Boost Your Conversion Rate by Landing Page Speed Optimization
As an email marketer, you’ve undoubtedly spent countless hours crafting compelling subject lines, designing visually appealing templates, and writing persuasive copy.
But have you ever considered the impact of your landing page’s loading speed on your overall email marketing conversion rate?
It’s a fast-paced world out there; attention spans are shorter than ever. A slow-loading landing page can frustrate visitors and drive them away before they even have a chance to engage with your content. Conversely, a fast-loading page can improve user experience, boost engagement, and help you achieve your main goal — conversions.
Below, we look at statistics on page loading speeds, explore the factors that affect it, and examine its direct correlation with conversion rates. We will share more information on different factors that can improve your landing page’s performance. We will also discuss ways you can speed up your emails’ loading speeds, helping you achieve better email marketing results.
This is the ultimate guide on improving conversion rate by landing page speed tune-ups!
How to Calculate Landing Page Conversion Rate
Calculating the conversion rate of your landing page is essential to understand how well it is performing in converting visitors into leads or customers. After all, step one to resolving an issue is a correct diagnosis.
Follow the steps below to accurately calculate your conversion rate.
Step 1: Define a “Conversion”
The first step is clearly defining what a “conversion” means for your landing page. This could be anything from a visitor filling out a form, buying your product, signing up for an email marketing newsletter, or downloading an ebook.
Step 2: Track the Number of Conversions
Use analytics tools like Google Analytics, or any integrated tracking tool, to monitor the total number of conversions on your landing page. This is the number of visitors who have completed the desired action.
Step 3: Determine the Total Number of Visitors
Identify the total number of visitors who have landed on your page during a specific period — say, 1 month. This data will be accessible via any analytics platforms you’ve linked to your website.
Step 4: Calculate the Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is calculated using this formula:
Conversion rate = (The number of conversions/the total visitors) multiplied by 100.
Let’s assume your landing page had 2,000 visitors in 1 month. If 100 of them converted, your conversion rate would be:
(100/2000) X 100 = 5.
The conversion rate is 5%.
Step 5: Analyze and Optimize
If you have a high conversion rate, it means your copy and design are spot on. A low rate may signal a need for optimization; analyze your results and experiment with different elements like headlines, CTAs, or images to improve your conversion rate.
Below, we discuss one of the most critical factors that impact conversion rates: landing page speed.
How Page Loading Speeds Impact Conversion Rates
Let’s review a few interesting statistics about page loading speeds:
- A Portent study found B2B websites that load in 1 second have 3X higher conversion rates than sites that take 5 seconds to load. The conversion rate was 5X when compared to sites that had a 10-second loading time.
- The same study shared that B2C sites that load in 1 second outperformed sites that load in 5 seconds by 2.5X in terms of conversion rates.
- Among signup methods, landing pages offer the best conversion rates at 23%, as per Omnisend. Signup boxes delivered a measly 3%.
- The chance of a bounce goes up by 32% when the load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, says Google.
- WebFX says 83% of users want a page to load in 3 seconds or less. Of those, 40% will abandon a site that takes longer.
- An Akamai survey found that 79% of e-shoppers would bail on a poor-performing website.
According to a study by MPulse, a healthcare company, there is a clear correlation between load times and conversion rates:
| Page load time | Conversion rates |
|---|---|
| 2.4 seconds | 1.9% |
| 3.3 seconds | 1.5% |
| 4.2 seconds | Less than 1% |
| +5.7 seconds | Less than 0.6% |
Conversion Rates by Industry: Benchmarks
According to WebFX, you can aim for a conversion rate of 10%. That said, on average, it ranges between 2% and 5%.
As these numbers vary for different industries, refer to the benchmarks below — they will help you assess your site performance.
| Industry | Conversion rate |
|---|---|
| Catering and restaurants | 9.80% |
| Media and entertainment | 7.90% |
| Finance and insurance | 6.20% |
| Education | 5.80% |
| Fitness and nutrition | 5.60% |
| Legal | 5.40% |
| Ecommerce | 5.20% |
| Events and leisure | 5.20% |
| Travel | 4.80% |
| Home improvement | 3.80% |
| Medical services | 3.60% |
| Business services | 3.50% |
| Family support | 3.40% |
| SaaS | 3.00% |
| Real Estate | 2.60% |
| Media agencies | 2.40% |
Why Email Marketers Should Care About Page Loading Speeds
Ever since emails became popular, they have offered a great channel to drive traffic towards websites. While marketers put in a lot of hours perfecting campaigns, they must also evaluate what happens after a reader clicks on a link. It would be a shame to lose a customer after that point, so close to conversion.
