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The 5 Biggest Mobile Landing Page Fails

Over 60% of search is now done on the phone. So, you would think with all that money being spent on ads that spending a few minutes reviewing the landing page (the page the ad clicks to) wouldn’t be asking too much.

Are your unoptimized images slowing down your landing page?

Apparently, it is.

Our agency comes across so many landing pages with such glaring mistakes that it’s obvious no one vetted these babies before launching them. Which is too bad because most of them could be easily found and fixed. Here are the biggest fails.

Fail #1: You never looked at the page on your phone

I’m sure when the designer showed it to you it looked lovely on your desktop– where it was probably cached. And she told you it was also mobile-friendly. Yet did you actually bother to load it on your phone? What comes up often looks dramatically different from what you saw on the desktop. And even if it looks good on your iphone, it can look squirrelly on android. Plus, if you’re viewing it for the first time, it may be taking a long-ass time to download. How many potential customers do you think are going to wait? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Fail #2 You (and the designer) never filled out the form when it was live

Once again, the form may look great on desktop but have you actually filled it out on the phone? The submit button may hidden behind some testimonial quote. Or you can find it, but when the user clicks it, there’s no obvious “thank you” message so the user ends up clicking submit another 17 times. Or maybe it goes well for the user, but you were only tracking clicks to the sign up page and not actual submissions so you’re not optimizing your campaign. It could be a lot of different things. If you have a form on your landing page, go fill it out now. I’ll wait. OK, was it clear what to do? Easy? Was the thank you message delightful and helpful?

Fail #3 The images/videos/slideshows on your page are bloated and time hogs

I know that you love all 27 photos on that landing page and asking to get rid of some of them would be like Sophie’s Choice. But before we get into the nonsense of the sheer number of photos, let’s discuss how none of the photos are optimized.  In print, the larger the file size, the more detail you will see. In digital (especially mobile) there’s a limit to how much detail the image can show. So, that photo with the crazy big file size is not going to show any more detail than the optimized photo that is 1/10th the file size. Tip: pick a main photo to feature, include a couple more if it is truly helpful for the user, and make sure they are optimized for mobile

Fail #4 The copy was not written for mobile

All your advertising– broadcast, brochures, website, and ads should have a similar tone and message. That doesn’t mean, however, you can copy and paste the same copy from your brochure and plunk it down on your mobile landing page. Mobile landing page copy needs to be digitally digested. Use clear subheads. Bullet points. Avoid long-ass blocks of text as if you were writing for a textbook (Zzzzz).  And it needs to be compelling. There are text message and instagram alerts beeping in the background that you have to compete with. Compel the user to ignore those by using copy that informs and delights, i.e. compelling.

Fail #5 You’re not following up

Ok, let’s say you have a great ad campaign and a great landing page that works great on the phone. People are filling them out for more information, requests for appointments, a free sample etc. How are you following up? How much of this can be automated? What needs a personal interaction? How are you nurturing these leads? You paid a lot of money and put in a lot of work for this. Don’t let them all sit in someone’s inbox who is on vacation (or worse, has left the company).

So, are your landing pages committing any of the fails above? It’s easy to find out. You don’t even have to be remotely technical to do it either. Simply take a few minutes to test it on your phone now.

Got more questions? Need some landing page help? Contact us.