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The MarketingSherpa folks have published over 500 case studies on various facets of email- and interactive marketing. The good folks at Search Engine Radio provide a fascinating 3-part series where she talks about some of their findings on landing pages (just fast forward through the commericals!).

Complete series.

Some notes on what I’ve learned:

• The first 300 vertical pixels are critical. Studies show that the less junk you put there (like heavy graphical banners, large logos, and other eyecandy) the more you’ll be able to sell. A simple headline that mirrors the ad or email promotion they received along with a convincing offer outpulls most design-heavy approaches.
• Asking visitors to add a product to their cart outpulls “buy now”.
• It’s okay to upsell and cross-sell, but wait to upsell until the visitor gets to the shopping cart or thank you page. Or, send them an email in a few days with a targeted promotion.
• The most-read copy on the page will be any words that have blue underline under them! We’ve been trained to mean that this is a link on the web, but even before the web, underlining means “IMPORTANT”. Guess what? If you’re a design agency that routinely removes underlining from links, you’re doing damage to your clients. STOP IT.
• People buy from people. Landing pages with pictures of people outperform landing pages without pictures of people.
• In a lot of cases, two- and three-column layouts are inferior in terms of sales to a simple one-column layout. A very simple letter-like landing page usually outpulls a much fancier approach.
• Remove navigation, or relegate navigation to “under the fold.” This will lower confusion among visitors.
• Large type outpulls small type. Stop being afraid of scrolling! Tell your designers to stop using microfonts.
• Stop using wide pages. When you hit 50 to 60 characters, move to the next line!
• Simplify your landing page URL. www.yoursite.com/tvoffer is much easier to keep in mind.

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