When it comes to Internet marketing, anyone can agree that data is always your most important ally but, on the other hand, it can turn into an enemy as well. It’s unfortunately very easy to end up getting distracted and paying attention to things which aren’t all that important as a marketer these days and that’s why sticking with the fundamentals is always the smart thing to do.
So you need to make sure that you are analyzing data related to what is fundamentally important to your marketing campaign, and with Internet marketing that is almost always the landing page.
The landing page is simply the webpage that you have your prospects land on after you have attracted them from elsewhere – whether via a search engine or through PPC campaigns, adverts on other sites and so on. As the name suggests, the landing page is the page they see when they 'land' on your site and it is therefore the most important one to monitor.
Why You Need to Monitor Your Landing Page Statistics
Because your landing page is the first page that your prospective customers will see, it is also the first, and most important, place to learn what works and what doesn't. Therefore it is vital that you let split testing work in your favor.
What is meant by split testing is simply showing one page to one set of prospects and another page to another set (either from a different source or by using an application that alternates which page is shown).
This means that you are able to use the statistics to measure what works on a landing page and what doesn't. You can see what click throughs certain adverts generate and how visitors react once they click and visit your website. Do some headlines work better than others? Does a certain image help? These are just two of the questions you will be able to answer if you develop the habit of always testing everything.
The landing page is your first and best chance to convince prospective customers that your product or service is for them. It is where you can create that initial interest in what you are selling, therefore it is important to always make improvements.
What Statistics on the Landing Page Matter?
Because Internet marketing tools such as Google Analytics or Tracking202/Prosper202 offer such a huge number of statistics that can be monitored, it can be overwhelming to work out which statistics are the ones that are important to your landing page. For that reason, too many people try to monitor them all. The results: stress, confusion and wasted efforts.
A landing page is unique when it comes to statistics. For example, you don't need to always monitor how many seconds each and every visitor spends on your website. Of course, you need to take a peak every once in a while in order to make sure that visitors stay on your website long enough (because if they don’t, it’s back to the drawing board) but that definitely doesn’t mean that you need to get carried away.
On the other hand, it is always important to monitor how they got there: was it from search (if so, what were the most profitable keywords?), from PPC (how much did it cost, which ads were the most profitable ones?), a media buy (if so, which websites are keeping and which ones need to be dropped?)? In other words, you need to always know where your traffic is coming from.
Where they click is also important. Are they following the links that you want them to? If not, then the landing page needs some changes. Test new methods of getting them to go where you want them to: maybe some new headlines, maybe some graphics that paint a clearer picture and so on.
A landing page can ultimately make or break your campaign, so it should be obvious that you should try to leave as little to chance as possible because at the end of the day, that wouldn’t be marketing at all: it would simply be wishful thinking.
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