7 Tips for Creating High-Converting E-Commerce Landing Pages

First impressions matter.

This is especially true when it comes to your e-commerce site.

In fact, it takes about 50 milliseconds — that’s just 0.05 seconds — for users to form an opinion about whether they like your website or not and whether they’ll stay or leave.

As the entry point to your e-commerce site, landing pages play an important role in your brand’s first impression to new visitors. And beyond the initial first impression, landing pages also impact your customer engagement, conversion rates, and brand’s overall growth.

What is an e-commerce landing page?

To be put simply, a landing page is where new visitors “land” when they come to your site.

This is the page that your affiliates will send traffic to via a referral link.

We find that for most affiliate programs, this is the homepage. But if you are looking to target audiences better and increase conversion rates, consider creating a dedicated affiliate landing page (or pages).

For e-commerce, landing pages are specially designed to drive sales.

E-commerce landing pages tend to have a clear objective, which is often to motivate visitors to buy a product. This includes coordinating landing pages to match ad campaigns, specifically featuring certain products and having a call to action prompt.

Below we’ll cover why landing pages matter for your affiliate program and what you can do to optimize these landing pages for affiliate referrals.

1. Fit Your Audience Needs

As we mentioned above, the objective of most e-commerce landing pages is a sale.

However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to reaching this goal. It varies for each brand, depending on the audience, cost, product, and niche.

Short Purchasing Process
If you sell affordable sunglasses that visitors are more likely to buy on the spot, a straightforward landing page could work.

This includes featuring images of the sunglasses, a headline with a slogan or deal offers, and a call to action button for purchasing.

Long Purchasing Process
If customers need more time before purchasing — larger, more expensive, or investment-type products — a landing page would need to offer more to visitors.

The landing page would need to inform visitors while simultaneously building trust. This includes introducing your brand’s story, being social proof with customer testimonials & media features, and showing the product application.

2. Optimize for different devices

E-commerce landing pages should be designed with more than just a desktop view in mind. Especially since 51% of shoppers say that they use mobile devices to find new brands and products.

Landing pages should provide the same shopping experience, regardless of the device.

Speed
Google found that when a page’s load time goes from one second to 10 seconds, the probability of a mobile site visitor bouncing increases by 123%. Consider the size & quantity of visual content with load time, and avoid redirects.

Layout
Stick to a single-column layout rather than multiple columns. This may limit content but makes the page much easier to navigate. Use “above the fold” to display the most important details — like offers and call-to-action buttons — before a visitor has to scroll.

Content
Craft content that gets the message across in a way that is clear and direct. With limited space, avoid long-from text. Instead, use bullet points and short sentences. Text and images should complement each other without being overwhelming.

Conversion Path
Shorten the pathway (number of clicks) to checkout. Make checkout simple by only including essential form fields that are easy to complete. Also, integrate digital wallets into your payment process, so customers can easily make a purchase in one session.

Affiliate Referrals
How and where your affiliates promote will factor into your landing page design. For example, if your affiliates promote via social media, there’s a likely chance that their referrals will be using a mobile device.

With Tapfiliate’s reporting feature, you can discover what devices most of your conversions are coming from and adjust accordingly.

3. Align with your promotions

There’s nothing that will make a visitor bounce from your site faster than when they land on a page completely different from the promotion.

It’s important that you maintain your message from advertisement to a landing page. This includes headlines, products/services, branding, and, most importantly, any offers.

Highlight Offers
Landing pages should be reflective of any sales or offers being promoted in ads. If you have major sales — especially during the holidays — landing pages should be updated to reflect this.

This also includes promo codes. Promo codes are a powerful tool in getting visitors to convert, with two-thirds of consumers saying they have “made a purchase they weren’t originally planning to make solely based on finding a coupon or discount.”

Be sure to provide your affiliates with the exact promotional/discount code. Take into consideration case-sensitive characters, the exact times they will be active, and when it expires.

Personalized Promotions
If you are promoting a new product launch, the landing page should focus on the new product. Or, if you are promoting to a special audience, incorporate this group’s persona with the content.

Personalized promotions are great for affiliates, especially influencers.

For example, online clothing retailer NA-KD.com gained popularity by combining influencer promotions with personalized landing pages.

Every influencer promotion has a dedicated page for buying the products that were featured. Audiences can see an influencer’s outfit, and like it, then they can click through to a landing page where they can buy the exact same outfit.

This takes customers exactly to what they were looking for, and not having to spend time searching encourages customers to buy on the spot. And on top of that, there are usually influencer discount codes being promoted.

