Neil Patel has built 10,000’s of landing pages, here are his seven most valuable tips for the hottest affiliate landers right now.

The conversion specialist reviews the most popular landing pages that affiliates are currently using and breaks down how to double conversions using simple these hacks.

Speech by Neil Patel | Co-Founder, Crazy Egg & Hello Bar

Neil Patel Speech Transcript

How are you guys doing today? Good.

So I thought I would do something that’s a bit more interesting today.

How many of you here are affiliates? Good amount of you.

How many of you here are companies with offers? Alright.

And I’m assuming some of you, affiliates, once you get big enough, you create your own offers, correct?

So I wanted to do something fun in which we take a look at landing pages that you are familiar with and I critique them.

Why Critique Current Landing Pages?

Because if these are the landing pages that you are driving traffic to, whether you’re creating your own offers or you’re driving traffic to other people’s offers, you can then end up giving them these tips to boost the conversions.

Because if the landing pages convert better, what does that mean? You make more money.

And I know you, affiliates, love that money. Probably more than anyone else I know.

Every time I go to Affiliate conferences, everyone’s like “How do I make $20,000 a day, or 20,000 a month?”

Then they get there and are like “I want to make 20,000 a day

They get there, they’re like “I need a $100,000 a day”

It’s never-ending.

I was just at another affiliate event. And then they asked, once they got there they’re like, “How do I save the money and not pay taxes?

Then everyone’s like “Move to Puerto Rico.”

You guys don’t have to do that. Just focus on landing page optimisation.

Example: (Bad) Credit Loan Page

Neil Patel - Credit Loans Landing Page

Neil Patel – Credit Loans Landing Page

So let’s first take a look at this bad loan page. People have bad credit, they need loans and it’s hard.

And this landing page has Call to Actions, has some text.

Neil Patel - Credit Loans Landing Page

Neil Patel – Credit Loans Landing Page

Has some little buttons or images that show the steps. Even talks about the requirements.

Neil Patel - Credit Loans Landing Page

Neil Patel – Credit Loans Landing Page

Then has some small print. That’s, for you guys, because the screen is big is probably easy to read, but normally it’s a bit hard to read.

Neil Patel - Credit Loans Landing Page

Neil Patel – Credit Loans Landing Page

Then they even have a map of where they operate.

Neil Patel - Credit Loans Landing Page

Neil Patel – Credit Loans Landing Page

Then from there, they have the footer, Call to Action button of getting started. And that’s pretty much it.

Now I know what you are thinking. You are looking at this landing page and you’re like, “I know how to improve the conversions.”

Basic Ways To Improve Conversions

Neil Patel - Basic Feedback

Neil Patel – Basic Feedback

Well, there are some basic ways. And these aren’t my special tips.

Something basic could be, the header at the top, the scrolling nav bar, it has too many options.

You remove them, and you just have a button that talks about apply.

You’re gonna end up generating more clicks versus telling them “Hey click on my account.”

Same with the text. Some of the paragraphs are hard to read.

You can also reduce the footer navigation options. As you saw in the previous slide, there are way too many options.

Too Many Options = ?

When there are way too many options what happens? What do you think happens if there are too many options?

That’s right, they click on the wrong areas. The areas that don’t make you money.

You guys are affiliates, you want that money right?

Don’t send them to your FAQ page. You want them to send up to your signup or buy page.

And one thing they didn’t do, let’s go back to the landing pages. It’s a long landing page but there’s not Call to Actions in every area.

They more so have it at the very top. And they have it at the very bottom.

So those are general tips. But I’m not here to just give you general tips.

On every landing page I go over, I’ll give you some general tips but then I’ll give you some interesting things that I see.

Patel’s Software Tracks 3 Billion Visits per Month

Now, does everyone know what kind of software companies I’ve created?

Analytics companies.

Do you know how many visits we track on a monthly basis? Over 3 billion. Not million, billion with the B.

I’m not the smartest person. Like some of you, I didn’t do always the best in school but the one thing I was always good at was math.

There’s a lot of Indians in this room. You know what I’m talking about. You have to be good at math if you’re Indian.

If you’re not good at math, you get in trouble right. Look at them, they’re nodding their heads.

They probably got beat when they got an A-minus. They’re like it’s not perfect “Oh son, today you’re gonna get a beating.”

You get in trouble right.

I remember, true story, my dad one time put my butt on the stove.

You gotta get good grades as Indian. He didn’t mean to burn me but then when he burned me he said “I’m sorry…”

But I definitely got my good grades.

So these are basic things.

So what can other people do to really boost the conversion rates of pages like these lead forms?

Tip #1: Engage Your Visitors

So my first tip for you guys and some of you have seen this, some of you haven’t, is to engage your visitors first.

You can quiz them.

I used to have a nutrition site called Nutrition Secrets.

Neil Patel - Quiz You Visitors

Neil Patel – Quiz You Visitors

And we would quiz people when we would want to collect leads because when we told people to buy our products or opt-in for a lead form and we would have a sales rep call to tell them they’d lose weight or whatever it may be and go for some personal coaching, we found that hey people just don’t like opting in.

But if you make it customised to them, let’s say you quiz them.

Neil Patel - Quiz You Visitors

Neil Patel – Quiz You Visitors

I’m a man. I’m a woman. It’s more personalized.

Neil Patel - Quiz You Visitors

Neil Patel – Quiz You Visitors

And then you get in, you ask them questions like, what are your goals and all this stuff.

