Dedicated landing page for brand search ads: +202% click-to-lead
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsSending paid brand search visitors to a short, fast-loading landing page instead of the homepage lifted click-to-lead rate by 202%.
Penn Foster, an online career college, ran this A/B test itself, and it was published as a VWO case study.
Click-to-enroll also went up, though the size of that gain was not shared.
- Click-to-lead rate: +202% versus the homepage. This was the primary metric.
- Click-to-enroll also increased, according to the team. The exact figure was not shared.
- About 35,000 visitors took part over 24 days, split 50/50. Confidence level was not shared.
The change
Homepage replaced by a short, fast landing page with two clear CTAs.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
Paid brand search ads sent visitors to the main Penn Foster website homepage, with the full site's navigation and content.
Variant
The same ads sent visitors to a separate landing page built for a high mobile speed score. It carried less information and two clear calls to action: request information or enroll.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- Brand searchers already know the school, so they mostly want one next step, not a tour of the whole site.
- Less content means fewer distractions and fewer ways to drift away from the form.
- Two clear CTAs matched the two main intents of brand traffic: learn more or enroll now.
- a faster mobile page likely cut bounces from ad clicks, though speed was not tested on its own.
Caveats: The whole destination changed (content, layout, CTAs and speed), so the lift can't be credited to any one element. Data is from 2020.
Who ran it
Penn Foster ran this test and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Penn Foster →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we send paid brand search traffic to a lean, fast landing page with one or two clear CTAs instead of our homepage, then more clicks will become leads because high-intent visitors reach the next step without distraction.
- Primary metric
- Click-to-lead rate from paid brand campaigns
- Guardrails
- Lead-to-enroll or lead-to-sale rate
- Cost per lead
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen businesses such as schools, insurers and service firms that send branded paid traffic to their homepage. It probably matters less if your homepage is already a focused lead page, or if brand visitors mainly want account login or support.
Questions
Should paid brand search traffic go to the homepage?
Not always. In this test a dedicated landing page tripled click-to-lead rate compared with the homepage.
Brand searchers often want a quick next step, and a focused page gives them that.
How many CTAs should a lead-gen landing page have?
Usually one or two that match what visitors came to do.
Penn Foster used two: request information or enroll. More options can split attention.
Does page speed matter for paid landing pages?
It often does, especially on mobile, where slow pages lose ad clicks before they load.
Penn Foster built the new page for a high mobile speed score, though speed was not tested separately.
Similar tests
KlientBoost
Seer Interactive