152. SPN: Landing Pages Deep Dive -> CVR 🚀
Plus, Meta goes on the offense and plenty of Jobs & Opps that took my fancy this week
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In this week’s SPN:
Walled Gardens
Meta tech could replace your need for an agency entirely
Deep Dive: Landing Pages (2X your CVR)
A magical Stripe Sessions convo with Sir Jony Ive
and, plenty of Jobs & Opps that took my fancy this week
Let’s jump in!
Walled Gardens
META
Whilst Google are reeling, Meta is on the front foot. A Zuck interview with Stratechery, which he repeated at Stripe Sessions last week (see below), got lots of attention - mainly on this bit!!
Which got interpreted as bad news for Agencies.
I was in the room and he essentially said that their goal is to eliminate digital agencies - their planning/placement function and eventually their creative function. He wants Org’s to come to FB directly.
The Verge were more forthright - “Mark Zuckerberg just declared war on the entire advertising industry.”
That said it’s not that different to the way Meta have talked for a while and it’s how they operate. Of course Meta turned their PR machine on real fast following Zuck pouring out his intentions:
The role of creativity is more important than ever… At Meta, we like to say that creative is the new targeting... So many marketers I hear from spend much of their day on non-core tasks that take away from creativity… We believe AI will enable agencies and advertisers to focus precious time and resources on the creativity that matters…
It’s super interesting that Zuck is running in this direction. My guess is it will happen, but it won’t take the majority of agency work market share (AI will take a larger share) and it’ll serve mostly small Org’s who don’t have digital SME’s.
Google has tried to do this many times since 2010 and it’s never worked. GAFA et al have a conflict of interest because they profit off Org’s ad spend, so third-party/in-house experts have always done a better job (for starters they care about improving ROI more, even if it’s good).
Also, advertising is a fluctuating bid marketplace based on competition levels. It’s not a few replaceable tasks. If one “mega agency” manages everyone’s ads, how do you stand out and be different to win the ad auction?
And how do Meta decide who gets the donor if two identical competitors bid on it, and have the same ads? And if one Org’s ads are more effective, is it fair?
I for one would want more control than this.
Jobs & Opps 🛠️
Care for the Homeless: Director of Marketing and Communications ($120,000 - $130,000)
Breast Cancer Now: Senior Digital Community Officer (£33,500 - £40,304)
Central Park Conservancy: Senior Vice President for Communications & Marketing ($250,000 - $275,000)
Feeding America: Director, Omnichannel Marketing ($125,000 - $130,000)
Prostate Cancer UK: Senior Virtual Products Executive (Fundraising) £34,300 - £37,300
Great Ormond Street: Deputy Director of Fundraising Planning & Performance (£86,800)
Koko: Head, Partnerships ($180,000 - $220,000)
Mozilla Foundation: Manager, Grassroots Fundraising ($102,200 - $143,615)
2X Your CVR: Landing Pages Deep Dive
I’ve put out a lot of content about landing pages over the last few years, and it’s a hill I’ll die on (that you should be using them); they’ve never let me down. Has every page been a home-run? No. But plot all the landing pages on a graph, and they’ve generated tens of millions of incremental fundraising revenue.
For today’s longer post, I want to take all that secret sauce and share it with you. My hope is that you spend 2 hours this week putting together a landing page with all the nuggets in this email, and it, at a minimum, doubles your conversion to donate rate.
For everyone who talks about “Growth marketing,” they’re almost always just speaking about paid media. “Growth” sits at the intersection of efficiency and full-funnel marketing. It’s not just about Meta ad efficiencies, it’s also about the post-click site experience (inclusive of landing pages), the pop-up, what happens on organic social, the email list, etc.
Out of that, one of the biggest levers that increase efficiency is what happens after the ad. Org’s invest hundreds of thousands, even millions, into good ad creative and ad campaigns, and then their website either looks like it was made from a template, it hasn’t been updated since 1990, or that they have no clue how to speak to new donors.
The landing page is like a kiosk at a mall, versus the website is like a full store. With a kiosk, you need to be much more efficient with your fundraising pitch, you have to have something for them to “sample”, and you need to have a reason for them to donate before they leave.
Here’s what I’ve explored below:
2 donor funnels
Types of landing pages to build
Different sections to include on a landing page
2 Donor Funnels
At any time when you’re fundraising or marketing something, there are 2 funnels you could be playing in. If you’re not aware of which one your donor is coming to you through, it can be confusing, and you can mis-message your prospective donors. Here are the two funnels:
Funnel One: You’re educating someone on why there is even the need for the mission and program you’re advocating for. You’re focused on getting someone to understand what the problem is you’re Org is solving for.