And then you say “Alright, you want the results, you’re more interested in our services and our products, put in your email. Name, and email”.

Usually, I don’t pitch. I just say want the results, put in your name and email.

When I show them the results, I end up saying “This is what you need if you want to achieve these goals.”

This simple thing versus just asking people to put in their information and collect the lead, increased my conversions by 108%.

That’s pretty good right. It’s simple.

And how many of you guys are technical and know how to do some engineering?

Look, the Indians are raising their hands. Good for you. We teach IT in India. That’s right.

But don’t waste your time. It’s inefficient. Just go use Lead Quizzes.

Lead Quizzes on Landing Pages

Lead Quizzes, I don’t know what it costs. I don’t own it. It’s not my company. It’s under 100 bucks a month.

And you can just create one of these quizzes and keep churning and burning. And then you can figure out what converts the best and generate the most leads.

Neil Patel - Quiz You Visitors

Neil Patel – Quiz You Visitors

Now, with this bad credit site, they do have an area on their site where they have a slider, where they’re asking you to engage. How much money do you want to borrow?

Do you see how this is way better?

And having people engage versus putting on their main landing pages.“Hey, here’s all about us. We do bad credit loans. Here are the areas we service, here’s the areas we don’t.”

You guys are affiliate marketers, you think you’re gonna be driving traffic to areas they don’t serve, of course not.

Facebook allows you to geo-target. And because of that, you’re not driving them irrelevant traffic.

So why wouldn’t they have you engage first?

And I wouldn’t just engage with this a little slider, I would then ask them more questions. And then, collect the lead information.

Because if I waste 5 minutes of your time, and I have you do multiple things, like fill out questionnaires. Not your name and email, but just all these questions about your loan. “What are you looking for a loan for? How much?”

And then at the end, I asked you for your information to see if you qualify, you’re gonna be like “Aw, shucks I’ve wasted all this time”

Might as well just give him my name, email and all my other information.

That’s why engaging first really works.

I also did this was one of my other companies Hello Bar, software company where we help people collect emails, but I asked them, put in your URL first.

Neil Patel - Hello Bar Example

Neil Patel – Hello Bar Example

And then I had them create email collection modal’s.

Neil Patel - Hello Bar Example

Neil Patel – Hello Bar Example

And then at the end, I said “Hey, do you want this to go live? Sign-up.”

I got a 52.11% increase in sign-ups because they’re like I already spent all this time engaging, might as well just complete the rest.

Why Engaging First Works

And if you’re wondering why engaging works is because of this… What’s your name there? What’s your name, yeah?

Dennis!

So Dennis, if I went to you and I said, “Will you marry me?” What are you gonna say?

Assuming I was a woman or man of your dreams, what would you say?

Yes? You’re crazy! Why would you say yes?

I could be a terrorist. I could be a killer. I could be anything. I can be a clingy person, I don’t know right.

But you get the point. You’re saying yes right now but in most cases what would you say?

No.

And why would you say no? Because you don’t know me.

That’s the same with your visitors.

Almost all of you affiliates are trying to get people to buy, buy, buy. And you’re just like “Oh no, it’s cool. I’ll just scale up more accounts. Get them burned. And I’ll just spend thousands of dollars a day.”

Yeah, you can do that but why not get people to engage first.

I’ve also found that when you get them to engage first, less of your accounts get burned.

That’ll save you quite a bit of money if you are buying accounts.

It’s like if you ask someone “Hey, would you go on a date with me?” Dennis is more likely to say yes.

Then we get to know each other. Eventually, we end up getting married or moving in together.

And then I asked him to marry me, he’s much more likely to say yes.

That’s how it works in the real world. And that’s how it should work on your website.

Tip #2 Don’t Forget To Use a Exit Pop Up

Number 2, don’t use an exit pop-up.

You’ve seen people talk about exit pop-ups before but I’m going to show you something a bit more unique.

You’re lucky if 3 out of 100 people buy. Sometimes you get more, sometimes less.

But in most cases, most people don’t buy.

So why not collect leads right when people are about to bounce.

On a desktop, what I did was I created an exit pop-up but I made my background of the exit pop-up a GIF.

Neil Patel - Animated Exit Pops

Neil Patel – Animated Exit Pops

You’re familiar with GIFs? Those images that move. And I showed them in that GIF what they would be putting in their name and email for.

My conversions went through the roof.

The copy stayed the same but just by adding a silly little GIF, I increased my email collection rate by 42%. That’s crazy, right.

And then you do re-marketing. And you get people to start buying.

I don’t know what it is about affiliate marketers, most of them just want people to buy. Collect emails for all the people who are gonna leave.

It’s a great way to generate more sales.

And here’s the crazy one for all of you who love mobile.

This is the highest converting lead opt-in that I’ve seen on mobile. This is for a site that teaches you how to grow and your wealth.

Neil Patel - Popups that are engaging

Neil Patel – Popups that are engaging

And it says, “How rich are you ready to be?”

So the slider is dollar signs. And I’m on my iPhone and I know the screenshots ghetto, I’m too cheap to buy a nice iPhone. I still have the 5.

And you have to slide all the way with dollar signs. And once it goes to the end, you can click the button.

That little simple trick accounts for 16% of the leads.

Just think about it, you’re selling wrinkle cream, you can do this slider.

