by Editor
You need to warm up the customer before making a sale. Going in directly with a blunt approach will result in a weak CR, and it's unlikely that anyone will make a purchase. It's even better not to start experiments this way. Landing pages for most ads are pretty standard, and there's nothing particularly surprising to impress potential buyers. So how do you warm them up? How is it done in the nutra and by reputable white-label supplement brands? Let's study, compare, and find a golden mean that can be used in your campaigns to make conversions more exciting and profitable quickly.
Which pre-landers to use is up to the webmaster to decide. When it comes to landing pages, the situation is a bit more complicated, as not many ad networks agree to change the landing pages on their side. You either need to have a good relationship with such an ad network or find advertisers who are willing to make adjustments. Pre-landers are simplet, that’s it.
Of course, depending on the sub-vertical, the pre-landers can vary. Warming up a KETO audience (women) is different from promoting offers related to potency (men) or products for elderly individuals. Different approaches and promises work in different geos. However, today we'll try to cover a bit of everything to spark new ideas and possibly an interesting combination will come to mind.
Why Warm Up?
Those who have worked in traditional e-commerce, such as Shopify and the like, will remember such a standard - the standard conversion rate in online retail is 1%. If you have 2-2.5%, you're doing well. Nutra and supplements are the kind of products that can provide a stable CR of 4-6%, even 8-10% for some brands and advertisers. I would say 2-2.5% is the minimum for Nutra SS/Trial and Supplements.
We warm up to increase conversion, EPC, and other important metrics by which you measure your campaigns. We, as humans, are somewhat animalistic (to a great extent), and we need to be intrigued, to tickle our insecurities, before making important decisions. For example, parting with $100+ on an unfamiliar website is one of those decisions. There are plenty of studies on how feelings and emotions influence our actions and decision-making, especially among the target audience that buys Nutra. The first phase of decision-making is emotional, the second is to “think”. With pre-landers, we stimulate the first phase - emotions and feelings.
What emotions and feelings do we need to evoke in the customer to break through these 0.5-1% conversion rates and reach 5-6+% CR? Let's discuss:
- Trust. During the warming-up process, we establish trust in the product. Health is a very personal and sensitive matter. In the nutra niche, it's often intimate. Texts about the product, videos, reviews, customer feedback, and social proof can help with this.
- Play on insecurities. If you're John from Utah with modest physical attributes in your pants, you might have some insecurities and dream of pumping up the python. You're trusting and naive, saw an article on Facebook, kind of like on Men's Health... About how wives cheat on guys like you, and these gummies will solve all your problems! You get a pang of fear, you need to buy 5 bottles for $200!
- Give hope. Here, the main thing is not to overdo it and not get carried away. Promising someone that they will be cured of serious illnesses like diabetes or hepatitis, I wouldn't do it, it's not very cool. But upgrading the one-eyed monster, that's a different story! Harmless.
- Interest. People are curious; you need to be able to intrigue them without going overboard. Oprah lost 40 pounds with the help of Keto potion, so I can too!
- Awareness. We create an initial level of awareness about our product, especially if we're selling something little-known and new. In the nutra niche, almost all products can be categorized as such.
- Pleasure and comfort, laziness. People are lazy and don't want to spend time and effort on solving their problems using long and effective methods. They're okay with deceiving themselves into believing that a pill from the internet will reduce or increase some part of their body.
- Urgency. The feeling of urgency, for example, through a limited offer or a promotion that is only valid for a specific period. Oooooonly today, time is running out!
- And other emotions that can push him/her to part with the money. Put yourself in the “patient's” shoes and think from your own perspective. I stutter a bit, and if there were a craze for nutra against stuttering, I’d create super creatives because I know the pain of people with a stutter. Here, you need to be a bit of a psychologist.
A moment of theory. Funnel
Before I dive into the topic, I'll explain what a funnel is. For those who might be in the dark. I drew one for my white label brand on the fly. This is why I'm revisiting here the retargeting and UGC. There's also black-hat retargeting, which falls into the advertiser’s side. I might describe it in another text. If there's an error in the funnel scheme, forgive me, A-student.
