You’re leaving money on the table.
That’s the bad news.
The good news: it’s easy to fix this problem.
You just need to understand the importance of the most misunderstood, misused and mistreated pages on your website… the “Thank You” Page.
NOTE: If you’re a member of Digital Marketer Lab, we will be discussing this article and answering your questions on the weekly Office Hours call this Thursday, February 20th.
“Thank You” pages, sometimes called Confirmation Pages are where site visitors land AFTER they convert.
Here’s an example of a (terrible) “Thank You” page that you might see after buying something online,
This is a bad example to follow and I’ll explain why in a minute.
First, let’s talk about the goals of the “Thank You” page…
3 Goals of the Perfect “Thank You” Page
There are three reasons you want to use “Thank You” pages,
- To confirm the transaction – The “Thank You” page should confirm in the mind of the site visitor that they have successfully subscribed, purchased, donated, etc.
- To measure conversions – In your website analytics, when a visit is registered to a “Thank You” page, this counts as a goal met.
- To make another offer – The “Thank You” page is often the most effective place to make the next offer in your funnel.
This last goal is where most marketers fail. They don’t make the next offer in the funnel on their “Thank You” pages.
This is a tragedy because, in most cases, your prospect is never going to be more receptive to your next offer than the second after they’ve taken the prior offer.
Allow me throw out a general rule of thumb…
For every 10 people that take an offer, there are 2 people that want more.
I put numbers on this so we have something concrete we can talk about.
The underlying point is that there is some percentage of your conversions that want more from you.
How the Pros Use “Thank You” Pages
Ryan Deiss revealed the core process we use for every business we start, acquire or consult at Digital Marketer on this blog.
The process is called Customer Value Optimization (CVO) and you can read that article here.
Wherever it makes sense, professional marketers use “Thank You” pages to make the next offer in the CVO funnel.
Here’s where “Thank You” pages are used throughout the CVO process to make the next offer…
As I said, wherever it makes sense, professional marketers make the next offer in the funnel on the “Thank You” page for the prior offer.
Let’s take a look at this in action…
Let’s start with the king of online retail, Amazon.com. Here’s what Amazon’s “Thank You” or Confirmation Page looks like,
The first thing the page does is confirm to the buyer that the order went through.
The rest of the page makes a cross-sell (Profit Maximizer) offer. Amazon knows that the “Thank You” page is the perfect place to increase transaction value… also known as maximizing customer value.
During the 2008 election, Barack Obama (love him or hate him) made masterful use of digital marketing. When you registered for updates on the website, this was the Thank You page,
The Obama marketing team knew that the “Thank You” page is the perfect place to get donations or drive unregistered voters into a registration process.
I’ll say it again… in most cases, your prospect is never going to be more receptive to your next offer than the second after they’ve taken the prior offer.
Here’s the perfect example…
In the funnel below we use email, Facebook ads, blog posts and other traffic sources to drive traffic to a landing page that offers a Free Case Study (Lead Magnet) about marketing on Facebook.
Here’s that landing page…
The first strategy is revealed on the page above and an offer for a second free Facebook marketing strategy is made in exchange for an email address. When the site visitor puts their email address into the box, they land on a “Thank You” page that reveals the second strategy.
That page looks like this,
The second Facebook marketing strategy is revealed on the page above and an offer is made to get many more Facebook marketing tactics like this one in a paid training.
Clicking on the green button directs the visitor to a “Thank You” page that contains a Video Sales Letter that describes a training called Facebook Ad Power (Core Offer).
That page has a ~15 minute Video Sales Letter from Ryan a portion of which looks like this,
If the visitor buys the Facebook Ad Power training, they are taken to a “Thank You” page that makes an upsell (Profit Maximizer) offer for our flagship event, Traffic & Conversion Summit.
That page looks like this,
It’s only after going through the entire funnel that the visitor lands on the final “Thank You” page.
That page looks like this,
Most of the sales messages we are using on these “Thank You” Pages are video sales letters or VSL’s. You can learn more about how we create VSL’s here.
Each step (or “Thank You” page) in the funnel,
- Confirms the prior transaction
- Measures conversions in our analytics program
- Makes the next offer in the funnel
Are you seeing the power of the “Thank You” page? Start treating them with respect… they are among the most important pages on your site.
