Driving visitors to your website is great, but when it comes to conversion, your website’s homepage isn’t going to do the job. Because your homepage functions to introduce people to your site, it’s packed with links and information that distracts from your main aim: a call-to-action that brings them into the sales funnel. By having so many jobs to do orientating individuals around your site, your homepage can’t be optimized for any specific task. For conversions, you need a dedicated landing page.
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Why You Need A Dedicated Landing Page
Dedicated landing pages are sections of your website that are built to optimize conversions, meaning more sales and greater revenue. Building a dedicated landing page on your own can be a complicated and expensive process requiring web designers and research. Instapage and Unbounce offer ready-made, customizable landing pages that have a wealth of research behind them, meaning they’re optimized towards best practices for conversion.
Because landing pages are still sadly underutilized, building a dedicated landing page gives you a chance to get ahead of your competition. For example, in B2B, recent research has revealed that almost half of clicks are directed to business homepages, rather than dedicated landing pages.
Building a dedicated landing page is guaranteed to increase your conversion rate because now your users are seeing clear CTAs on a page optimized for the job. Conventional wisdom means that many brands are satisfied with conversion rates of around 2-3%, but according to Unbounce, you could see your conversion rate tripling to 9% or even more.
Also Read: What are Squeeze Pages?
Building a landing page has become an indispensable part of digital marketing. Choosing to build your own with a web developer cost start from $1000 , so using a ready-made landing page builder makes economic sense. What’s more, the landing pages you can generate through Instapage or Unbounce have been professionally optimized for conversions so you know you’re in safe hands.
These are two of the best tools on the market for anyone looking to increase their conversion rate, but which you choose will depend on the specific needs and circumstances of your brand. Read on to find out which of these landing page builders is right for your brand.
What is Instapage?
Instapage is a dedicated landing page builder designed to help marketers increase their conversion rate – by 400% according to their own analytics. Because it’s incredibly easy to use it’s a popular choice for generating a landing page which is highly personalized to your leads.
They’ve been around since 2012 and have proved themselves to be a strong competitor to Unbounce, and whilst they got into the business of landing pages, they now brand themselves as a “post-click automation platform”. What this means is that they’re redefining the landing page, conceptualising not just a static page but a whole landing ecosystem which takes place “post-click” (ie, after someone’s clicked an ad). This gives you a sense of what Instapage can offer – a full package experience for dynamic and personalized pages that take landing page functionality to the next level. It’s a hefty claim, and it comes with a hefty price tag, standing out as considerably more expensive than Unbounce.
What is Unbounce?
Since way back in 2009, Unbounce has been helping digital marketers and brands build dedicated landing pages, making them one of the first such tools on the scene. This gives them a wealth of experience that you can draw on and it’s packed with customizable features designed to help you generate more leads, and convert these to paying customers.
Whilst Instapage are redefining the landing page, Unbounce are sticking to their roots – they now call themselves “the landing page platform”. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Unbounce are doing traditional landing pages in the best way possible, at an affordable price.
Instapage vs. Unbounce: Main differences
Here are the main differences between Instapage and Unbounce that you need to know, before we get into the details.
Instapage is the more expensive option, with plans starting at $149/month. With Unbounce, you can get set up for just $79 a month. With Instapage, however, you get greater reporting and analytic tools to track your landing page’s performance. For ease of set up, Instapage comes out on top too, giving you a solid landing page from a simple template. In contrast, Unbounce offers more flexibility and customization in what you build.
If analytics is important to you, Instapage might be the way to go. But for the price, Unbounce offers exceptional value. These are two of the top dedicated landing builders on the market and you need to really understand these tools to make a choice.
Let’s get into the details of these two landing page builders so you can make an informed choice.
Instapage vs. Unbounce
Ease Of Use
Both Instapage and Unbounce offer easy page editors so you can build a great landing page straight away if you’re looking for something basic. Instapage’s editor menu system is exceptionally intuitive and even beginners to landing page builders will be able to access all their features instantly, creating perfectly customizable pages for your needs. Unbounce is easy to get started with, but their special features are more complicated for new users. Beginners are likely to prefer the streamlined usability of Instapage.
Landing Page Builder & Templates
Both Instapage and Unbounce feature a wide range of templates that will allow you to generate an optimized landing page. Instapage has more options in this regard – over 200 – but Unbounce is well-stocked with templates you can use.
Mobile optimization is available across all these templates and both tools offer Accelerated Mobile Pages for faster loading times – but only on more expensive plans.
Forms
Forms are an essential way of getting information from your users so any landing page must feature optimized forms. Both of these landing page generators allow you to create one-step or two-step forms, giving you full control about the information you ask for.
Also Read: Checkout WordPress Form Builder Plugins
Marketing Automation
Both Unbounce and Instapage offer the ability to integrate marketing automation with CRM tools such as SalesForce and email marketing tools like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor can be seamlessly built into your landing page.
Analytics & Optimization
Unbounce offers a simple report on traffic and conversion rates in their analytics so you can understand how your digital marketing strategy is benefiting from the integration of a dedication landing page. Whilst Instapage lets you dig a bit deeper into the analytics, you can integrate Google Analytics in both platforms for greater understanding of your brand’s performance.
You’ll find analytics displayed in your dashboard with both of these tools and data is displayed in a detailed visualization allowing you to process the information instantly.
Integrations
Whilst both of these tools allow you to keep your landing page hosted on their own servers, they also feature full integration of WordPress so you can publish your landing page on your WordPress site.
Whilst both of these landing page builders feature broad integrations, if your selected tools aren’t integrated into either of these options you can use Zapier, a third-party platform, to integrate your favored web apps into your landing page.
Special Features
Often, it’s in the special features that the comparison between these tools comes alive. As both Unbounce and Instapage have various unique special features, these may clinch your choice. Instapage’s Instablocks feature, for example, allows you to create a consistent brand image across multiple landing locations. Your brand is using dispersed landing pages this tool might call out to you.
Unbounce’s landing page builder stands out as a unique feature that doesn’t limit you to drag-and-drop elements: you can create fully three-dimensional landing pages that are exceptionally dynamic. Customization features on Unbounce stand out, but they take some getting used to.
Any Downsides?
These are both fantastic tools for building landing pages and we’ve mostly been looking at what you can do with them. However, each platform lacks functionality in certain areas and this could sway your decision.
Despite Unbounce being the cheaper option, its basic plan restricts what you can do somewhat. For example, A/B testing, which is important for fine-tuning your landing page, is only available with Unbounce Premium which bumps your monthly cost up to $120. Unbounce feels a little sparse in terms of features compared to its rivals, and for beginners there’s a slight loss in functionality that comes with the absence of a grid editing system – although advanced users might appreciate the customizability of this.
Instapage, for all its benefits, is a high-cost platform, so if your brand has simple needs then it might not be worth shelling out. Some users will be frustrated by the restricted ability to fully customize your landing pages as the grid system, whilst easy to use, limits what you can do.
Final Thoughts: Instapage vs. Unbounce
Both Unbounce and Instapage come packed with features and will help you generate an optimized landing page to increase your conversion rate. Which of them is right for your brand, however, will depend on your specific needs. Whether you need dynamic landing pages to enchant your viewers or solid functionality and analytics, these platforms have got you covered. Still not sure? Both of these tools are available in a 14-day free trial, so you can explore your business needs.
Katherine Rundell is a tech writer at Top Canadian Writers. As a freelance journalist and tech consultant she has assisted many new businesses to grow across the web. She loves to travel and takes an annual cross-country road trip for the past decade, during which she has visited every state.
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