I placed the pre-landing page second from the top. It's an integral part of the funnel. A pre-lander can be in the form of text, video, influencer, and so on. This part of the funnel can be called “interest”. As for the advertising at the top of the funnel, it's “awareness”. Well, further down, of course, everything leads to sales. Without pre-landers/interest in the funnel, the profitability of any online sales will be compromised.
What to warm up with?
What are the options for warming up:
- Standard pre-landers from CPA networks;
- Review articles, informative ones;
- Articles comparing several products;
- Quizzes, calculators, questionnaires;
- Videos, YouTube, VSL, etc.;
- Social media, influencers.
We’ll go through each of them, look at examples, links, and screenshots. I like to compare white-hat and black-hat nutra/supplements. I work on two fronts, described a bit in this note. And here, we’ll look at both approaches.
Standard pre-landers from CPA networks
There are plenty of them, affiliates come up with all sorts of things! I won't list them all; it’d make for a very long read. I'll only touch on fake articles using celebrities and doctors.
As an advertiser, I steer clear of such pre-landers and say “God forbid”. You can get into a lot of trouble for that. A couple of my American advertising friends had such a sad experience. Lawsuits for several million dollars because affiliates used celebrities in the pre-landers. In the USA, lawsuits are an expensive pleasure, and you might end up serving time behind bars.
Webmasters know that sometimes it's a working scheme. However, people are gradually getting smarter and not falling for such tales. And if an advertiser finds out that you are engaging in such practices, he might refuse to pay you. Always ask before running such campaigns.
Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, popular figures in the USA, are often targeted by affiliates. However, I wouldn't recommend promoting such offers as it's an outdated strategy.
Fake articles using well-known resources and shows
How many years has this pre-lander been around? Does it work for someone in the USA? I've seen it in Google every other day for a couple of years. No matter how much we test it, it's no good.
The timer, the comment section from 2016. Cannes Lion is in the bag. I could tell you the names and photos from the comments section by heart after a couple of minutes of preparation.
There are many such pre-landers, and I don't want to dwell on them. You've seen them already: Shark tank, Oprah, scientific breakthroughs by a student, and so on. Perhaps it works for new GEOs for SS/Trial or through some new sources. Of course, if you tweak it and come up with your own twist, it might work. It needs testing.
Fake pornographic articles, adult
This approach works if you use it correctly and come up with something unique or fresh. Of course, it works for male enhancement offers, not so much for others. This is where we promise to pump up the python and that the wife won't leave. If the landing page also sings the same tune, the puzzle may come together.
Of course, all these pre-landers are only used in classic nutra. A reputable white-label supplement brand won't risk its reputation by deceiving customers. Let's move on to pre-landers that can be used by both nutra and supplement brands.
Review articles, informative
SEO style. In 98% of cases, these are paid or specially placed articles. It's a standard marketing approach. Essentially, it's the same as what was discussed above, but without shocking content and sensations. Both black-hat and white-hat players use it.
A moment of theory. Webmasters who work with SEO traffic manipulate search engine rankings with such articles, both through free and paid placements. White-label brands do the same, but they write articles more carefully, and their links are of higher quality and carry more weight. Why? Because white-hat players play the long game, and it's essential for them to boost their domain's ranking through these links. Nutra brands often don't care as much about their domains; they can change them several times a year. The process of acquiring links and placing them is called link building.
Let's take a look at how supplement brands do this; I'll show you a couple of examples. For instance, the Nutrafol brand. This is a white-label supplement brand that fights hair loss. They write and order many high-quality articles and reviews.
They write in different styles and place their articles on authoritative websites.
Now, let's take a look at a nutra brand. The quality of the material and the website isn't as fancy as Nutrafol's, even though they made an effort. Teaser headlines, shocking content.
Not a single photo, the text doesn't contain anything valuable for a regular buyer. It's all about exposures and dissections of the “super-effective formula”.