There is a direct connection between email marketing and your website’s page loading speeds.
Here’s how to identify it:
- Click-through rates (CTR): If your website takes too long to load, subscribers who click on links in your emails may abandon the page before it fully renders. This can lead to lower CTRs and reduced engagement.
- User experience: A slow-loading website can negatively impact the overall user experience. A poor experience on your website can lead to them blocking you, leading to higher email bounce rates.
- Site bounce rates: High page bounce rates can indicate that visitors are leaving your website quickly after arriving. This can hurt your search engine rankings and overall online presence.
- Conversions: A slow-loading website hinders conversions, whether they’re sales, sign-ups, or other desired actions. Visitors are more likely to make a purchase or take another action on a website that loads quickly and is easy to navigate.
If you see high email engagement and an improvement in click-through rates but no spike in sales, it’s a strong indication of an issue with your landing page.
A website that takes forever to load also gets low priority in Google’s search results.
Up next, we explain how.
Landing Page Speed and its Effects on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It’s a mobile-first world; this is why Google places a high emphasis on mobile-friendly websites. Fast page loading on mobile devices is essential for good SEO. Google primarily indexes websites based on their mobile versions.
To help website builders/developers optimize their pages, Google has introduced three Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics that measure the user experience of a website.
The table gives you insight into what they’re for:
| Core Vital | Its role in assessing page speed |
|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | This measures the perceived load time of the main content on the page. |
| First Input Delay (FID) | This measures the time it takes for a user to interact with the page after they first load it. |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | This measures the visual stability of the page. |
There are several tools available to measure Core Web Vitals; these three are popular options:
- PageSpeed Insights: Offered by Google, this tool provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s Core Web Vitals, along with recommendations for improvement.
- Web Vitals Extension: This Chrome extension provides real-time measurements of Core Web Vitals directly in your browser’s developer tools.
- Chrome DevTools: The built-in developer tools in Chrome offer a Performance tab that can measure Core Web Vitals and provide insights into page loading performance.
If you’ve discovered issues with page-loading speeds, here are instructions to resolve this problem.
10-Step Guide to Boosting Landing Page Speed
If you want those conversions, you’re going to have to fix your page speeds. Here are 10 guidelines to help you do that.
1. Optimize Images
Compress and resize images before uploading them to your landing page. Tools like TinyPNG or Compressor.io can reduce file sizes without losing quality. Use modern image formats like WebP for better compression. Images below 100K will perform better, but be careful about the optics — make sure the compression doesn’t impact the image’s resolution.
2. Minimize HTTP Requests
Each element on your landing page (images, scripts, stylesheets) generates an HTTP request, which can slow down load time. Reduce the number of these requests by combining files, using CSS sprites (a collection of images put into a single image), and removing unnecessary plugins or widgets.
3. Enable Browser Caching
Browser caching stores some data locally in the user’s browser, allowing faster loading times for repeat visitors. Configure your server settings to set expiration times for static resources like images, CSS, and JavaScript files.
4. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
Minifying involves removing unnecessary characters (like spaces and comments) from your code, which reduces file sizes and speeds up load times.
Use tools like UglifyJS for JavaScript or Minifier for both JS and CSS.
5. Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A CDN is a network of servers; they’re linked together to deliver content quickly, cheaply, reliably, and securely.
Using a CDN network can distribute your content across multiple servers globally, ensuring visitors load your page from a server closest to them. This reduces latency and improves load times.
6. Leverage Asynchronous Loading
Asynchronous loading allows the loading of data, images, or scripts, to run simultaneously; this means that loading tasks can begin and end independently and not affect each other.
Load JavaScript files asynchronously to prevent them from blocking other elements of your page from loading. This allows your content to appear faster, improving the user’s experience.
7. Reduce Redirects
Redirects create additional HTTP requests and delay page loading. Minimize the use of redirects where possible, and ensure your URL structure is efficient.
8. Enable Compression
Use Gzip or Bzip2 compression on your server to compress files before sending them to the browser. Compressed files are smaller and load faster.
9. Optimize Server Response Time
A slow server can significantly impact page load speed. Optimize your server by upgrading your hosting plan, using a faster DNS provider, and reducing resource usage on your server.
10. Monitor and Test Regularly
Regularly test your landing page speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom. These tools help you sniff out what’s slowing down your page and offer suggestions for improvements.
By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce your landing page load times.
The result? You get all the benefits listed below.
Top 10 Benefits of Fast Landing Pages
By speeding up your website or landing pages, you unlock these 10 benefits:
- Improved user experience: Faster pages enhance user satisfaction, reducing frustration and keeping visitors engaged.
