15 Steps to Get the Most Value from Your 14-Day Trial

Incorporating new software into your business isn’t easy — not only does it have to fit your strategy and budget, but it has to support the needs of your team as well. That’s why Instapage offers a 14-day trial.

We can tell you about industry-leading tools and solutions, announce features the marketing industry has never seen, and even share relevant statistics to prove success, but at the end of the day, you and your team need to test the platform yourself.

How to maximize your Instapage 14-day trial

To know if Instapage is right for your business, you’ll want to test the full breadth of its capabilities. The best way to achieve this during your 14-day trial is to create a plan for what you want to test.

1. Integrate with the rest of your tech stack during the 14-day trial

A key to personalization at scale is an integrated technology stack. Instapage is designed to provide everything you need for advertising personalization, while integrating with your other marketing personalization tools, such as email, CRM, social media management, etc.

For true 1:1 personalization to succeed, these tools need to be connected. For example, your landing page software needs to be able to pass lead information through to a CRM, then that CRM needs to pass data along to an email marketing technology, and it all needs to feed into an analytics platform. That’s why Instapage allows you to connect 60+ popular marketing software tools you already use, like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Marketo, among others.

The first step, before publishing a page or inviting team members to test the software, is to make sure all of your tools are connected and ready to process the data from Instapage.

(The integrations above is not the complete list. Please visit the Integrations page to see the complete list.)

2. Organize your work with workspaces

When creating pages for multiple clients or campaigns, it’s helpful to keep your designs organized into separate workspaces.

Each workspace has separate pages, analytics, integrations, domains, and team members — making it easy to compartmentalize your work. You’ll be able to create up to three in the trial. This is the same number you’ll be able to create on the Instapage Build plan. If you need more, you can upgrade to the Convert plan.

To create a new workspace, navigate to the upper-left corner of the page, where you can see the name of the current workspace. By default, this workspace is often called “Default Project,” but you can change the name if needed. Look for the plus symbol labeled “New Workspace” and click on it. Then, enter a name for your new workspace and click “Create.” Your new workspace will appear in the list of workspaces, and you can access it by clicking on its name.

3. Invite your team members

To get the most out of your trial, you’ll want to test the tools available to teams. To add a team member to a specific workspace, click on “Workspace Settings,” then “Team Members,” and then the blue “ADD TEAM MEMBER” button. Enter the team member’s email address and select the appropriate permissions for their role.

This functionality enables you to keep your teams organized, provide each team member with the tools they need to succeed, while maintaining the oversight necessary to keep everyone accountable.

4. Create custom forms for laser-targeted lead routing

Need to qualify your leads up front, or just gather a bit more information from the get-go? Use your 14-day trial to set up your first forms.

The Instapage Form Builder lets you create a lead form in just a few clicks. You can easily customize, edit, delete, add, or rearrange form fields based on the information you’re trying to gather.

You can add a form to your page by clicking on the Form button in the left sidebar of the builder. To customize your form, click the form and select the Form Settings menu. There, you can specify your form’s style and objective. You can even add multiple form fields to an existing form, and customize the design of your forms to match your brand style (and follow CRO best practices).

Once your forms are set up, you can connect them to the rest of your marketing automation tools or CRM via the integrations you set up in Step 1. To learn more about setting up a form, click here. You can also learn about multistep forms here.

https://help.instapage.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012558611-Setting-up-a-multistep-form

5. Align the goal of your campaign with templates

Every landing page performs a different function. For example, squeeze pages are ideal for capturing visitor information at the top of your funnel, while click-through landing pages are best for warming up your prospects at the bottom of it. Selecting the right page template to use will depend on the goal of your campaign.