Search for such reviews on Google. Compare the black and white approaches. As a regular adult, what would you be swayed by before making a purchase? I’d probably lean towards quality and useful material.
And now, a moment of observation. Type in SS/Trial offers that you're running in the USA on Google using an American IP, and most likely you’ll see the first article in the search results about this miraculous product on the outlookindia.com website. This is a site with relatively good DA (domain authority) where most nutra advertisers purchase links and articles.
This is where you'll find many of the pre-landers I mentioned earlier. But when you search for things like “Keto”, you won't find anything there. Indians in their own style: crooks. As for me, it's a bit embarrassing to advertise there, even though the links are relatively inexpensive. But reputable and authoritative websites don't sell us - advertisers, links and articles on their pages about miracle pills for a wiener or weight loss. Well, that's a slightly different story. If you're interested, I can write a bit about SEO for nutra and supplements – it's indispensable.
Articles comparing multiple products. SEO style
This approach is quite similar to the previous one, but it involves taking several products and creating an engaging and informative text in which one particular product is shown to be superior to others.
They use various tricks to highlight a particular product, such as assigning scores on a 10-point scale, listing them from top to bottom, omitting links to “losing” products, and so on.
This is a popular approach used by both the black and white hat camps.
And here's nutra. Well, they tried, not bad!
Reviews are a great type of pre-land that can convert well. But there are nuances.
I'm sharing a scheme from personal experience that has its advantages. We ordered bottles of Keto nutra from competitors and got our own. We took photos of these bottles with an iPhone and created a long native review article. Of course, my brand is number one – the link, a rating of 10/10, recommendations from nutritionists, and so on. It turned out to be natural, and people fell for it. Where did I get the idea? From AG1, a white label brand. Look for a screenshot of that pre-land in the previous article.
P.S. Sometimes you can find photos of competitors' bottles on the internet and save money by not buying them.
Here's another idea for you! Real reviews or product comparisons on Reddit, Quora, and so on.
Here’s another great example {link}
Quizzes, calculators, surveys
I like such a funnel in both white and black approaches. Why?
- People are drawn to this “interactivity”, it's interesting.
- In the questions, you can tap into complexes and desires.
- The customer feels a “personalization” of the offer, the sensation that a product is specially tailored for them.
- A high-quality and well-thought-out quiz looks trustworthy and professional.
They are used in many niches: dating, crypto, white-label products, and, of course, in our dear nutra and supplements. They are disguised as Reddit, hospital websites, popular publications, and so on.
At the end of the quiz, you can lead to another pre-landing page, for example, a “hospital” one, if the quiz was related to it, or a shock content. Or directly to the offer landing page.
White quizzes are more appealing and well-thought-out. They consist of factual questions without going overboard. They are often added directly to the website, with a visible CTA button. Because it works!
A button to the quiz prominently displayed on the website.
The questions and their answers are interesting. Ask your girlfriend/wife to take it, and most likely you'll end up buying hair cosmetics for $100+. https://actandacre.com/pages/quiz-1.
Here are a few more great ones:
Where can you create quizzes? There are many options; here are a couple that work:
Youtube, VSL and other videos as pre-landers
Videos before an offer are used in many niches. It can be long, like in crypto/forex, or as short as half a minute, as in dating or e-commerce. It can last an hour as in VSL or be a 15-second story. It can be on the landing page itself or separately, on YouTube or on social networks. There are plenty of options.
In the nutra, fake reviews on YouTube and VSL are a popular tactic. Just like with articles, the approach can vary significantly. Webmasters often take a simple route and create low-quality content with AI-generated talking heads. They use a slideshow of screenshots with a voiceover or employ small-time bloggers-swindlers who create “reviews”. I've both made and ordered such content for my own offers, and it's embarrassing to watch. You can search for something like “keto offer review” on Google and be inspired by this embarrassment. The comments on such videos are an art form of their own.
