We’ve all had our ecommerce email marketing fail at some point. You carefully plan an email campaign that will help you sell a lot of products. After you build a beautiful HTML template and write engaging copy, you can test your subject line to see if it is effective. You implement an obvious and compelling call to action.
Even after all that work, the ecommerce landing page that your email directs people to still has a high bounce rate or worse, a low conversion rate.
What gives?
It’s possible that your emails are making promises that your click-through destination can’t keep. If you send out a 15% off promotion for dog treats and link your audience to a page with no mention of the discount, they will be confused and lose interest quickly.
Your conversion rate will decrease if the messaging in your email does not match the copy and visuals on your landing page.
It may be something you are already aware of, but feel as though you do not have the necessary resources to pair all of your offerings with pages specific to the campaign. Fortunately, there’s an easy fix. If you want your email and landing page campaigns to be successful, you need to make sure they match. Here’s how to make sure they match really well.
The Real Reasons Your Email Subscribers Aren’t Buying
Let’s be honest. In marketing, you sometimes don’t have to do much and that can be a issue.
Email marketing can provide some of the best returns on investment. If you manage to obtain someone’s email address, you can anticipate that they will open 14% of the emails you send them. The overall click-through rate will be just under 7%. Every dollar spent on email marketing generates, on average, $44 in revenue.
Can you still do well with your eCommerce email promotions even if you do not put much effort into them?
Not exactly. If your email’s corresponding landing page has a high rate of people leaving or a low rate of conversions, you’re not only missing out on potential revenue, but you’re also overloading your potential customers with marketing that doesn’t work for them.
Here are some of the common reasons email promos underperform:
1. Your storefront product page isn’t enough
According to the data, even if a page loads in less than two seconds, the average bounce rate is still 9%. The reason your email promotions might have a higher bounce rate could be that the destination page is not relevant to what was offered in the email.
Product pages on your online store are not a good place to do this. They are often short, lack details, and do not create a consistent experience.
2. You’ve got too many escape routes
The product pages on your online store need more work because customers can get distracted and leave too easily. There are many distractions on websites, such as menus, product navigation, and highlighted deals, that can take you away from the email you are trying to read.
Your eCommerce landing page needs to be designed to minimize distractions and optimize conversions. Always encourage your customers to go forward, not sideways.
3. You’re a victim of the paradox of choice
If you reduce the number of exit routes from your website, you may see fewer overall conversions. According to Barry Schwartz’s book, The Paradox of Choice, having the option to change your mind actually makes it more likely that you will change your mind.
The same is true for your visitors. Landing pages that only have one call to action are more effective in converting visitors into customers by 2% than pages with five or more calls to action.
4. Your landing page is trying to do too much
By making your landing pages more specific, you can use fewer words. In addition, you may find that landing pages with less copy tend to outperform pages with more copy by 14% to 11%.
Why Every Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaign Needs Its Own Landing Page
To summarize some of the things we’ve already covered, here are some of the biggest reasons that you should be pairing email promotions with dedicated landing pages:
- Avoid confusion and frustration. When someone clicks a call to action (CTA) in your email for a specific offer, they don’t want to end up on a page that doesn’t mention that promo. They may wonder if the offer is even valid.
- Target specific customer groups. More specific landing pages help you hit on more customer segments. In one example below, you’ll see how Samuraw targeted specific customer groups with unique pages for each.
- Maintain purchase momentum. A customer clicking your email offers is further in the sales cycle than a customer who just discovered your product pages. Creating specific landing pages helps you target those customers who are more prepared to buy and streamlines their path to purchase.
How to Match Your Emails with Your Landing Pages (& Maximize Conversions)
Here are some quick tips for creating landing pages that convert more of your email subscribers:
- Be consistent in design. The first thing that visitors are going to internalize is how the landing page actually looks. When someone clicks on your CTA in the email, the last thing you want to do is surprise them. To create a seamless experience, include consistent design elements like colors, fonts, and images.
- Minimize navigation. This is a landing page, not a launching page. Yet too few eCommerce marketers seem to realize that: only about 16% of landing pages are free of a navigation bar. Be sure you’re not in the other 84%.
- Reduce friction. Automatically fill in whatever information you can for visitors on your landing page. For example, if they clicked on a coupon code, make sure it’s already applied to their cart. This reduces the amount of clicking a customer has to do when they’re placing an order.
- Make one offer per landing page. While 48% of landing pages make multiple offers, you can reinforce the specificity and consistency of your own promotion by focusing on just one offer per page.
- Make sure the offers match. Don’t make the mistake of promising a discount in an email without also mentioning it on the landing page. Keep the messaging precisely matched so customers don’t have to wonder if they’re in the right place.
Types of Ecommerce Landing Pages + Strategy
Landing pages should be personalized to the visitor’s interests and sales funnel. The landing page for first-time visitors who are simply exploring your site will be dramatically different from the landing page for those who have already been on your site and began shopping.
This means that you should have different landing pages for different marketing campaigns. This is important for things like awareness, remarketing, upsell, and re-engagement campaigns.
