I was recently at eMetrics and then at ACCM, where the topic of landing pages and microsites is being increasingly discussed. A little alarmingly, creative design companies are propagating the optimization of landing pages and microsites to help “conversion”, to the exclusion, I would believe of discussing the optimizing of highly trafficked entry pages on the main site.

Let’s first distinguish landing pages from microsites. Landing pages are entry points into your main website created primarily to transition you from a banner ad, e-mail or ad campaign URL. They are typically simple pages with quick calls to actions that lead to the appropriate place inside your main site. Microsites on the other hand are little islands that can be self-contained auxiliary areas that address a specific marketing need not quite finessed inside your main site.

Recent blog posts (example) argue that..

“A microsite is not a landing page. Typically, a landing page is one page that links the reader to your Web site or makes a simple call to action. A microsite, if used to its full potential, can provide you with one heck of an opportunity to get your newsletter subscribers to move closer toward a buying decision or next level of the sales cycle. A true microsite is multilayered, has more depth, and can be thought of as a launching pad for myriad marketing opportunities. Beyond just a companion for your newsletter, it can be a doorway for search engines, a marketing site for e-marketing campaigns, or a targeted site for brands, products, and services.”

Gee, that sounds awfully like we are designing the core site.

While I don’t want to pour cold water on the proponents of microsites, I think it is worthwhile to first examine whether the core site can achieve the objectives that the microsite intends to address. All too often,you see :

• poorly executed sites that cannibalize content from the main site and leave the user at a dead-end because they are not well-integrated into the main site.
• poorly maintained sites that continue to live on after marketers have exhausted their $ on driving traffic to the site and move on to the next one
• poorly measured as the metrics may not be appropriately tied to overall business value relative to costs

Microsites are a boon when they allow you to address segments of customers with very unique needs; to test market new products and services not core to the main site; but they are a bane when they compete with established entry pages pages and you jump to them as a solution too quickly.