Funnel Two: You’re trying to win a donor who’s educated and interested in the category you’re operating, but needs to be sold on why YOU are the best Org to carry out the program. With this funnel, your messaging should be completely different, and focused on what makes your programs do better or more innovatively than others.
Take inspo from Halo Top ice cream who seems to be in every freezer I walk past at the moment and are now chasing me around the internet! They don’t care to educate people on why they should be eating ice cream, their entire focus is on how their ice cream is significantly better than traditional ice cream with ~200 calories per pint.
A lot of times, your website will be focused on the first funnel (education of what you do) and landing pages will be focused on the second funnel (why you should be the Org solving the problem). Once you get clear on which funnel you need to build for, you can decide what type of page is best fit for you, and what content modules should be on the page.
This same thinking of two funnels applies to your ad creative too. If you’re seeing low CTR on your ads, you may be playing in the wrong funnel with your messaging and angles.
Types of Landing Pages
Listicles
Collections-Style LP
Social Proof
SMS Collection or Pre-Campaign Launch
Article/Blog-style LP
(I think) these were pioneered by BuzzFeed, and always went viral because people wanted to find their own connection to the content in assets like, “21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity”. As soon as us marketers realized how much engagement and trust listicles bring, we began using them for our own good.
In the case of a landing page, a listicle should take the top 5 aha moments that people mention in your donor testimonials, and sort them from most loved to least (although, it’s top 5, so it’s all kinda very loved). Make a tally of “benefits” that donors mention, and whatever has the most tally’s is where you start - giving, giving with a match, giving monthly, program impact highlights, beneficiaries.
Listicles do much better in media channels where you’re still trying to earn someone’s trust - TikTok, native ads, upper-funnel Meta-type ads.
Collections-Style LP
A regular collections page? Pretty boring.
Do you sell swag?
Most Org collections pages lack so many obvious conversion hacks.
Add a donate button
Add reviews
Explain the collection at the top, etc.
Social Proof
Whether you’re selling to an older or younger audience, sometimes it’s nothing you say that will convert someone to donate, but it’s everything that everyone else says.
Meaning - social proof takes a higher priority than what else is on the page.
This means embedding Instagram stories, TikTok clips, and other social posts to show the efficacy of the programs you’re fundraising for. I’m also totally a fan of taking screenshots of FB ad comments or text conversations and pasting them in. Frankly they also feel harder to fake, which has a higher trust with the person on the other side of the screen.
SMS Collection or Pre-Campaign Launch
When you want to build a list or get people excited about an upcoming seasonal campaign, build a landing page just to collect people’s emails, phone numbers, or other first-party data.
The beauty of using a page like this is you can also run ads with your conversion objective being the email/number submission, and understand what types of headlines, imagery, video, ad copy, and targeting have the highest probability of converting your donors when you launch. These insights can inform the site copy on your homepage, program pages, etc.
In a perfect world, these pages should sync directly into your email platform and CRM so you don’t have to download and upload lists (it's also not safe to keep playing with data like that).
Article/Blog-style LP
These are generally known as advertorials. You’re either hosting content on a publisher site where you have a story that you’re pushing, where the Org becomes the punchline, OR you’re hosting an article-format LP on your own domain.
In the advertorial LPs, you have the ability to tell a story to earn someones time, and then integrate your fundraising pitch into the content naturally. You might start by sharing the story of a mother who couldn’t afford cancer treatment and felt completely alone (which draws the reader in - the editorial), and then introduce how your Org stepped in to provide support, guidance, and financial help when it mattered most (the ad). That’s why it’s called an “Advertorial.”
Different LP Sections
A Good Angle
Stellar Copywriting
Social Proof
“Why Donate”
and, Brand throughout
Over and over again, this is what you need to answer on a landing page:
What is this program
Why does it exist
Who does it benefit
Why is it the best choice
How soon can my gift make an impact
I also like to make sure that every section of the landing page is alternating with a push and pull section. A push section is where you're pushing out information/education/content for someone to learn about why they should consider donating to you. A pull section is where you're asking for a donation, you have a CTA, you’re looking for something from the site visitor.
Similarly, every ad that goes out should answer those 5 questions (that's how you keep the click-through rate high), and each ad coming into a landing page should match what's on the page itself. Most of your post-click drop-off can be lowered by simply making sure that whatever's in your ad, is also available on the page it's driving to.
A Good Angle ;)
The first ingredient for any good landing page is a hook or an angle. Exactly like ecommerce, you can sell a great product, but without an angle or a reason for someone to buy, you might not get someone over the finish line.
