variant
A page made only for ad traffic, focused on one large sign-up button, with a matching sign-up-free text link just above it.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- One clear goal on the page leaves visitors with fewer choices and less to figure out.
- A page built for ad visitors can match what they searched for instead of serving every kind of visitor.
- A big, obvious button plus a matching text link catches both people who scan and people who read.
Caveats: Before/after, not a split test, compared with the author's historical average, over about 1,000 visitors in 2009. The web version of the product had just launched, which may also have affected conversion.
Who ran it
Patrick McKenzie ran this test and published the results (Kalzumeus (patio11) blog). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Patrick McKenzie →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we send paid traffic to a dedicated page with one main sign-up button, then more visitors will start a trial because the page has a single clear next step.
- Primary metric
- Paid-traffic conversion to trial
- Guardrails
- Trial-to-paid rate
- Cost per acquisition
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- SaaS and lead-gen businesses that send paid search traffic to the home page or general pages. It matters less if you already have focused, campaign-specific landing pages.
Questions
Should paid search traffic go to the home page?
Usually it does better on a page made for that ad.
Here a dedicated page lifted trial conversion from about 22% to about 28%.
How many calls to action should a SaaS landing page have?
One goal is best, though you can repeat it.
In this test a big button and a matching text link both led to the same sign-up.
How does a higher landing page conversion rate affect ad costs?
The same spend brings more sign-ups, so cost per acquisition falls. The author estimated about a 25% drop.