“How youthful do you want to look?” And make the slider an old lady who has wrinkly skin. As she slides it, she becomes more youthful.

You see how you can be using this.

How badly do you want to get out of debt when you’re having a bad credit loan site? You can have a slider of an image of someone who is dirt broke. And as they slide it, they get more and more money.

You see how you can be pretty creative with this.

Now let’s go over the next landing page.

Neil Patel - Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Neil Patel – Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Have you all heard of Babbel? The company where you do translations? You learn different languages?

Their landing page, they like using blog posts.

Of you affiliates, how many of you drive traffic, I don’t know what you guys call them, those blog posts, those fake content sites that you create that say CNN. And then you remove all the navigation and stuff.

You know what I’m talking about, right? Look at Dennis he’s laughing.

How many times you do that a day? A lot.

I met someone yesterday, he’s like “Yeah I have a whole team of 4 people.”

I’m like “What do they do? They do all the media buying?”

He’s like, “No, no they just create fake stories.”

So-and-so was ready to quit Double Down Casino and what happened next will shock you, alright.

I made that up don’t go jacking that. If you do, give me my affiliate rate on that. I’m kidding you can keep it.

Neil Patel - Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Neil Patel – Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

But this page keeps going. It’s just content. “Let’s go” button, some ads on the sidebar.

Neil Patel - Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Neil Patel – Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Look at this, “Articles you may like”.

Neil Patel - Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Neil Patel – Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

They’re showing you other articles. And the comments.

Basic Tips

Neil Patel - Basic Feedback

Neil Patel – Basic Feedback

So some basic tips.

Sticky navigation doesn’t have a benefit, it just has “Try Babbel”. Why should I try it, there’s no benefit in there. This is all basic stuff.

Remove “Articles you may like” section. Why would you send them to another article when you wanted to get them to buy?

Another basic tip, highlight the comments that are the best ones.

If some comments encourage people to buy, I would put that shit at the top. Assuming you don’t want to be shady.

Of course, have Call to Actions within the blog content.

If people are reading your blog content, that’s where their eyes are going, your Call to Action shouldn’t just be in your sidebars.

Put them in your blog content. You’ll get like 3 – 4 times more clicks. It’s the simplest thing.

I don’t know why people don’t do it. This is all basic shit.

So now let’s go over what I would have done if I was them. Again I’ll always give you my unique tips.

Tip #3: Use Geo Location Data on the Landing Page

My 3rd unique tip for you is use geo IP.

You know all those dating sites? You feel warm and fuzzy because you’re like, you see copy, let’s say if there’s match.bangkok, I don’t know what dating site they have here or match.com.

There are 1,000,632 single people in Bangkok. What are you waiting for?

You see when they do that warm, fuzzy geo IP targeting within their copy, it converts better.

And of course, here’s another example from a guy who sells to people how to make money online.

Neil Patel - Timothy Sykes Example

Neil Patel – Timothy Sykes Example

“I’m determined to create a millionaire trader in Las Vegas, my only question is will it be you?”

People started going out. They’re like “Oh, I’m in Henderson. It’s right outside of Vegas. Can I still qualify? Please let me in.”

He’s charging $7,000. Of course, he’s like, “You know what for you, I’ll make an exception. I’ll let you in.”

Of course, you’re gonna let people in. It’s not a 100% accurate but it works.

Neil Patel - Expedia

Neil Patel – ExpediaExpedia uses this.

When I’m on Expedia and I was in Los Angeles, it automatically populated Los Angeles. It showed me flights to New York.

And it even shows me details below of the most common flights I’m probably likely to take because I’m in Los Angeles.

Neil Patel - Expedia

Neil Patel – Expedia

No one’s in Bangkok and will be like, “Oh I want to book a flight from Vancouver, Canada to Los Angeles.”

They’re usually gonna leave from the city they’re in. Not always but in most cases this all helps boost conversions.

So we tested this on 5 landing pages. And it increased sales by anywhere from 12.49 to 27.57%.

Show The Most Popular Languages Based On IP

Now, if I was Babbel, and this is an example, I’ll give for Babbel, why don’t they include products based on IPs.

For example, in Brazil, you know what the most common language that they want to speak is?

I did the screenshot of Babbel when I was in Brazil.

They should have shown me English as the main language.

Only 2 or 3% of people in Brazil speak English. It’s the most common language that they want to learn because then they can make money on Upwork and all these sites. And then have the money in Brazil.

But they should be showing me the products that I most likely want to learn based on where I’m coming from. My computer’s IP.

And that’s what Babbel should have done but they didn’t.

They should have shown the most popular languages based on IP. A simple way to boost conversions.

Tip #4: Add A Checkout Bump

Next one, add a checkout bump. This is simple.

It’s easier to get upsells than it is to get new sales.

Tell all of the people that you’re driving traffic to, to add a checkout bump.

Neil Patel - Checkout bumps

Neil Patel – Checkout bumps

On the checkout page, this doesn’t decrease conversions. Right when they’re buying, offer them a really sweetheart deal where they’re getting a steep discount.

And you’ll notice that you get roughly 15% more in revenue.

If these affiliates or these companies can get more revenue from their pages, what does that mean for you as an affiliate?

You can get paid out more money.

Or if you have your own products, add checkout bumps. You can pay the affiliates out the same money and pocket more profit.

Check out Bump Notes

Neil Patel - Checkout bumps Notes

Neil Patel – Checkout bumps Notes

So the trick with check out bumps is speed and automation.