Your Org helps fund clean water access in rural communities. You could promote it as simply “a charity solving the water crisis,” or you can craft tailored hooks for different landing page tests based on donor segments:
The fastest way to turn your birthday into clean water for 100 people
The most meaningful wedding gift: donate in honor of your guests
The best way to teach your kids about giving back
The easiest way for your company to offset its water footprint
In 30 seconds, that’s 4 donor entry points with different motivations and values. Without a strong angle, you’re just asking for donations.
Stellar Copywriting
Good copywriting is often the difference between a donation page that converts at 2% and one that converts at 9%. One simple mental model: imagine your page’s copy going through a conveyor belt.
At the start of the belt is the core message. Next comes the specific donor segment you're speaking to. And finally, the emotional or practical benefit they receive by giving.
Program value → The donor you’re speaking to → The benefit they feel
Your LP should almost always emphasize the benefits and outcomes of your programs, not just the programs themselves.
Ask yourself… what is this person really giving to when they donate?
If you’re fundraising for clean water, they’re not just funding pipes and purification systems. You’re also:
Giving a mother peace of mind that her child won’t get sick
Letting a girl go to school instead of walking six miles for water
Creating a ripple effect that strengthens entire communities
Social Proof
There are 3 types of social proof that should always be on a landing page:
Donor testimonials
Your LP is going to tell people your Org is doing impactful, important work and that you’re the best positioned to solve the problem at hand. What’s more powerful than you saying it is obviously a donor or beneficiary saying it on your behalf.
When you include testimonials, look for ones that clearly show how someone’s experience was changed because of your program.
A meh testimonial might sounds like:
“Great people doing great work!”A strong one sounds more like:
“After setting up my monthly donation, I started receiving updates about the children my gift supports. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt connected to where my money is going. I’ve since increased my gift and even got my coworkers involved.”That kind of quote highlights:
A donor’s emotional connection
Increased commitment over time
The spread of impact through word of mouth
Real value delivered, not just promised
The goal here is storytelling that builds trust, inspires giving, and improves conversion. Let others tell your story - ideally, in a way that reflects the transformation you’re promising.
“Established” sources
I put this in quotes because “established” means different things to different people. Normally this is just press logos, but it depends on WHO you’re marketing to, again.
If you’re marketing to an older demographic, you might use news sources like CNBC, Forbes, Town & Country, New York Times, etc. Places where older demographics get their news from and have built-in trust - the whole idea is to leverage the trust that someone already has with a source.
If you’re marketing a campaign to younger audiences, replace the press logos with YouTube channels, influencers, comments screenshotted from social media, etc.
Depending on who you’re talking to, make the sources of the content relevant to them.Donor-generated content (UGC)
I'm not talking about the UGC-for-hire people here. I’m talking about taking TikTok’s from the wild or screenshots of what people put on their IG stories and pasting it into a landing page itself.
This can even include screenshots of content posted around the web, if you want to lean into “community” vibes (does well for conversion in my experience).
“Why Donate”
Make the impact obvious
Whether it’s “$25 provides 50 meals” or “$100 delivers clean water to a family for a year,” use concrete, visual language to reinforce value. If there’s a match, lay it out boldly: “Your gift is DOUBLED today only.”Show cost per impact, not just donation amount
Some donors want to feel the impact per dollar: “$10/month = school supplies for a child all year.” The trick is knowing which ones.Reinforce key “benefits”
This isn’t just a donation - it’s a way to change lives, join a movement, or leave a legacy - use bullet points.Add trust signals
Just like eCommerce sites show “Ships in 2 days,” build trust by showing: “Instant tax receipt,” or “Monthly donor updates delivered in your whatsapp group,” or “Join 12,000 others who give each month.”
Brand Throughout
This is a critical component. Your Org story needs to be weaved throughout the LP. The tone of voice, the personality, all of it. Is it easy to do? No. And that alone is a good enough reason to invest more time and resources here to ensure you’ve got a clear narrative humming up, down and across your LP.
That narrative doesn’t need to be a classic “founder story” or a personal anecdote from the executive director. It just needs to reflect your why - why your Org exists, why the thing that you’re solving for matters, and why your programs are uniquely positioned to solve it.
You need to prove efficacy and sell efficacy. Your mission, programs, and impact have to be front and center. If you’re demonstrating meaningful outcomes and reinforcing a clear, consistent brand story, donors will give generously and repeatedly.
Lead with results.
OK, that’s all for today.
I hope you’ve found one nugget today that you can put into play next week.
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And huge thanks to this Quarter’s sponsor Fundraise Up for creating a new standard for online giving.
Now onto the fun stuff!
Weekly Reads 📚
I didn’t read enough this week but being in the room and listening to this conversation was life-affirming.