Start by matching your campaign goals to one of the page templates:

• Lead generation landing pages. This template features a form used to collect and qualify leads with different fields. Lead generation pages are an effective tool throughout the entire funnel, and therefore are the most versatile landing page. Choose this template if the goal is to learn more about your prospect to determine whether they’re a good fit for your product or service.
• Click-through landing pages. Formless pages are used to persuade visitors to convert without the risk of deterring them with a lead capture form. These pages are effective throughout the funnel, but they’re most valuable at the bottom for prompting prospects to click through to a long form or a credit card field on the following page.
• “Thank you” landing pages. The “thank you” page is used to acknowledge a newly converted lead with a note of appreciation and to direct that lead to the next stage in the marketing funnel. They’re best used throughout the funnel as a follow-up page after each conversion.
• Webinar landing pages. These pages are used by marketers to invite visitors to attend a webinar, which research has demonstrated to be one of the most engaging forms of content. They can be used effectively across all funnel stages.
• Ebook landing pages. The eBook offer is a versatile resource that can be used at the top and middle of the funnel to earn prospect information in exchange for a download.
• Event landing pages. The event invitation landing page can be a compelling tool for engaging prospects across the “awareness,” “evaluation,” “decision” stages of the marketing funnel.
• App landing pages. This template is used to prompt visitors to download an application. They’re most effective at the middle and bottom of the funnel.

Not sure what your goal is, or where your visitors are in the marketing funnel? Learn more about the buyer’s journey here and what your prospects expect at each stage.

6. Create your page

Once you’re ready to begin creating pages, you have a few options: you can select an existing template, design your page from scratch, or design your own custom template.

The simplest way to get started during your trial is to select one of the responsive templates, each of which has been tested and proven to drive conversions.

First, give your page a descriptive name that will help you differentiate it from your others. Then, start building by clicking: “Create”

Once you’re in the builder, it won’t take long to design your first page. To edit any element on the template, simply click it to reveal a list of options available for editing. To add any new element, select it from the left menu, then drag to position it:

Whatever happens on the front-end of the page will be reflected on the back-end, so you won’t have to worry about editing code. However, if you do want to make more detailed edits to the back-end, the tool allows flexibility for that level of customization.

7. Streamline your landing page production with Instablocks

Building individual landing pages for multiple audiences can be time-consuming. You can streamline the process with the Instablocks™ feature. Here’s how it works:

Once you’ve created a piece of content for your page – such as a header or testimonials section – and then optimized the mobile version, save it in “My Blocks.” You can then import it to a new design when creating additional pages that use similar content. This is particularly helpful when creating similar pages for A/B testing. You can duplicate pages, delete elements, insert and rearrange Instablocks all without recreating a new template.

Access the Instablocks library by editing your page design, clicking insert block, and you will see a window that looks like this:

The left column contains the folders you set up to categorize each page block. Use the device toggle to see how the page will look on both desktop and mobile:

Note: Once you’ve scaled your pages with Instablocks, you can update them all simultaneously with one click using Global Blocks. Request a Convert demo today to see Global Blocks in action.

8. Instapage design tools

One of the great features of the Instapage landing page builder is the advanced functionality and precision of the design tools, which make it easy to build pages without compromising on design details.

• Edge Measurement and Axis Lock: The Edge Measurement feature enables you to find the exact coordinates of your landing page elements, which you can lock along the horizontal or vertical axis with Axis Lock to keep them in-line:

• Google Fonts: The full suite of available typefaces from Google Fonts makes it easy to maintain brand consistency across your pages. Keyboard shortcuts: The inclusion of keyboard shortcuts for common tasks that streamlines the design process, allowing you to add, delete, group, and layer objects with just a few keystrokes. Here’s a look at just a few of the 30 actions we’ve created shortcuts for:

• A robust CSS editor: For a higher level of customization, experienced designers will be happy to know that every landing page can be fine-tuned manually with the CSS editor module module.

9. Set up an experiment

Once you and your team have put the finishing touches on your design, try creating another one to test against.

A/B testing involves testing your original page against a variation to see which performs better. It’s one of the most effective ways to improve landing page conversion rate. That said, a lot of people get it wrong by limiting their A/B tests to a single feature, such as a headline or feature image. However, unless your site generates a substantial amount of traffic, this will be a time-consuming and inefficient approach. The most effective approach for most is an A/B testing method that finds the global maximum, which is a higher-performing, drastically different version of your original page.