If the checkout bump helps them get the product, the service, the results, faster in a more automated way, it converts better.

Why is that? People are lazy.

Your checkout bump should be priced at 50% or lower of the main product. You’re selling a product for 100 bucks, you can sell a checkout bump but for no more than 50 bucks.

It has to be cheaper than $50.

If you can’t explain the benefit in the checkout bump in one sentence, it’s not gonna do well.

Keep it simple.

And it has to be largely discounted. Ideally, when I’m selling let’s say $100 a product, I like my checkout bumps being like 30 bucks.

It’s simple, it’s easy. People buy that shit.

How many of you guys are gonna start adding checkout bumps to your product pages?

Only a few of you? You got to start adding them.

I’ll make a bet with you. If any of you use these tips and you can’t get an increase in conversions, I will give you free advice.

I will get on the phone. And I’ll help you guys out for free.

And keep in mind, I have companies like Google AdWords who pay me to market Google AdWords.

I get paid by Facebook to speak at their conferences.

I will give you free advice on whatever you want if you actually take these tips and try implementing them. Is that a fair deal?

That means I’m that confident that this shit works.

So now let’s go over another product landing page that you are familiar with.

How many of you like selling wrinkle cream?

Only a few of you? Or have in the past? You guys are like, no we’ve moved on to flashlights.

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

Alright so wrinkle creams. You see this landing page.

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

It keeps going.

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

And going…

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

And going…

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

And going..

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

And going…

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

Look at that “Buy” button, it’s kind of small for the page. That’ll be one of my tips.

And going…

Neil Patel - Skin Product Landing Page

Neil Patel – Skin Product Landing Page

Look at this form fields.

Neil Patel - Form Fields

Neil Patel – Form Fields

Name and Phone is hard to read right. They could have made it a little bit better.

Why the heck are they putting United States there? And having the damn product being sold in pounds.

Basic Tips

Neil Patel - Basic Feedback

Neil Patel – Basic Feedback

Basic tips, buy button should be larger. Pricing should be in their currency that the person’s coming from.

Form field text is hard to read. And this landing page was hard to read on a mobile phone which is terrible because you probably get a shitload of sales from your mobile phone.

Tip #5: Make It Hard For People To Buy

So my first tip make it hard for people to buy.

How many of you guys are familiar with Instant Checkmate? None of you? Alright good.

So Instant Checkmate is a site that gives background checks.

Neil Patel - Instant Checkmate

Neil Patel – Instant Checkmate

You know you’re dating this guy or girl, most you are affiliates, and you’re dating this girl. And you’re like “Oh my god. She’s so hot. I met her at an affiliate conference. She was at this booth.”

I’m like “No, she’s not into you, she’s just trying to get you to drive traffic to whatever company hired her.”

But let’s say you want to go for it. And you’re like “Oh my god, this girl is gorgeous and smart. And she’s pitching me on driving traffic. And if I do, she’ll go on a date with me.”

Some of you guys are laughing. You have probably tried this.

And you go to Instant Checkmate. You’re like, “Let me find out what Sarah is all about. I want to make sure she’s not gonna kill me.”

Or what many of you guys are probably wondering “I wanna make sure she doesn’t have another boyfriend.I went on Facebook and Instagram and I couldn’t find her.”

So you go through Instant Checkmate. And they just put up a ton of roadblocks.

They just keep giving you more and more pages, “Oh we’re finding more information. We’re doing a deep dive. What we’re showing you may scare you. Are you okay with this?”

And they make you wait like a few minutes. When you wait a few minutes and they say what you may find may scare you, what are you gonna do?

You’re probably gonna put in your information and pay, especially because you love this girl. And you’re ready to propose to her, which I showed you, you don’t do.

And you’re gonna put in all this information and start spending money.

So it converts really well. Why? Because you made people go through hoops.

If you make people work for shit, they’re much more likely to convert.

Pre-Qualifying People

Mike Chang also did the same with his Six Pack Shortcuts.

Neil Patel - Mike Chang Example

Neil Patel – Mike Chang Example

Are you familiar with Mike Chang? He used to have all these ads on YouTube saying buy his fitness products.

And then he went to this hippie-dippie conference about life and spirituality which there’s nothing wrong with if you believe in it. I’m not saying I do or I don’t.

And then he decided to like stop selling all this shit.

But we tested this on a few sites where we made it harder for people to purchase.

Instead of just letting them buy, like skincare, we would just be like “Okay what are your goals? How old are you? What kind of environment do you live in? Is it dry? Moist? What are your skin care goals? Do you have issues with your eyes?”

Ask him all these questions and then saying “Oh you qualify.”

I tested this out on Mike Chang’s site. I didn’t fill out shit and I clicked the buy button.

And he’s like, “Congratulations, you qualified to buy our product.”

No matter what I filled out, I qualify.

Tested this on 5 sites, 1 decreased in sales by 34.63%. And the other 4 increased in sales all the way up to 58.86%. Not too shabby.

Test this out now.

Tip #6: Copy Tweaks Have The Biggest Impact On Conversions

Number 6, copy tweaks have the biggest impact in conversions.

If I’m doing a skincare side and you have big landers, there’s one thing you need to know.

And I do a ton of copy-writing and I’ve paid some of the best copywriters literally 60-70, 100 grand just for a landing page.