4. Appeal Visually

People only remember 20% of what they read, but they remember 80% of what they see.

To state the obvious, your landing page needs to look good.

This means having:

• High-quality Images
• Catchy headlines
• Clean, easy-to-navigate layout
• Fits with branding
• Consistent with promotions

Visuals are especially important to landing pages. But visuals aren’t limited to just images anymore.

Video is becoming more and more popular and producing high conversion rates.

Depending on what your e-commerce site sells, video could be a great way to display your product in action. Audiences prefer shorter videos around 1-2 minutes — and have a clear call to action built in.

Another option is interactive illustrations, animations, or GIFS. These visuals can be engaging without being a distraction. It is also a way to direct attention to a particular aspect of the landing page, like a call to action button.

And finally, images are still very effective. Images should be high quality and display your product in a relevant way. Avoid using stock photos, it’s more obvious than you think.

Keep in mind how these visuals impact speed. As we mentioned above, load time is an important factor in whether visitors stay or leave.

5. Leverage Social Proof

There’s a reason why we’ll wait for a table at a crowded restaurant rather than quickly being seated at an empty one. It’s why each year, there’s a new workout that’s believed to be the most effective (and fun) way to shed pounds. Or why any book on Oprah’s reading list skyrockets to the best-selling lists.

It’s our human nature to follow what others are doing — especially if they only have positive things to say about it.

Landing pages are a great way to leverage social proof. Highlight what customers are buying, who these customers are, and why they love your products.

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are powerful — really, really powerful.

In fact, 90% of shoppers read online reviews before they make a purchase.

This influences how future customers initially perceive your brand. Then, eventually, the buying process for whether or not they should make a purchase.

We know the effects negative reviews can have on steering customers away. But in the same way, positive reviews can be extremely helpful in encouraging those on the fence to buy.

For example, the clothing brand Free People features customer reviews on each product page. Comments like “Best sweater I own” or “This sweater is a dream, perfect for everyone” is the best promotions they could ask for.

Use customer reviews, like the example above, for landing page content. This can include:

• Customer quotes: “I love this product”
• Phrases for star ratings: “5 Star Rating”
• Customer Recommendations: “Most Recommended”

Testimonials

It’s not just about what is being said, it’s also about who is saying it.

Testimonials from big-name brands and high-profile customers can be very persuasive.

Display testimonials prominently on landing pages. Include photos and logos with the text. Aim for featuring more recognizable brands and people.

Top Products

If a lot of people are buying it, then it must be good.

As we mentioned before, social proof revolves around following the behavior of those around us. Featuring top products on landing pages is an effective way of guiding visitors through your online store. This is especially true for those first-time visitors or those who are just browsing.

This also reassures customers to purchase, making them confident in the product since it is popular among other customers.

Common phrases for these items include:

• Best Selling
• Customer Favorite
• Trending Now
• Most Liked
• Top Rated

6. Give a Clear Call to Action

If you want your site visitors to go from just browsing to becoming customers, there needs to be a clear CTA on your landing page.

Tell your customers what they need to do and make it easy for them to do it.

There are plenty of copywriting techniques that can get visitors to take action. One of the most important is your word choice. Use action-focused words. Some examples include:

• Buy Now
• Shop the Offer
• Get Code XYZ
• Get % Off
• Sign up for free
• Try Today
• Add to Bag
• Get Access

Avoid vague “click here,” “submit,” or “continue.”

Make it the focal point of the landing page. Use contrasting colors to make the button stand out. Draw attention by using whitespace, larger fonts, or visuals like arrows.

And location matters. Generally, your CTA should be above the fold in an easy-to-access location. But this can vary, especially if your products require more explanation or social proof. Heat maps are a useful way to find out where customers are clicking and where your CTA would be most effective.

7. Use A/B testing to find what works

Finally, it’s time to test. And test. Then test some more.

As we mentioned at the start of this article, there’s no one approach for e-commerce landing pages. There are a lot of factors involved, like niche, audience, products, buying process, devices, etc.

This means you’ll need to A/B test different elements of a page to see what leads to conversions and what makes customers leave.

Test the layout. Do you start with offers or social proof content? Is long-form copy or short bullet points effective? Are visitors scrolling down to see more?

Test the design. Is minimalism more appealing than lots of colors and images? If you’re using video, are visitors actually watching?

Test the copy. Is your headline exciting enough? Are descriptions clear and easy to understand? Does it provoke the right emotion?

Test the CTA. Is the CTA located in the right place? Does the CTA copy get customers to take action? What colors stand out the most?

Keep testing and tweaking various aspects of your landing pages to find out what works best.