Landing pages, sales pages and conversion copy
Synthesised from Joanna Wiebe (Copyhackers — copy craft and psychology), Ezra Firestone (Smart Marketer — e-com product pages, 2023), Sofi at Dose (DTC persona landing pages, 2026), Ben Bennett (Smart Marketer — ad hooks), Will on Dara Denney’s channel (AI-built pages, 2026), Alex Cattoni (Copy Posse — hooks, formulas, video scripts, 2026) and Stefan Georgi (direct-response funnels, advertorials with Claude, checkout tests). Mostly practitioner experience and single-case numbers — A/B test before declaring winners. Notes live in landing-pages-and-copy.
Core playbook
- Audit with the checklist, top to bottom; fix the first broken layer first. → Sales / landing page audit checklist
- List → offer → copy. Wrong traffic or weak offer can’t be fixed with words; homepages convert badly because traffic is mixed. → List, offer, copy — fix them in that order
- One page per ad angle/persona; repeat the ad’s hook (verbatim is fine); start at the awareness stage the ad left them in. Meta also reads the page for targeting. → Message match between ad and landing page
- “Clicks but no conversions” = hook without heart, or page mismatch. Show the viewer they’re “on the ground”; then check the page’s value perception. → Why ads get clicks but no conversions
- Assemble copy from customers’ words — message bucket (themes) vs copy bucket (weird standout lines). → Mining voice-of-customer data and assembling copy from it
- Lead with the problem; hook fast but don’t keep it short; the hook picks the framework (PAS / DOS / AIDA / PCPO). SweatBlock +108% from a problem headline. → Headline hooks and choosing a copy framework
- TOFU: name the audience, mirror identity, be fluent. MOFU: mechanism, plausible claims, boring objection-killers. BOFU: three options, honest trade-off, one big proof. → Nine copy triggers by funnel stage
- Name the problem mechanism and the solution mechanism; pass the 10-word test. → Name a problem mechanism and a solution mechanism
- Specific claims, proof attached to each claim, demonstrations over adjectives; testimonial opens the buy box. → Proof placement and believable claims
- Offers kill anxiety, not price; guarantee + USPs under the CTA (~10% lift). → Guarantees and offers that remove purchase anxiety
- Buy box: testimonial → ownership benefit → recap; CTA above the fold, ≥80% wide on mobile, contrasting colour; offer/GWP/badges in the first image. → The product-page buy box
- PDP: ≥8 images incl. in-use, short demo video, “2 headlines, 6 bullets, 1 story”, FAQ, second CTA, cross-sell. → Product-page anatomy — header, carousel, description and support content
- Paid traffic → persona LPs/listicles with the buy box on-page; no exits; promos via countdown + banner on proven pages. → Persona landing pages, listicles and promo assets
- Angles that sell identity: mirror, bigger problem, dream, remove blame, flip status, hidden door, ritual, superpower. → Identity and desire angles — selling who the buyer becomes
- Creative headlines last: write the converting page, then make headlines/crossheads taglines (idiom swap) with a payoff line. → Creative headlines and crossheads (tagline-as-headline method)
- Selling expertise: courses are weakened by AI; sell workshops via a live self-diagnostic and high anchors. → Selling expertise — workshops over courses after AI
- Build ad-matched pages with Claude Code in under an hour from ad angle + PDP + brand assets + a playbook. → Building ad-matched landing pages with Claude Code
- Judge hooks on revenue per lead, not opt-in rate. The pain hook won opt-ins (24.4%) and sold nothing; curiosity + identity (“the smart freelancer’s secret”) won sales. Specific beats broad on cold traffic, and mechanism hooks need an aware audience. → Testing landing-page hooks — opt-in rate vs revenue per lead
- Pick the formula by length: ABC for short opt-ins, the wheel of persuasion (problem → pain → prescription → pivot → positioning → product) for sales pages, a story bridge for emails, the 4 C’s for ads. → Copy formulas for short and long copy — ABC, wheel of persuasion, story bridge, 4 C's
- Five triggers: reframe gains as losses, structured testimonial questions, question headlines, value before the ask, micro-commitments. → Five psychological triggers in conversion copy (loss aversion, social proof, curiosity, reciprocity, micro-commitments)
- Video/VSL scripts: attention (restate the click promise + proof), retention (open-loop chain), trust (show, don’t tell), direction (a CTA that continues the content). → Writing video scripts and VSLs — the four forces (attention, retention, trust, direction)
- Match the next page to the platform (YouTube → video page, native → advertorial). Long advertorial → PDP, short advertorial → VSL. Ad → advertorial → PDP → checkout is the common 8-figure e-com path. → Choosing the funnel path — ad, advertorial, VSL, product page, checkout