And out of all the data I’ve analysed, because I analysed a shitload of data, I’ve learned that 8 out of 10 people will read your headline. But only 2 out of 10 people will read the rest of your landing page.

It’s all in the headline. Yes the rest of the copy is important, but it starts with the headline.

You got a shit headline, you’re gonna have shit conversions.

Headline Rules

Neil Patel - Headline Rules

Neil Patel – Headline Rules

So here are some quick headline rules. Numbers and negative words increase click-through rate and reads.

Not only does it increase click-through rates, if you’re doing organic SEO, which some of you are, you want to keep them under 65 characters per search.

Match will get some extra search traffic. Make your headlines match the content.

If it’s deceiving, you’re gonna get a big fall off from the purchase.

Odd numbers perform better than even. Don’t ask me why but from everything we’ve tested, we’ve seen that.

6-word headlines convert extremely well.

And avoid words with multiple meanings. And of course, use power words and adjectives. So fun, effortless, incredible.

General Copy Tweaks

And here are some general copy tweaks.

Neil Patel - General Copy Tweaks

Neil Patel – General Copy Tweaks

Evoking curiosity is a strong way to generate clicks and sales.

What’s your name? Khulbat? I’m Indian, I should be able to say this.

Okay, Khulbat right? Good enough? Alright.

“Khulbat quit Double Down Casino and what happened next will shock you.”

That’s curiosity.

You’re much more likely to quit Double Down Casino and you know if they’re playing Double Down Casino. They’re much more likely to buy your casino offer.

You also want to make sure you’re writing in a conversational tone.

With copy, if you’re not using the words you and I, it doesn’t feel as personal. It doesn’t convert as well.

Using the words you and I makes it personal. And people, like, “Oh my god, this copy is written just for me.”

You don’t want to be too “salesy” because it hurts conversion.

You want to make your copy clear, dark. I don’t know why people like using these fancy landing pages with all this pink stuff.

I understand the product but if they made their copy easier to read on mobile phones, they would convert better.

You also want to make sure your mobile landing pages are AMP friendly.

Are you familiar with AMP? AMP makes the landing pages load way faster which boost conversions.

And of course, you want to answer objections. So you can use tools like Qualaroo to ask them questions.

If Someone Stays Too Long, Ask Them A Question

If they’re on your page for 5 minutes because they’re most likely not ready to convert.

Neil Patel - Someone Stays Too Long, Ask Them A Question

Neil Patel – Someone Stays Too Long, Ask Them A Question

What did you come to the site for? Did we help solve what you’re looking for?

Asking them simple questions will help you understand what objections they have.

And then making your copy answering each of their objections, because you drive so much traffic, just look for the most common ones. That’s the best way to boost your sales.

Neil Patel - Answer Objections

Neil Patel – Answer Objections

Answered objections on one of my sites through copy, boosted conversions by 14%.

Just one little simple objection. “Why should we pay you guys instead of your competitors?

It was really simple.

Now they can do that on the skincare products. Beauty, answer objections.

Now let’s look at the last landing page.

Neil Patel - VPN Landing Page

Neil Patel – VPN Landing Page

VPN Solutions, Get Your Free VPN. Boom.

Here’s the rest of the landing page. It’s short, sweet. Doesn’t have to be too long.

Basic Feedback

Neil Patel - Basic Feedback

Neil Patel – Basic Feedback

Now basic feedback is not everyone knows what a VPN is. So they should make it more basic.

They should let people know that it’s easy to use. They should consider creating a short video explaining the VPN process instead of this image on the top left.

I understand its privacy-related but you can have the thumbnail of the video. Do the same thing.

And what’s the catch? Why is it free?

People are gonna be wondering this. So you’re gonna lose a lot of people there.

Tip #7: Evoke Fear

Now, here’s what I would do if I had the VPN page. Evoke fear.

In some of your products, you can scare the shit out of people and make them buy.

Neil Patel - VPN Landing Page

Neil Patel – VPN Landing Page

So here’s what this VPN page has, “Snoopers and hackers can trace you by your IP address.”

And I actually did this for a VPN company. It wasn’t these guys.

But I changed his copy. One of my buddies owns a VPN offer.

And right there, I put shit like “People are spying on you. We know that this is your IP address. You live in Berlin, Germany. You use a MacBook Pro. And you enjoy surfing the web at all times at night, especially at night time. It’s this time, in your time zone.”

That scares the shit out of people.

And I would end up being like, “And this is just scratching the surface of what we know about you. Wanna stop this, use this free VPN so we and other people can’t trace you.”

You see how that scares people?

Don’t you think that’ll get people to download your product? Of course it will.

When we did it on the VPN site, conversions went up by 39.14%. That’s crazy.

All we did is just showcase the person’s information based on their IP.

And we weren’t really hardcore specific. We even made judgments, being like, “You love browsing the web using Safari. You’re really loyal to Mac products.”

Or if they had chrome, “You love using Google. You’re loyal to Google products, such as Google search and Chrome.”

By making it creepy, conversions went up.

Bonus Tip: Ask Your Customers And Visitors For A Favor

And my last bonus tip, ask your customers and visitors for a favour.

Neil Patel – EmailSo when you’re collecting emails from your offers, and most of you, affiliates, don’t do this, I don’t understand why, because most your traffic isn’t gonna convert.