- Better SEO rankings: Google and other search engines favor fast-loading pages, improving your SEO performance.
- Less bounces: Quick load times decrease the likelihood of visitors leaving your site prematurely.
- Increased mobile traffic: Mobile users, often on slower connections, benefit significantly from faster pages.
- Enhanced brand reputation: A fast, responsive site reflects well on your brand, conveying professionalism and reliability.
- Higher ad impressions: Faster pages allow for more ad impressions, increasing potential revenue from advertisements.
- Reduced server load: Efficient, fast-loading pages reduce the strain on your server, improving overall site performance.
- Better accessibility: Faster pages are more accessible to users with slower internet connections or limited bandwidth.
- Competitive advantage: A faster site can set you apart from competitors, attracting more traffic and retaining users.
- Higher conversion rates: Speedy pages can lead to more conversions, as users are more likely to complete desired actions.
These benefits make investing in page speed optimization a crucial strategy for any website aiming to improve its performance and user satisfaction.
How to Make Your Emails Load Faster
A lot of the theories that apply to web pages also apply to emails; a slow-loading email is a conversion killer. You can optimize your emails by improving your email design best practices, but there are other steps you can take as well.
Here are 11 strategies to make your emails load faster:
- Optimize images: Compress images before including them in your emails. Use the appropriate image dimensions to avoid scaling.
- Use web-friendly fonts: Stick to the best fonts for email, such as Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman, as custom fonts will leave you wondering why your emails take so long to send.
- Minimize HTML code: Clean up your HTML code by removing unnecessary tags, comments, and white spaces. Explore the advantages of plain-text emails vs HTML emails.
- Cut down on external files: Avoid linking to external CSS or JavaScript files, as these require additional HTTP requests, slowing down the email load time.
- Reduce the number of images: Use images sparingly and consider replacing some with text-based design elements like CSS for backgrounds and buttons, which load faster.
- Use inline CSS: Instead of linking to external stylesheets, use inline CSS within your HTML to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
- Preload critical images: Use the preload attribute to prioritize loading critical images that are essential to the email’s design and function.
- Avoid embedding videos: Instead of embedding videos, use a static image with a play button overlay, linking to the video hosted on a fast-loading platform.
- Test load times: Regularly test your emails on different devices and email clients using tools like Litmus or Email on Acid to ensure they load quickly and efficiently.
- Use responsive design: Mobile email marketing is huge right now; Ensure your email design is responsive, adjusting to different screen sizes without compromising speed.
- Compress the content: Ensure your email content is compressed and doesn’t exceed the recommended size (100KB), which helps in faster delivery and loading.
Best Practices for Email Marketers
Besides the above, ensure you follow best practices as an email sender so your email performance is stellar.
- Implement email security protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your email domain.
- Ensure your email IP address has a good reputation,
- Implement a solid email segmentation strategy,
- Your email list should be clean so your campaigns don’t get stuck in the email outbox,
- Heed unsubscribe laws by adding a one-click unsubscribe link and your address in the email signoff,
- Don’t use email abbreviations in your content that readers may be unfamiliar with,
- Analyze your metrics to figure out the best time to send emails,
- Use a reputed email platform.
Campaign Refinery: Lightning-Fast Email Marketing Platform
Campaign Refinery is a no-frills, no-bloat, technically robust email service provider. Our focus has always been email deliverability — aka, getting your emails in the inbox. Sending speed plays a critical role in this process.
That’s why our sending engine is remarkable; it hits the perfect sending cadence to ensure mailbox providers trust it. We also let you track all your links and see how they perform. If there’s an issue somewhere, our analytics dashboard will show you where the problem lies.
We offer email professionals powerful tools for:
- Segmentation: With our segmentation and tagging features, you can manage your contacts like never before. Create specific customer segments or use Audience Groups to target them.
- Automation: Our Branch & Rule builder is visual and intuitive — even a child could create complex email marketing customer journeys.
- Engagement: Use our Gamification and Evergreen Flash Sales features to transform your email numbers.
- Campaign creation: If you want ideas, simply use our rich Campaign Library. Find a great one, customize it, and send it to your audience.
- Integration: Don’t worry about tracking customers or syncing data with your martech stack. We offer native support plus Zapier integration for thousands of marketing tools.
- API: Connect our platform to your martech stack using code.
Campaign Refinery gives your emails the best chances at inboxing as we’re the best at email deliverability.
If you’re ready to level up your email campaigns, apply through our signup page to become a Campaign Refinery user!