The different types of ecommerce landing pages are designed to achieve different objectives, such as increasing brand awareness or encouraging customers to buy another product. The content will vary depending on the CTA.
Here’s a breakdown of the 4 types of ecommerce landing pages:
1. Top of funnel landing page
The purpose of top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) landing pages is to introduce your eCommerce site to new visitors.
This page can be used for lookalike campaigns targeting audiences that are similar to your current customers. Visitors who are new to your brand may be interested in your products.
As this is your first impression, this page could include content like:
- Your brand story and why you exist
- Solutions your products offer
- Social proof to establish credibility
At this point, it’s unlikely that visitors are ready to make a purchase, so the CTA should be focused on building a connection and generating leads. An example of how you can increase conversions on your website is by offering a discount, such as 10%, on their first purchase when they sign up for your newsletter. When you offer a discount for people who sign up for your email list, you give them the incentive to come back to your website. You will also be able to reach them again in the future without having to spend money on advertising.
2. Mid-funnel landing page.
Mid-funnel landing pages are designed for customers who have shown interest in your site but have not yet converted.
This page will be for retargeting campaigns. These visitors are already familiar with your brand and may even have a few items picked out, but they still need extra convincing.
The content on this page should be designed to persuade those who are undecided about something to take action. This can include:
- Content around specific products (i.e. a headline like “If you can’t stop thinking about it, buy it”)
- Social proof to show who else has bought the product and positive reviews
- Sense of urgency or limited-time offers (i.e. “Almost Gone”)
A CTA on a landing page that encourages a purchase is most likely to succeed when it is placed above the fold. A button with the text “Buy Now” is an example of this. The ease of purchase encourages customers to finalize their transaction immediately.
3. Bottom-funnel landing page.
Bottom-funnel landing pages are designed to get customers who have already been on your site and added everything they want to a shopping cart to finally hit buy.
This page is for convincing customers to buy more products, as they are already thinking about buying and there is a chance to offer them more products.
Content that encourages customers to buy more product is known as upselling content. This type of content is designed to not only persuade customers to make a purchase, but to buy more of the product than they originally intended. This includes:
- Bundle offers (i.e. Complete your order with….”)
- Content around related products (i.e. “Frequently Bought Together” items)
- A discount related to cart abandonment, such as free shipping
This page’s CTA focuses on closing the deal first. Then, try to sell more expensive products to increase your average order value. A CTA that says “Make Your Order Complete” with content specifically promoting bundles related to the customer’s abandoned cart is an example of how you can improve your abandoned cart emails.
It is advisable to first test the upsell and then proceed to offering discounts.
Must-Try Best Practices For Your Landing Pages
All the pages you’ll create will be different and cater to specific ad campaigns, customer segments, and sales funnel. There are some general guidelines that tend to produce good results for eCommerce landing pages.
Here are the must-try best practices:
1. Limit the clutter.
Your landing page should be easy to understand and follow. This means limiting the clutter on your page.
You don’t want your website to be so complicated that potential customers get overwhelmed and click away, or can’t find the button to make a purchase.
Some tips for limiting the clutter include:
- Concise, to-the-point headlines
- Visible and clear CTA (more below)
- Removing site navigation links
- Relevant, high-quality images
- Bullet points for product details
you only have a few seconds to make a good impression on website visitors It is unlikely that readers will sit and read through an entire page of text, especially if there is a lot of it.
2. Include a visible, clear CTA.
As soon as visitors land on your page, they should be aware of what your offer is and how they can benefit from it.
To accomplish this include a visible, clear CTA.
Other pages on your site can have multiple calls to action, but your landing pages should only have one. It is easier for visitors to make a decision when they only have one choice, rather than having to compare and choose between multiple options. This makes it easier for visitors to be converted into customers without distractions.
The call-to-action button should be easily visible and accessible, and should be aimed at specific customers. This can be done by:
- Placing your CTA at the top of the page, above the digital fold
- Including multiple buttons for a single CTA throughout the page
- Using active voice for button text (i.e. Sign up for Free)
- Create a sense of urgency or exclusivity (i.e. Claim Your Offer Now)
3. Use high-quality images.
Images are important on landing pages because they only have a limited amount of time and space to convince visitors. A photo is worth a thousand words.
Make sure that the images you use for your landing page are high quality and fit in with the overall objective of the page. If the purpose of the page is to promote mid-funnel campaigns for specific products, then it would be helpful to use images of those products.
Be sure that images are optimized for all devices. As mobile devices become more popular, people are using them more and more for online shopping. Your images should be the right size for a phone so that people don’t have to zoom out or scroll down to see the whole image.
Start creating your eCommerce landing pages
Ecommerce landing pages are a more effective way to reach your customers and satisfy their shopping needs, due to customers having more options and the rising costs of digital advertising.
You can create eCommerce landing pages that fit your marketing campaigns and target audiences by using the best practices in this article. Having a clear understanding of your customers is important in order to persuade them to not only stay on your site, but to also make a purchase. Personalization can go a long way in helping to achieve this goal.
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