Start dripping them with free information, such as being like, “I’ll give you this bonus if you do X Y & Z for me”

Neil Patel - Subject Line

Neil Patel – Subject Line

And the subject line I use is, “I need a favor can you help? Plus some good news.”

Neil Patel - Email

Neil Patel – Email

And I just write an email that just basically says something like “Hey, John or Hey Dennis I have a favour that I’m asking from you. I want to help the world look more youthful. I have this amazing skin care product. And no, I’m not here to sell you on it but instead what I want to do is, I want to have you help me and educate the world on this product. And in exchange, I’ll send you a free sample. All you have to do is pay shipping. But I all I ask in favour, is for you to let other people know about this offer and share this link on your Facebook and Twitter, etc.”

And it’s really simple. You start getting people to share and they email you back saying, “Oh my god, this is amazing.”

And then they write a blog post talking about how you’re awesome. And then boom!

You get more traffic and more sales.

Funny enough traffic hasn’t gone up much.

But when someone recommends a product or service, I found that we got an extra 6.41% increase in sales.

And what I meant traffic didn’t go up much when you have a million-plus visitors that you’re driving or you’re getting, you’re not going to notice a big traffic increase but the people who come from this, they do extremely well when it comes to conversion from visitor to a purchaser.

So that’s it and now let’s get into some QA.

Q&A

Eric:
Thanks very much. I feel we should turn this one over to the audience. We got an opportunity to have you on stage
Neil:
Alright
Eric:
Pretty rare opportunity. So, if you’ve got a question, come up. We have these 2 mics positioned right here. Come on over. Make sure you speak clearly right up in the mic.
Neil:
Yeah. And you guys can ask me the most ridiculous marketing questions, conversion questions. Keep in mind I’ve worked with Facebook. Facebook, as in the company. You do Facebook ads, I work with Google, I help promote AdWords. So you guys can ask anything and I will answer.
Eric:
Ask me anything.
Neil:
There you go.
Eric:
Him, I mean, not me. Jake coming over here. Just whisper it in my ear and I’ll say it out loud.
Neil:
There you go
Audience (Solo):
I think I have to do this every time because this happened with me yesterday too. Okay, I’m a big fan of yours. I’m from India, my name is Solo. And I have this question, what’s the role of artificial intelligence here on landing pages, does it really help?
Neil:
So you’re saying what’s gonna be the role of artificial intelligence online?

Artificial Intelligence Versus Virtual Reality On Landing Pages

Audience:
Yeah on landing pages
Neil:
On landing pages. I don’t think you’re gonna see much artificial intelligence anytime soon. You’re gonna see virtual reality. For example, with skin care, you can show a virtual reality of the product and people can actually start watching it and seeing it. That’s gonna happen much quicker than artificial intelligence. At least, that’s what I believe because that’s what I’m seeing companies put in a ton of money before they were putting it into artificial intelligence. But going back to artificial intelligence, you’re gonna start seeing things being very sophisticated in which they’re gonna know more about the person. Like the IP’s the address, knowing that someone in Brazil wants to learn English because that’s the most common things that they do. This is where you’re gonna see the most increase in sales.

Analysing Data: Artificial Intelligence

Now going back to artificial intelligence, it’s all data that people are analyzing. The problem with it is privacy laws are changing. You’re gonna see a lot of new regulations come out in the EU within the next 3 months or 4 months, we’re already we re-doing a lot of our terms of service and privacy. It’s also gonna make artificial intelligence harder. But if you want a quick trick to make more sales, you are all affiliates you drive people to products and offers. Go create a video. A re-marketing pixel for anyone who clicks the button. Cause you know if they click the button, they went to the landing page. Because you can’t always put your pixels on other people’s landing pages, they limit you. Put it on based on a click of a button. Your pixeling someone because you can always send them a redirect right. Your pixeling them with a conversion pixel that ends up saying alright, if they have the, I’m gonna show them a video on YouTube and Facebook through re-marketing for the next 7 days, that talks about this product or service and the experience they would get if they bought it. It is the highest form of converting ads that I’ve seen by far. And that’s what you guys should all be doing

Do The Opposite Pitch Of the Landing Page

And do the opposite pitch of the landing page. Because if the landing page didn’t make them buy that means you have to do the drastic opposite. And it’s the best way to get them to convert.
Audience (Solo):
That’s a good suggestion. Just one more question, which is the tool that you were to recommend for the landing page? Your favourite of all.
Neil:
My favourite tool for landing pages? I like using Leadpages a lot. Click Funnels is good. But the problem with landing pages, if you want to do custom crazy stuff, you can’t use any of them. You just have to have some cheap labor from Upwork, whip them out for you.
Audience (Solo):
Okay thank you.
Neil:
You’re welcome.

Messenger Marketing

Eric:
While we get someone else there, I wanted to know what you think about Messenger marketing and whether you’re integrating that into your funnels at any point.
Neil:
Messenger marketing works. It converts well but with the automated chat sequences, we consist we’re seeing the numbers go down in conversions. I wasn’t talking about much about Messenger stuff until 6 months to a year ago. And that was because my numbers started going down. So, I was like “Alright, let me share all the messenger stuff.” But at one point, I was getting like 60 -70% click-throughs. Yes, you know some people like I get 90% but I’m talking about in volume.

