A landing page is not judged on its design. It is judged on the two seconds after the click, when the visitor decides whether they are in the right place.
The matching rule
The page must answer the advert, not introduce itself.
If the advert talked about fast drying, the first screen talks about fast drying, in the same words. A visitor who has to look for the subject is a lost visitor.
The same goes for a figure: if the advert announces a duration or a quantity, the page repeats them exactly.
What goes in the first screen
Four elements, not five.
The sentence repeating the advert's promise. The video, paused on the right face. The price or its starting point. The button.
Everything else, reviews, guarantees, frequent questions, comparisons, comes after. The first screen does not convince, it confirms you are in the right place.
The video, muted by default
Autoplay with sound is the fastest way to lose a visitor.
Start the video without sound, with readable subtitles, and leave the choice of turning it on. On a phone, in a public place, half your traffic will never listen.
Also check that it does not block the rest of the display: a page waiting for the video before drawing itself loses before it has shown anything at all.
Why keep the same face all the way down
The person who convinced must stay present.
If the page then moves on to stock images, a studio and a model, the visitor changes worlds and levels of trust. Use shots from the same session to illustrate the following sections.
That is also why a shoot should always produce more shots than the video uses.
What loses the sale
A form that is too long, an unverifiable delivery promise, no mention of returns, a single means of payment, and silence about after-sales.
Add a line saying who answers in case of a problem and in what language. In this market, that line does more than most product arguments.
How many pages you need
One per promise, not one per product.
If you are testing three different hooks, you need three different first screens, even if the rest of the page is identical. It is the cheapest and most profitable work in the whole setup.
Where to place a video on a sales page
| The position | What it brings | The format to favour |
|---|---|---|
| Above the fold | Immediate understanding | Short, no sound required |
| Near the pricing block | Removing a doubt | A usage demonstration |
| Within customer reviews | Social proof | A restrained testimonial |
What makes a video fail on a page
Weight and autoplay with sound. A page taking four seconds to appear loses more visitors than it convinces, and a video that speaks unannounced gets closed before it is watched.
What to measure before concluding
The page's conversion rate with and without the video, over a comparable period. A rise observed during an ad campaign proves nothing about the video itself.
What to test first
Not the colours.
The sentence in the first screen, the video's still frame, and the position of the price. Those three elements explain nearly all the conversion gaps between two pages selling the same product.
