Marketing Campaigns: Splash Page Vs Landing Page

People often confuse a landing page with Splash page, whereas in reality, they are very different. In this battle of Splash pages vs. Landing pages, the title of the useful component is generally bagged by the Landing page.

This is because a splash page is not preferred by all the users. So here, we highlight the major differences between a landing page and a splash page.

In the purest sense, a landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or “land” on. However, when discussing landing pages within the realm of marketing and advertising.

It is more common to refer to a landing page as being a standalone web page distinct from your main website that has been designed for a single focused objective.

This means that your landing page should have no global navigation to tie it to your primary website. The main reason for this is to limit the options available to your visitors, helping to guide them toward your intended conversion goal.

There are 2 basic types of landing page in marketing, Click Through and Lead Generation (also referred to as Lead Gen or Lead Capture pages):

1.Click Through Landing Pages

Click through landing pages (as the name implies) have the goal of persuading the visitor to click through to another page.

Typically used in ecommerce funnels, they can be used to describe a product or offer in sufficient detail so as to “warm up” a visitor to the point where they are closer to making a purchasing decision.

All too often, inbound advertising traffic is directed at shopping cart or registration pages. This leads to poor conversions as the ad doesn’t provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision.

This is where the click through page comes in. As a result, the destination page from a click through page is typically the shopping cart or registration page – now with a much higher chance of conversion having passed through the details of the landing page.

In this splash page vs. landing page, click through landing pages take the trophy home.

2. Lead Generation Landing Pages

Lead Gen landing pages are used to capture user data, such as a name and email address. The sole purpose of the page is to collect information that will allow you to market to and connect with the prospect at a subsequent time.

As such, a lead capture page will contain a form along with a description of what you’ll get in return for submitting your personal data.

There are many uses for lead gen landing pages.

As for the concept of “Splash Pages vs. Landing pages” lets dig deeper to:

What is a Splash Page or Splash Screen?

1. An initial Web site page used to capture the user's attention for a short time as a promotion or lead-in to the site home page or to tell the user what kind of browser and other software they need to view the site.

The advantage of a splash page is that you can create effects or provide information that is only needed once a visit. For example, a user can keep coming back to the home page without having to be bothered with browser requirements.

2. Some sites use "splash page" to mean the home page itself, especially where it contains attention-capturing visual or multimedia effects (creating a "splash").

Splash screens are typically used by particularly large applications to notify the user that the program is in the process of loading.

They provide feedback that a lengthy process is underway. Occasionally, a progress bar within the splash screen indicates the loading progress.

How a Splash Page Works

A splash screen disappears when the application's main window appears. Splash screens typically serve to enhance the look and feel of an application or website; hence they are often visually appealing. They may also have animations, graphics, and sound.

Since splash screens often increase the wait for the desired content and may take a long time to load, they are not liked by all users.

Web splash screens are especially inconvenient for users with slow internet connections as the first page may take longer to load.

Moreover, if the user has turned off rich content, such as images, Flash, or Shockwave, the splash page may not load at all.

Splash pages and any associated main pages created in Flash often cannot be accessed by search engines or handled by text readers for the blind.

Conclusion

Splash pages are those “click here to enter” pages that you sometimes see when you go to a website’s homepage. Several years ago it was in vogue to add these intro pages to a website, but today they aren’t very common, probably because they’re really annoying.

So, as the trend is shifting towards the usage of landing pages, you should do the same.