Push Notifications

What’s easier than messenger is push notifications. You drive a lot of people. So what I do is all do a push notification on the squeeze pages that you control and get people to opt-in. It’s really high converting just use HTTPS pages because then it’s in-browser. And people don’t know what they’re accepting and they just usually accept everything. And then you can do drips through the push notification doing like quick lines of education, driving them back to more landing pages and getting them to convert for all your other offers that are related to you. Because then once you already have one skincare product and you know, they buy that, go offer them everything else that’s related to that demographics. It’s a great way to make more money from your paid traffic.
Eric:
I think that’s the number one thing that affiliate marketers need to focus on, is making more money from customers over the lifetime, rather than just churning and burning.
Neil:
That’s correct, it’s all churn and burn. And I don’t understand why. I worked with a few affiliate companies, yes, changing because Facebook ads are getting more expensive. If it wasn’t, affiliates are lazy.
Eric:
We’d still keep churning.
Neil:
Yeah of course. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The money’s quick and some of you guys are crushing it, more power to you guys, right. But if you can make double your money, why wouldn’t you?
Eric:
Yeah totally. Anyone else out there?
Audience (Deepak):
So hey Neil.
Neil:
Can you go closer to the mic?

The Future of SAS Products

Audience (Deepak):
Hey Neil, this is Deepak from India. And I have a blog called DigitalDeepak.com. So one of my questions is that, what do you think is the future of SAS products? Because I see more and more SAS products being offered on a premium tier where a lot of features are being given away for free so that they can attract the market. So I have watched your videos where you have talked about it. Where you had KISSmetrics and then Mixedpanel give a free tier.
Neil:
They crushed us with the free tier.
Audience (Deepak):
Yes, so I have an opt-in tool as well, we are developing an opt-in tool. And we gave a free tier of that. We have 2,000 sites deployed but then we have difficulty in converting them into paid customers. Even when you look at CrazyEgg, you see how they are giving away free tier. So what if in the future, more and more people give even more free tiers in trying to attack the market, then how do we eventually monetise the people who are in our funnel?
Neil:
So when you do free, it’s hard to convert visitors to customers. If you’re doing free roughly 5% of most SAS, 4 – 5% convert into paying customers. If you’re really good, you can get like 8-9%. And most of them when they’re doing the free trials, they say free premium trial or free account. And then they try to get you to put in your credit card. And then if you don’t, they drop you down into a free account after 30 days. But they push you, “Oh your plan is gonna expire.” They’re really aggressive on the marketing.

When Offering A Free Trial, Optimise Your Funnels

Free works extremely well because it makes your ad cost lower but when you’re doing this you got to optimise your funnels. For all of you out there in the Affiliate World, I’m not a big affiliate, I don’t really do much affiliate marketing, but I know so many of them.
Eric:
You rank pretty high though.
Neil:
Yeah, rank #1 for affiliate marketing. At least in the US. And what I’ve learned is, I see everyone’s data because I don’t compete, so everyone shares it with me. The people who do SAS are making the most in the long term. They’re making the least in the short run. The conversions are crazy but what they find is the LTV of the customers, because they pay for like a year, 2 years. And these companies, as an affiliate, how easy it is for you to sell your company when you’re doing a million dollars a month in profit? Let’s be honest. How many of you think you can sell it for 4x profit? Raise your hand. How many of you think you can’t sell it and it would be hard to find a buyer? Raise your hand if you don’t think it would be easy to find a buyer, alright. How many of you think you can sell it for like a few X profit, if you’re lucky? Raise your hand, alright. No one wants to raise their hand. Either way, I’ll tell you guys one little secret. Do you know how much my SAS company is evaluated at? Take a guess.
Eric:
Which one?
Neil:
What multiple?
Eric:
4x!
Neil:
I can get 6 – 10x revenue.
Eric:
That’s crazy.
Neil:
My profit just has to be break-even. I’m telling you I can sell a company of 6 -10x yearly revenue for being break-even. How crazy do you guys think that is?
Eric:
That’s ridiculous. And that’s because it’s reoccurring.
Neil:
That’s correct.
Eric:
It’s just stable.
Neil:
Yes, much more predictable. Go for reoccurring solutions. Build wealth, it’s really easy. The buyers for these companies, a private equity company will buy these all day long. They’ll turn some profit. The ball money from the bank at like 6% interest and they’ll use your profits cause they’ll make it let’s say profit 20-30% to pay off the bank loan. And they’ll own the company outright by only putting 20-30% down and then they’ll sell it again. That’s the model.
Audience (Deepak):
So one more question, you are free to say no to this, if you want. So how big is your email list and do you use Convertkit for your email?
Neil:
My email list on neilpatel.com? Or the total size? I’ll give you neilpatel.com. Non-paid email list is around like 550,000 active subscribers with the 30% plus open rate, but I don’t sell to my email list. Hence the high open right.
Eric:
We’ve got two people waiting behind us here. we got 5 minutes left. Appreciate it, thank you.
Audience (Chris):
What’s up Neil. Hey Chris over here. I love your stuff, so thank you so much.
Neil:
You’re welcome.
Audience (Chris):
I remember way back you mentioned lucid dreaming was a very hot topic.
Neil:
What was a hot topic?
Audience (Chris):
Lucid dreaming.
Eric:
I remember you said that in Berlin, I was gonna bring that up again.

