By Owen Fay . Posted on July 6, 2022Are you utilizing landing pages but don’t know if they’re optimized for your ads or users? Landing pages can be a great way to convert more users, focusing your landing pages on exactly what users are looking for can create more sign-ups, subscriptions, and sales.
A landing page is a stand-alone web page designed expressly for a marketing or advertising campaign in digital marketing. Similar to an elevator pitch, a landing page introduces your company, its products or services, and the problems it resolves. It’s the page that a visitor “lands” on after clicking on an email link, a digital ad, or another external source.
Testing your landing pages is the best way to make sure they are optimized. Preference testing is a technique to compare landing pages and determine which one will generate the most user engagement and conversions. Two options are presented to understand participants, their preferences, and any issues they might have had with a landing page.
In this blog, we will cover what a landing page preference test is, how a test is done, and why it is important.
What is Landing Page Preference Testing?
Landing page preference testing is when you create two different landing page designs and ask users what one they like the most and understand what version is most likely to convert the most users.
By asking consumers for their opinions on two distinct landing page designs, you’ll determine which one is more likely to convert users with valuable feedback and insights.
With the results in hand, you can decide which landing page design should be launched and optimized to increase conversion rates in the shortest amount of time. Using this pre-live testing technique, you can prototype your landing pages and compare designs, providing you with important feedback to find problems, modify designs, and build engaging landing pages based on user insights.
However, remember that preference testing isn’t necessarily accompanied by conversions. To gain a complete picture of the success of your landing page, you need to monitor conversion rates once you do identify the best design in a pre-live environment.
With landing page preference testing you can understand what parts of the page need to be changed or what elements are most impactful, including:
- Graphic design and branding
- User interactions
- Navigation layout
- Copy, language, and tone
- Layout of the page and information structure
As you can see, preference testing extends beyond user interactions on landing pages, it can also help with digital ads, experience design, prototyping, design optimization, and more.
How to Preference Test a Landing Page
Before you run a preference test on landing pages it is essential to identify the goal and have a plan. Although testing everything is better than testing nothing, a planned process will increase landing page conversion rates through insights, feedback, and identifying issues before launch.
The following are some of the steps to follow when running a landing page preference test with Poll the People:
Creating Design Variations
Designing your landing page is the first step in testing it. You need two versions of your landing page; they need to be different enough to identify the changes but have the same message or goal.
You can change things like the copy, colors, images, or layout to understand what works best for the users.
Participants are presented with the options side by side before being asked to study each one individually and answer the test question. If your design alternatives are too similar, your participants may fail to distinguish what they’re being asked to judge, so make sure to be specific about what you are testing.
Testing Method
The next step is to identify a testing method, we suggest using a remote and unmoderated testing platform like Poll the People. We offer the fastest and most cost-effective way to test your landing pages. Once you sign-up, you will choose the landing page preference test template and input your designs.
Plan how you’d like test participants to share their opinions depending on what you want to get out of the test. You might be compelled to use a preference test to settle a disagreement between two versions. A question like “Which design is the best?” could provide this result. The problem is that, while the users are equipped to give their opinion, they are most likely not design experts.
Alternatively, you can propose more specific questions, like:
- What landing page do you prefer?
- What landing page is more engaging?
- Which landing page are you more likely to sign-up on?
Any question that identifies the page that users like most and find most useful will help you optimize your pages. If you want to ask a more generic question, we recommend “What design do you prefer?” because it encourages participants to think about their own preferences rather than which design is better.
Participants are far more equipped to speak about their preferences than they are to speak about what constitutes good design. You can optimize your pages by asking any question that identifies the page that users like and find most useful.
Identify the Audience
The third step is to choose the audience you want to test with. Our platform offers a panel of over 500,000 dedicated participants ready to answer your questions and help you make better decisions. The panel is 90% based in the U.S. but we offer advanced criteria and segmentation that lets you test with exactly who you need feedback from.
Choosing the audience you test with is important, we recommend testing with a general audience that represents the average web user. This will give you feedback similar to an average visitor. However, if you want more specific feedback from users from only one industry or demographic group the platform has that ability too.
Review and Launch
Finally, review the test and launch it after you are certain that the audience is ideal, the question is strong, and the versions of your pages are accurate. It will take less than an hour to get the results.
Analyze Results
The most important part of preference testing is to gather feedback from users and analyze it. With Poll the People participants are required to choose their preferred variation and give a detailed explanation of why they choose it.
The results dashboard will give you both quantitative feedback showing you what design won and qualitative feedback that comes in the form of user explanations. You will be able to view, analyze, and share the data to understand the insights that help you optimize your designs and help with future decisions.
You can filter the responses into smaller groups to obtain a clearer idea of how many people had similar opinions or preferences. Qualitative feedback is critical because it enables you to identify new areas for improvement, helping with future design decisions.
If you want to keep creating the finest landing pages, make sure to study every aspect of your results.
Why is it Important to Test a Landing Page?
Landing page testing is vital to converting users, first because you only have about 4 seconds to capture the visitors’ attention. You need the landing page to be engaging and give users exactly what they’re looking for.
Second, the landing page is the stage in the customer journey that is most vulnerable to abandonment. If the page doesn’t show users that you can solve their problem, they will leave and find a business that gives them what they want.
Landing page testing helps you optimize pages to ensure you are getting the maximum return on your investments. They need to be the best they possibly can be to convert the most visitors.
The last reason landing page testing is so important is the more you test and optimize the better your conversion rates will be. If you want to get more customers, sales, or subscriptions, testing makes that possible.
Landing pages eliminate unnecessary details and get to the point and often have just one objective for your business, like a purchase or sign-up. In the end, landing pages help to improve conversion rates and gradually reduce the cost of acquiring new leads.
Testing is an essential step in creating landing pages. It’s your job as a marketer to figure out what will compel people to click on a particular CTA. You’ll increase the return on your investment by creating a strategy around your landing page and marketing campaign.
Conclusion
Now that you have a firm grasp of the straightforward changes you can make to your landing pages, you can start creating ones geared toward your target audience. You can start learning more about your user and create better products, services, and landing pages, by gathering rapid user insights.
Landing page preference tests are one of the simplest ways to collect feedback from your customers when it comes to user acceptance and Poll the People is the fastest and most cost-effective platform. Poll the People empowers product and design teams to create custom tests and gain user feedback in just one hour. Get closer to your users and capture real insights as they happen. Sign up for free with Poll the People and explore our website if you’re ready to start optimizing your business.
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