Landing Page vs. Home Page

So you’ve decided that your company is finally ready to get with the digital times and run a digital, direct response campaign. You’ve spent your time carefully deciding on what the perfect ad copy, message, tone, and audience should be. Feel like your campaign is ready to launch? Not so fast.

You’ve forgotten the most important piece of the puzzle that will ultimately bring in the business your campaign was designed to drive: your landing page.

Direct response ads should never drive customers directly to your website to fend for themselves. Your website’s homepage was designed for people who already have heard of your company and know what you do.

Homepage visitors vs. landing page visitors

A user who hits your homepage likely was referred to you and is a previous or current customer who doesn’t necessarily need to be sold on your product or service. These visitors are likely on your site to just educate themselves with more information.

Generally, people who find themselves on your landing page are new to your company, products or services. They need to be educated, feel comfortable and ultimately be convinced to act immediately while on your page.

Key differences

While a homepage interaction is more exploratory, a landing page interaction needs to be simple, direct and not allow for any type of navigation—that allows too many options. Landing pages are all about driving conversions. Though conversions to buy are the ultimate goal, just as important are conversions that involve obtaining user information about the visitors.

Match ad content with landing page content

While there are plenty of best practices for creating a landing page, like A/B testing and performance optimization, the most important one is to make sure that you have a message match between the ads the users have clicked and the page they’ve landed on.

After clicking an ad, studies have shown that a user makes the decision almost immediately whether to continue reading or close out of the window based upon how relevant the landing page is.