Ways Of Knowing What’s Hot

Audience (Chris):
I was in Berlin. So I was wondering what are some ways you recommend on knowing what’s hot right now and finding new trends?
Neil:
So Google Trends, of course, lets you know what’s hot. That’s easy. You can use tools like KeywordTool.io and Ubersuggest. So if you put in keywords that tell you what people are searching for related to that industry and it gives you all the longtail. And that works out extremely well. Other than, that look for what people are talking about on Facebook, on their streams. Not where you’re seeing ads but what people are talking about in their streams. And that usually becomes hot. Check out Google News. What’s usually trending and hot there is typically popular as well.
Eric:
Go for those authentic conversations.
Neil:
Correct. Not to paid ads. Go for the authentic conversations.
Eric:
Because that’s what they want you to talk about not necessarily what people actually want.
Neil:
Correct.
Eric:
Cool.
Audience (Chris):
Awesome, thank you so much.
Neil:
You’re welcome. Go for it.
Audience (Araluca):
Hey, you are awesome by the way. Quick question. From what I see, from all of your work, you study a lot of user behavior. Do you think that nowadays, due to the more aggressive offers that are on the market, do you think that users will not be so easygoing like they currently are?

User Behavior

Neil:
It’s getting tougher and tougher. But because technology is advancing, it’s like creating a balance in which, because of more privacy laws it’s harder, but because technology is advancing so much, you’re able to gather more data. So it’s roughly the same.
Audience (Araluca):
Because from what I understood from your speech, it’s like you have to give them a false confidence, more steps, so you can actually make him feel more closer to your offer.
Neil:
Yeah and I’m just letting you know, I personally, wouldn’t create false steps. But when I talk to people who are at this conference, they told me to just tell them whatever converts the best.
Audience (Araluca):
Oh no, not false steps, I mean create steps in order for him to feel closer. The user to feel closer to you.
Neil:
Of course, more touch point, yes. Just think about marriage, if I ask you to marry me right now, even though you’re like, “You’re awesome!” You’re gonna say I’m crazy right.
Audience (Araluca):
Yes.
Neil:
If I got to know you and I said “Hey, you know what…” What’s your name again?
Audience (Araluca):
Araluca.
Neil:
I think we took a picture yesterday.
Audience (Araluca):
Yeah exactly.
Neil:
I have a good memory. So if I said “Let’s go get some coffee.” You’d be like “Okay, let’s go on a dinner date.” And we speed it up and a year from now ask you to marry me, you’re much more likely to say yes. The same goes with the web, creating those steps, you’re much more likely to get conversions because people feel more warm and comfortable with you. The only time you don’t have to do that is if you’re promoting a big brand. Example Amazon, You don’t have to create steps when you’re Amazon because everyone knows Amazon, because of the comforts already there.
Audience (Araluca):
Because of the history.
Eric:
Because it’s built in.
Neil:
Correct.
Audience (Araluca):
Thank you.
Eric:
Time for one more.
Audience:
Hi Neil, thanks for your great talk. And also thanks for sharing like all the material with your blog and podcast. So this is a question for like both you and Eric. So what do you recommend for selling higher value product? Let’s say a training product for over $2,000, would you focus more on content marketing or Facebook Ads?

Selling Higher Value Products

Neil:
You can do Facebook Ads. There’s a guy named Jason Hornick, who does it for all the people who sell $2,000 plus offers. He can usually get you a 2-to-1 on your ad spend. I’ve never met him personally, I have nothing affiliated with him. When I was running with him, I was selling high ticket offers through webinars. I remember, I did a speech on webinars in AWA in the past. Was AWA or Berlin? One of the other.
Eric:
I think was Berlin, I’m not sure.
Neil:
One or the other. But you can get the presentation for them or if not send it to me or shoot an email or send you the deck that teaches you how to make like a perfect webinar that converts really well. And I believe Jason got me up to like a half a million or 600 grand per month. A lot of it was profit. Works better than content marketing. And my buddy Sam. You know Sam Evans?
Audience:
Yeah.
Neil:
Sells high ticket offers in the multi, multi, multi-millions. Not a 7-figure guy, you’re talking about 8-figures, like millions. It converts really well. Test it out.
Eric:
And you’re gonna introduce me to Jason Hornick.
Neil:
I will introduce you
Eric:
I’m looking for to that. Yeah, we sell tickets. Webinars are the best way we found, for sure. Webinars combined with re-targeting essentially with a smaller tripwire at the beginning where you provide some value, sell them up to a webinar and then our re-marketing numbers. Some people get re-marketed by us in this audience here.
Audience:
I do. Yeah
Eric:
You see them all the time. So it’s that re-marketing. And it’s seen in the ROI that you get on re-marketing but well what we’ve gotta figure out is cold traffic.
Neil:
Yes. Well, how many of you want to sell through webinars and make like 2-to-1 on your ad spend? If enough of you raise hands, I’ll do something for you guys. Alright, now the hands start to come up. If you email someone at the event, I could send it to you
Eric:
sure Eric@istackholdings.
Neil:
Yeah I will shoot you over my email sequences for webinars. Feel free to copy them, just don’t use my name. I’ll send you my slide decks. I will send you my hacks for webinar jam, like exit pop-ups within there, the fake chats we create. We even ping people or when they leave the browser. We put a ping notice so that way they know to come back, so that way they’re not distracted. The text alert notifications. I’ll send you guys that all. You should be able to get at least 2 or 3 to 1 on your ad spend. Merry Christmas.
Eric:
Merry Christmas everybody. Let’s give Neil a big round of applause.
Neil:
Thank you.