Marketers

5 Key Elements for Effective Pardot Landing Pages

By Lucy Mazalon

Landing Pages are standout web pages with a specific purpose to convert unknown Visitors into Prospects. Landing Pages are a key part of your lead generation strategy, guiding prospects towards the call to action you want them to take minus distractions.

The average landing page conversion rate is 5-15%. Take a look at your landing pages, are they achieving this?

Are you using Pardot Landing Pages to their full potential? This post will cover 5 elements that any effective Landing Page has, and as an integral part of the marketing funnel.

If Landing Pages are not part of your Pardot lead generation strategy, then you too will benefit from discovering these tricks early on, and saving yourself time in the long-run.

Key Element 1: The Message

The words you put on the Landing Page are so important. You should communicate your message concisely. You can use ‘concisely’ interchangeably with space efficient also. This isn’t time to recount your organisation’s entire history, or dump every single benefit your product/service could have.

Tell your visitors why you’re different, what action you want them to take, and how to make that action. Many landing pages are not direct enough, and dance around without getting to the point – the point being the call to action (which I will address in Point 3).

Key Element 2: The Layout

Following on from Point 1, an optimised layout will help get your message across in the most effective way.

Essentials for your Landing Page layout include:

  • Headline
  • Subtitles
  • Form (if the call to action requires them to submit information)
  • Bullet points
  • Testimonials, also known as ‘Social Proof’

Landing Pages should be a distraction-free space, so:

  • Strip out navigation (moreover, navigation is a pain to place, and maintain on Landing Pages)
  • Reduce the size of images to improve load time. The longer your page takes to load, the more likely your prospect will give up waiting, and exit.

Pardot provides a number of Stock Layout Templates. From the ‘Import Layout’ dropdown, on the Layout Template edit page, you can download ones for the following use cases:

  • Gated Download
  • General
  • PPC/SEM
  • Sales Ready
  • Webinar Event

These are based on industry best practice, so even if you don’t choose to use them, it’s certainly worth noting the layout and what information is where.

If you would like to use these templates, here’s some brief instructions.

The idea is to import these templates, apply your own branding, then edit the rest of the content on the Landing Page editor. To clarify:

  • Download Stock Layout Templates, navigate to:
    [Pardot Classic] Landing Pages → Layout Templates
    [Pardot Lightning] Content → Layout Templates
  • Edit content, navigate to:
    [Pardot Classic] Landing Pages → Landing Pages
    [Pardot Lightning] Content → Landing Pages

You will select your layout template in one of the steps.

 

Example: The ‘Gated Download’ Template

 


Example: The ‘Sales Ready’ Template

Key Element 3: The CTA

CTA stands for call to action. I’ve covered how important the call to action is in Point 1; what should you do to your CTA to make it more powerful other than just sharp messaging?

The obvious that springs to mind is cosmetic:

  • Button style: stand out colours even experiment outside of your brand colours, Ensure text colour contrasts from the button itself.
  • Button wording: restrict to between 1-3 words. 4 if you absolutely must.

The Pardot Landing Page builder does offer button functionality (screenshot below). Although it’s simple drag and drop, however, it is limited; I recommend styling at the Layout Template template level, especially if you want to include custom fonts or special hover effects.

Ensure that button styling is consistent across form call to action buttons and others on the page. This is a common gotcha if you are using different layout templates for your form and landing page. Avoid this by using only one, and combining form and landing page styling in one template (you may have to speak to a dev to have this done properly, but it will be worth it!).

Key Element 4: The Audience

This point is commonly overlooked. It’s worth reiterating that Landing Pages have a specific CTA aimed at a specific audience.
Where will the people who land on your landing page have come from? Here are some popular sources that spring to mind:

  • Email
  • Digital Advertising/Paid Search
  • Social Media

Ensure the right people land on your landing page in first place. Thinking backwards will help you think forwards. You can control landing page traffic to a certain extent:

  • Email: make sure the email goes out to a segmented list that would find this landing page relevant. There’s no issue in using this for a cross-sell campaign, but have realistic expectations for your conversion rate.
  • Digital Advertising/Paid Search: be conscious about which Landing page you use when the wrong landing page could lose you money on PPC.
  • Discoverability: you have the option to hide your landing page from search engine results (see image below). Good to know if you want to restrict traffic you’re driving to the page.

 

 

Key Element 5: The Continuum

You’ve decided on your CTA, and styled it so it’s unmissable. What should happen when someone clicks on it?

Here are some options:

  • Display a thank you message in the form’s place
  • Display a thank you message on another landing page
  • Redirect to a page of your website

These are all set on the ‘Completion Actions’ section of the Form Wizard.

Thank you content is displayed after the form is filled out:

If you want to redirect to another page, insert the link in the redirect URL box:

NB: if this checkbox is ticked, the Thank you Content won’t be displayed. It’s one or the other.

The Thank You message only scratches the surface of marketing automation!

Using Google Analytics or Google Adwords Conversion Tracking? You will need to paste your tracking code in the correct place. This Knowledge Article explains where is best for your specific setup.

Completion Actions allow you to kick off a wide range of marketing actions and data management. You will find these on the same page:

A post on the most popular completion actions will follow shortly, giving you guidance on how to automate your marketing effectively.

Summary

This post has covered 5 elements that any effective Landing Page has.
The message, layout, CTA, audience and continuum will ensure that prospects are guided towards the call to action you want them to take, therefore making Pardot Landing Pages an integral part of your lead generation strategy.

The Author

Lucy Mazalon

Lucy is the Operations Director at Salesforce Ben. She is a 10x certified Marketing Champion and founder of The DRIP.

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