Supplement brands, on the other hand, approach this matter very thoughtfully by commissioning professional reviews from bloggers with attractive visuals and presentation:
Of course, brands pay for this or can negotiate an affiliate link. But it's not embarrassing to show it to people.
Video is a top tool in the white-hat approach, it works very well. We are actively testing it. Often, these are positive tests. Purchases from video reviews often cost less than from paid traffic. But it's still work, and you need to find the right influencer and an audience that will convert.
I unfortunately don't know the conversion rates for nutra with video. But I see that all my black-hat offers and the offers of my acquaintances are in those embarrassing YouTube reviews, and new videos are constantly being added. Affiliates who work with this type of traffic post these videos, and I don't get involved. Every week, a new “embarrassing” review appears, so it probably works somehow.
Social media as a pre-landing
Let me tell you about an interesting case that you probably haven't heard of. Facebook groups for brands with customers are a popular trend in the supplements industry in the USA.
For example, there's a group for the brand Obvi, and they have 70k subscribers. They attract people to this group through email campaigns for abandoned carts, advertising, post-order thank you emails, and so on. When a person joins this group, their doubts can quickly dissipate, and they either make a purchase or become a repeat customer of Obvi. The posts look super natural, people share how many pounds they've lost, leave comments, and like. It's the perfect scheme.
These groups are created for warming up and increasing retention.
I hadn't thought about how to apply this to nutra yet, but it seems like a brilliant idea to me.
I won't go into detail here about Instagram or Facebook posts as pre-landers. An Instagram post is like a pre-landing page at its minimum. But nutra brands are not engaging in social media, and they are missing out. Such things with social activity can significantly increase trust, even for scammers.
What other pre-landers are there?
What you definitely shouldn't do: affiliates often send me such pre-landers. The screenshot I provided is still a decent example; often it's just a photo of a product bottle and a clunky CTA button saying “VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE”. Why are you doing this, buddy?? What message are you trying to convey to the customer with this invention?
How to find pre-landers?
You probably know them better than I do. Spy tools, Google search with a US IP, or Offervault – offer name – Google search. Even porn sites can provide some ideas (for work purposes).
Which one to choose for work?
This is the most interesting and pressing question. First and foremost, it depends on the product you're promoting, the GEO, and the traffic source. Of course, it's best to use fresh or custom ones, but “custom” can be an option if you're knowledgeable about the material and understand the approach.
When we work with affiliates and promote something together, I often ask them to show me what they use in their pre-landers. They proudly show their “custom” pre-landers, which often brings a smile to my face. For example, they simply replace Oprah with Kardashian and the CNN news header with something from Forbes. Or they change the images in an old pre-lander without altering the story/text, or they are going dumb and don't change the product names, and so on. That's it. Very creative))
By “custom”, I mean coming up with a completely new catchphrase, a brand new celebrity. If you're promoting Keto, ask a friend who is based in the USA to come up with some trends from there, new stars who were overweight and lost weight. For example, a trend for the female audience could be the Anti-Bloating remedies, with a celebrity like Ashley Graham, and so on.
Bloating refers to the distention of the abdomen. Over the past couple of years, it's been a super trend here, and women have suddenly started to worry a lot about it. Just type it into Adheart or TikTok, and you'll understand what I mean. Supplement brands are capitalizing on this topic extensively. Superfood blends, gummies, weight loss pills, and collagen products promise to help with bloating in addition to their other benefits. So why not promise something trendy like that to the “patients” of Keto gummies or other nutra for the female audience.
Dive deeper into the geo, trends, and the audiences you work with. Another piece of advice is to consult with affiliate managers about approaches. Don't be afraid to show them your pre-landings; they can provide guidance without stealing your treasure. However, don't trust newbie managers. Look for an experienced professional.
Outro
A pre-landing is an essential part of the funnel in the nutra and supplements niche, and there's no way around it. It's time for webmasters to change their approaches, adapt to the audience, and get creative in new ways. Internet users are not as gullible as one might think on the other side of the screen.
by Editor
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