To begin a test, click “Experiments” in the left menu of your Instapage dashboard, name it, and state your hypothesis. Then, create a different version of your page that tests an alternative way of getting your message across:

Once you create the test, it will appear in your list, similar to this:

For example, if your original page features a video, you might try communicating your message with long-form text. Or if your original features long-form text, test it with shorter copy and images. The best tests start with your own data, so use it to guide your design and page content decisions.

Keep in mind that it’s important not to end your experiment until you’ve generated enough visitors to reach at least 95% statistical significance (here’s a calculator to help). But you’ll have plenty of time to evaluate the A/B testing tool and Instapage analytics.

10. Get set up with AdMap™

It’s important that each ad and landing page is closely matched, both to create a consistent experience for your prospective customers, and to maintain a high Google Quality Score. But when you’re running multiple campaigns and tests and making frequent adjustments to your ads, it can be tricky to keep landing pages and ads in sync.

This is where the AdMap feature can be helpful. Once you’ve set up a few landing pages, try out the AdMap feature to pair them with corresponding ads.

• Import your full account structure from the advertising platform to generate your landing page Score and evaluate your advertising funnel for ad-to-page relevance:

• Visualize a list of your campaigns, ad groups, and ads in Instapage to determine where you need personalized pages
• Effortlessly create new pages within the AdMap flow, and connect each ad to a matching landing page using an intuitive point-and-click interface
• Quickly edit and update connected page experiences to match your ad iterations
• Automatically two-way sync ad mapping updates between the advertising network and Instapage
• Serve the correct personalized experience in real-time to the right audience for each ad

(Make AdMap more powerful by using the feature alongside Instapage Personalization. By upgrading to the Instapage Convert plan, you get access to Personalization where you can attach personalized experiences to individual ads thereby achieving 1:1 ad-to-page relevancy.)

11. Review and publish your pages

Once your page is complete, click the “Preview” button in the upper-right corner of the builder to check it against different screen types. If you’re happy with the design, click “Publish,” for options to publish via a custom domain, WordPress, Drupal, or the Instapage demo server:

12. Set up branded email notifications

This functionality lets you customize notification emails for alerting your team, manager or clients. You have options to add your logo, create a custom subject line, adjust the “From” field, or modify the HTML code. You can learn more about setting up branded email notifications here::

13. Set your campaigns live and collect data

Once your landing pages and their corresponding campaigns are live, it’s important to give them time to collect data. Keep in mind, each trial is limited to 2500 unique monthly visitors, so the data collected during the 14-day trial is only a sample and won’t be sufficient for determining ROI. Instead, use these visitors to test the features of the software. Are the integrations working effectively? Do you understand what you see in the Instapage analytics dashboard? Are prospects getting their branded email notifications?

14. Review your analytics dashboard

To access the analytics dashboard for your landing page, first go to the Landing Pages tab of your account. From there, find the page you want to analyze and click on the three dots on the right side of its name. Next, select “Analytics” from the dropdown menu that appears.

On the analytics page, you’ll see performance statistics for both the desktop and mobile versions of your page by default, including data for all visits.

If you want to see data for unique visitors only, you can check that option in the Filters menu on the upper right. To view data for a specific date range, click on the current date range displayed on the page, which will open a calendar. From there, select the start and end dates for the period you want to view.

15. Experiment with AI Content

Sometimes the biggest barrier to building landing pages is lack of inspiration. Writer’s block can slow down your page creation efforts and prevent you from running high-quality A/B tests. Instapage released new features that harness the power of AI to create variations on page content, like headlines, paragraph copy, and CTA buttons.

AI Content is extremely useful for creating page variants and setting up A/B tests. Be sure to try this feature during your 14-day free trial.

This blog post shares some strategies for using AI Content in your marketing efforts. For an in-depth view, check out our Help Center article.

Make the most of your Instapage 14-day trial

The Instapage landing page builder is a feature-rich tool that’s designed to be easy to use for marketers of all levels and skill sets. With this step-by-step guide, you’ll be set to test the full range of the tools features and functionality.

Begin your 14-day trial here, then join brands like Verizon, eBay, Verifone, and HelloFresh by becoming an Instapage Convert customer.