Paid Strategy

New Report Shows An 8% Mobile Landing Page Conversion Gap

Mohsin Pirzada
⋅ 3 min read
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New Report Shows An 8 Mobile Landing Page Conversion Gap

A new report shows an 8% conversion gap between desktop and mobile landing pages, highlighting key UX issues and optimization opportunities for marketers.

A recent study by Unbounce reveals a notable conversion gap between mobile and desktop landing pages, with mobile conversions 8% lower despite accounting for 83% of total traffic. This discrepancy highlights the crucial need for marketers to prioritize mobile optimization, as mobile visitor volumes continue to surge.

The Commonly Neglected Focus of Mobile Optimization

The Conversion Benchmark Report from Unbounce, which analyzed more than 57 million conversions over 41,000 pages, has a clear message:

“If you’re still building your landing pages for desktop first, with the mobile version being just a quick box to check before publishing, chances are you’re missing out big time.”

Although mobile is the driving force for most visits, desktop pages are seeing noticeably more conversions.

The report estimates:

“An 8% gap in conversion rates is significant, but it gets even worse when you look at the number of conversions lost. If all industries optimized their pages, we might have reported over 1.3 million more conversions.”

Industry Benchmarks to Guide Marketers

The median conversion rate across industries is 6.6%, with some verticals as low as 3.8% and others on the higher end at 12.3%. This indicates:

  • 6.6% or higher: You have an above-average page for conversions.
  • Less than 6.6 percent: There’s some work to do.

The information below can be used as a benchmark for marketers to compare their own landing pages:

“Higher than the median? Your page is converting better than most. Lower than the median? Your page is converting worse than most.”

It warns that conversion rates measure frequency, not whether the prospects are good quality or high value, an essential consideration for campaigns that focus on large sales.

Simpler Writing Drives Higher Conversion Rates

The command of the language and a level of simplicity are directly linked to conversion:

Pages written at a 5th-7th grade reading level converted at 11%, higher than pages written at an 8th-9th grade level (+56%) or even professional writing (2x+).

Unbounce cautions:

“There’s a high likelihood that your conversion rate will drop as you add more difficult words to the page.”

Complex words with three or more syllables kill conversions by 24.3%.

In short, Unbounce suggests:

“Simple copy converts.”

Email & Paid Social Lead Conversion Funnel Flow.

Among traffic sources, email reigns supreme, boasting an average conversion rate of 19.3%, surpassing most paid channels.

Two of the top platforms, Instagram (17.9%) and Facebook (13%), are also more effective than paid search at driving conversions, underscoring the importance of targeting and creative optimization in these channels.

With mobile traffic so high, but developing so poorly optimizing landing pages in terms of how mobile-friendly and message penetrable they are has never been more critical.

These insights support broader digital marketing trends, including simple UX, A/B testing, and channel-specific strategies, to increase return on ad spend.

Practical Steps Forward

Revisiting their Design and Copy process for Mobile First Budgets, Marketers will need to be thinking mobile first in terms of design and copy, from:

  • Simplifying language and communications.
  • Obtain fast load speeds and make the calls to action clear.
  • Tracking progress with how to use conversion benchmarks.
  • Carefully testing components through A/B frameworks.

By leveraging these insights effectively, marketers can recover lost conversions and achieve higher campaign performance across the platform, aligning perfectly with industry trends.

Bottom Line

The complete report offers tips on optimisation for the device, simplifying LP messaging, and applying A/B testing. Taking advantage of these learnings could help win back lost conversions.

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Mohsin Pirzada
Mohsin Pirzada is a freelance writer and editor with over 7 years of experience in SEO content writing, digital…