In the blink of an eye
Research shows that users are making decisions about the digital content they are looking at in less than the blink of an eye. This has massive implications for digital marketers working on any campaign, especially those tasked with the creation of Facebook landing pages and designing smart landing page campaigns.
To help improve conversion rates, there is some basic science digital marketers should know, as well as a few smart moves to make. The goal is to engage landing page visitors before they've had a chance to even consciously think about it, and shuttle them on to wherever they need to go. This article will discuss the immediate experience, the science that drives it, and how to design a landing page that will improve conversion rates.
The science of landing pages
Since 2006, it's been an accepted best practice to design a page to speak to users instantly. The University of Ontario published a study observing that users make determinations in less than the blink of an eye. When shown a glimpse of a page for less than a 50 microseconds, users were making decisions that correlated with the same sentiments when shown the page for a longer period of time. This means that within less time than someone can truly perceive what they are looking at, they are drawing conclusions that will impact the rest of their experience through the halo effect.
While the data is astounding, there is a logical reason posited for this. Humanity been conditioned for literally millions of years to respond instantaneously to external stimuli. About 100,000 years ago, a hunter on the Serengeti might spy a brown dot running at him. With only a split second to decide if that brown dot is dinner or vice versa, homo sapiens evolved mental skills to respond even before the thought had coalesced in their minds. These traits have not disappeared, and as such, we are making decisions about the web within literally less than half a second.
Landing pages, in particular, are an excellent example of how important this is, and how sophisticated solutions can be to boost conversion. Carefully scrutinized, easy to measure, and generally part of a more complicated chain of interactions, the very first impression is a lynchpin moment.