- Advertorials with Claude: extract inputs from the sales page, have it analyse a proven advertorial’s structure, write one per avatar, fact-check spokespeople and studies. → Writing advertorials with Claude — Stefan Georgi's extract-then-model process
- Checkout button: use the buyer’s verb. “Check out” beat “Submit my order”, 37.5% vs 28%, and $34 → $46 revenue per checkout visitor. → Checkout button copy — "Check out" beat "Submit my order" by ~30% (Stefan Georgi)
Note map
| Note | Read when |
|---|---|
| Sales / landing page audit checklist | Auditing any landing/sales/product page — start here |
| List, offer, copy — fix them in that order | “Let’s fix the copy” — check traffic and offer first; 9-point diagnostic |
| Message match between ad and landing page | Deciding which page each ad sends to; awareness stages |
| Why ads get clicks but no conversions | Good CTR, poor conversion rate |
| Mining voice-of-customer data and assembling copy from it | Researching what to say; mining reviews/Reddit; message matrix |
| Headline hooks and choosing a copy framework | Writing the headline/hook; picking PAS/DOS/AIDA; 14 ad hook types |
| Nine copy triggers by funnel stage | Making copy persuasive section by section; objections; option framing |
| Name a problem mechanism and a solution mechanism | Explaining why the product works; differentiation |
| Proof placement and believable claims | Placing testimonials/demos; making claims credible |
| Guarantees and offers that remove purchase anxiety | Designing the offer, guarantee, urgency |
| The product-page buy box | Buy-box copy, CTA design, value perception (e-com) |
| Product-page anatomy — header, carousel, description and support content | Full PDP structure: images, description formula, FAQ, cross-sell |
| Persona landing pages, listicles and promo assets | Persona pages, listicles/advertorials, PDP vs LP, BFCM promo assets |
| Identity and desire angles — selling who the buyer becomes | Choosing the big idea/angle when the product isn’t objectively better |
| Creative headlines and crossheads (tagline-as-headline method) | Headlines feel “meh” or stakeholders reject copy |
| Selling expertise — workshops over courses after AI | Selling courses, workshops, consulting; high-ticket pricing |
| Building ad-matched landing pages with Claude Code | Building a page fast with Claude Code; deploy to Vercel |
| Testing landing-page hooks — opt-in rate vs revenue per lead | Choosing or testing headline hooks; opt-in vs buyer quality |
| Copy formulas for short and long copy — ABC, wheel of persuasion, story bridge, 4 C's | Need a ready structure: opt-in page, sales page, sales email, ad |
| Five psychological triggers in conversion copy (loss aversion, social proof, curiosity, reciprocity, micro-commitments) | Loss framing, testimonial questions, curiosity, reciprocity, micro-commitments |
| Writing video scripts and VSLs — the four forces (attention, retention, trust, direction) | Scripting a YouTube video, reel, webinar or VSL; video hooks |
| Choosing the funnel path — ad, advertorial, VSL, product page, checkout | Deciding what comes after the click: advertorial, VSL, PDP; what a VSL does |
| Writing advertorials with Claude — Stefan Georgi's extract-then-model process | Writing advertorials (fast, with Claude); prompts, editing passes, health-claim pitfalls, stock-up upsell script |
| Checkout button copy — "Check out" beat "Submit my order" by ~30% (Stefan Georgi) | Optimising the checkout page / buy button copy |
Related elsewhere: web2app quiz funnels and web paywalls (The first screen of a web2app quiz, web2app-paywall-best-practices.md, web-quiz-social-proof-and-trust.md) and app paywall copy (Paywall CTA and microcopy that converts, long-paywall-sell-the-outcome.md, paywall-visuals-and-social-proof.md).
Gaps
- Few controlled A/B results with sample sizes; most numbers are one brand or one client (SweatBlock +108%, BOOM! testimonial buy box, Ezra’s ~10% guarantee lift, Alex Cattoni’s ~90-lead-per-arm hook test, Stefan Georgi’s 2020 checkout-button test).
- Not covered: long-form sales-page structure for courses/ebooks section by section (only principles), pricing-table design on the web, checkout-page and cart optimisation beyond button copy (form fields, order bumps, upsell pages: only web2app notes cover these), page speed/Core Web Vitals impact, legal/compliance of claims (health, EU consumer law, fake urgency), non-English markets, B2B SaaS homepages, VSL scripts in full detail (only structure), email/sales sequences beyond the story-bridge formula, advertorial compliance (FTC/ASA/EU).
- E-com PDP advice is from 2023 Shopify practice; Meta’s use of landing pages for targeting is a 2026 practitioner claim, not verified against Meta documentation.