Prelanders are one of the most important tools in any affiliates arsenal as they can massively boost your conversion rate. In this article, we’re going to be looking at some of the fundamental principles behind making your prelanders as effective as possible.
What is a prelander?
A prelander is an intermediary page between an intial advertising stage and the final purchase. Quite often it will follow the format of a news article of a blog post and will generally be eye catching and express additional information about the product to which it links.
Why use prelanders?
Prelanders enable affiliates to ‘sell’ the product to which they are leading potential buyers. They allow you to explain your product in more detail and highlight why the customer needs/wants to buy it.
Prelanders also help to better filter prospective buyers as those with a vested interest who read more information will be far lore likely to convert than those who simply click on a product and are taken straight to a landing page.
In short, prelanders allow you to better groom your potential customers and to get rid of those who aren’t interested in making a purchase.
Once you know the purpose of prelanders, then you can begin to start thinking about how to craft them so that they give the most conversions possible. It should be noted at this stage that there is no one size fits all solution and what works for one affiliate may not work for you. However, there are some key aspects which you can focus on to ensure that you give your prelander the best possible chance of being effective.
Blueprint
When it comes to the overall design of your prelander you should try to keep it as simple as possible. Here are the main things to include:
- Header: Simple, effective and straight to the point.
- Image: An image which is related to the topic of the advert or the product.
- Body: The main text should be easy to read and have a clear message about your product.
- Call to Action: A clearly visible call to action with clear instructions so that visitors know exactly what to do to buy the product.
These are the basis of any prelander, so make sure you don’t neglect them.
Relevance
It may seem obvious to say that the prelander should reflect and be relevant to the product it is trying to sell, however, there are a lot of affiliates out there who ignore this. Don’t be one of them. If you are using a prelander which talks about diet pills in order to sell acne cream then the customer is going to notice and be instantly driven away.
Remember, people notice discrepencies in information and if your prelander talks about things which are not relevant to the final product, then they will run and never look back. Therefore, make sure you do a little research into the product you are selling and don’t add details which to not match with the final offer. This brings us on to the second point.
Honesty
Should you be honest in your prelanders? The answer to this is yes and no. Advertising is not an honest profession and if you really want to learn how to market effectively then you have to learn how to market to the customer in a way that they will feel satisfied with the end result. With that being said, this is not quite the same thing as lying.
You ought to be selling a vision and behind every great vision there is a narrative. If you’ve done your research on your product then you know why your product exists. If you know why it exists then you can begin to determine what kind of problems it solves.
Once you know what problems it solves, imagine the type of people who have those problems and then try to picture how happy they would be if they found a solution to their problem. If you have done all this then you have a narrative framework of your ideal customer. All you need to do then is tell their story and, if you have done it well, people in a similar postion will be able to relate.
This method can and should be used throughout a range of different prelander models, be it blog post, banners, news articles, native advertising formats etc. Just remember, you are trying to sell a vision to your demographic, so find out who they are and what they want and then tell them why your product will help them to achieve it. For more information on how to do this visit our article on The Art of Selling.
Don’t go too far
In your prelanders you should never promise anything that you can give when providing motivation for potential buyers. For example, don’t offer a discount on the final product if you can’t deliver it. This is fraud and it comes with consequences. Firstly, it’s obviously illegal and you may face prosecution. Secondly, people will be driven away from your offers and thirdly, the customer will return the product and you will lose your commission.
It can be tempting, especially in more aggressive pitches in which you really want to push a call-to-action, but don’t do it. There are other ways and we will be taking a more in depth look into how you can hit hard, without breaking the rules or the law. In this case, it often happens that the manufacturer returns all the goods. At the same time, of course, it cancels all of your commission.
Remember: Incorrect or overly aggressive language does not lead to success. Make sure you always act honestly and, above all, in accordance with the terms of each campaign you promote.
At ConvertingTeam, we always aim to provide our affiliates with the best possible tools for their campaigns, including regularly updated prelanders to ensure your offers get the conversions they deserve. What’s more, we can even provide you with tailor-made prelanders! If you are already a member then just ask your affiliate manager to provide you with one. If, however, you are interested in becoming a member of our affiliate network and would like to find out more information then follow the link below.