Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
You know that sinking feeling when your Facebook ads show 3% click-through rates but your landing page converts at 0.8%? I see this pattern every single week working with SaaS and ecommerce clients. Everyone obsesses over getting the click - better ad copy, prettier visuals, smarter targeting. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most businesses are bleeding money after the click, not before it.
Last month, I worked with a B2C ecommerce client whose Facebook ads were performing great on paper. Decent CPCs, solid click-through rates, traffic flowing nicely. But something was broken in their funnel - people were clicking and vanishing. The problem wasn't their ads. It was what happened in those crucial 3 seconds after someone clicked.
This is what I call the "post-click experience" - everything that happens from the moment someone clicks your ad until they convert. Most marketers treat this as an afterthought, but it's actually where the real money is made or lost.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience fixing these broken funnels:
Why your beautiful landing page might actually be hurting conversions
The CTVP framework I use to create hyper-specific post-click experiences
How I doubled conversions by making signup harder (yes, really)
Why shipping calculators and payment flexibility beat fancy design every time
The counter-intuitive landing page structure that outperformed industry "best practices"
Let's dive into what actually works when someone clicks your ad.
Industry Reality
What every marketer thinks they know about landing pages
Walk into any marketing conference and you'll hear the same landing page gospel repeated everywhere. "Reduce friction! Simplify your forms! A/B test your button colors! Use urgency! Add social proof!" The conventional wisdom sounds logical, and most of it comes from legitimate case studies.
Here's what the industry typically recommends for post-click experiences:
Generic landing page design - One page for all traffic sources with standard hero section, features grid, testimonials, and CTA
Friction reduction - Remove form fields, simplify the signup process, make everything as easy as possible
Universal best practices - Use the same conversion tactics that worked for other companies
Button color optimization - Test red vs. green vs. orange buttons to squeeze out extra conversions
Mobile-first design - Optimize for mobile without considering the context of how people arrived
This advice exists because it works... sometimes. The problem is that it treats all traffic the same way. Someone who clicked on a "50% off sale" Facebook ad has completely different expectations than someone who clicked on a "learn more about our security features" LinkedIn ad.
The industry focuses on optimizing the container instead of matching the content to the context. You end up with beautiful, generic landing pages that convert poorly because they're trying to speak to everyone and ending up speaking to no one.
Here's what I learned: Your post-click experience should be a continuation of your ad, not a separate entity. But most businesses treat their landing page like a generic "welcome mat" instead of a targeted conversation.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Let me tell you about a project that completely changed how I think about post-click experiences. I was working with a B2C ecommerce client - a fashion brand with over 1,000 products in their catalog. Their Facebook ads were performing decently: 2.5 ROAS, reasonable click-through rates, traffic was flowing.
But when we dug into the data, I found something disturbing. Their homepage had become completely irrelevant. People were using it like a doorway - land, immediately click to "All Products," then get lost in an endless scroll. The bounce rate was killing them, and the conversion rate was embarrassingly low.
The client was frustrated. They'd invested heavily in "conversion optimization" - A/B tested headlines, tried different hero images, added urgency timers. Nothing moved the needle significantly. They were convinced they needed better ads or more traffic.
I suspected the problem was deeper. See, they were running multiple Facebook ad campaigns targeting different audiences - bargain hunters, fashion enthusiasts, specific product categories. But every single ad was sending traffic to the same generic homepage. Someone clicking on a "leather bags 40% off" ad landed on the same page as someone clicking on "new summer collection" ad.
That's when I realized we had a classic post-click experience mismatch. The ads were doing their job - getting clicks from qualified people. But the landing experience was breaking the conversation that the ad had started.
We were treating our homepage like a one-size-fits-all solution when we needed targeted, contextual experiences for each traffic source.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of tweaking their existing homepage, I took a completely different approach. I implemented what I now call the CTVP framework - Channel, Target, Value Proposition. The idea is simple: create specific post-click experiences that match the exact context of how someone arrived.
Here's exactly what we did:
Step 1: Mapped Every Traffic Source
I created a spreadsheet with three columns: Channel (where traffic comes from), Target (who is clicking), and Value Proposition (what message resonates). For this fashion client, that revealed over 30 potential landing page variations we hadn't considered. Instagram fashion enthusiasts needed different messaging than Facebook bargain hunters.
Step 2: Built Context-Specific Landing Pages
Instead of one generic homepage, we created targeted experiences. Someone clicking on a "leather bags discount" ad landed on a page showcasing leather bags with the discount prominently displayed. Someone clicking on "new arrivals" landed on a curated new collection page.
But here's where it gets interesting. For their main Facebook campaigns, I made a radical decision that initially shocked the client: I turned their homepage into the product catalog itself.
Instead of the traditional hero section → features → testimonials structure, I displayed 48 products directly on the homepage with only a testimonials section below. This went against every "best practice" in ecommerce design, but it solved their core problem: people weren't getting lost trying to find products.
Step 3: Added Smart Friction Where It Mattered
On their product pages, I implemented two "friction" elements that actually increased conversions:
Shipping Calculator - Instead of hiding shipping costs until checkout, I built a widget that calculated costs right on the product page based on the customer's location
Payment Flexibility - Added Klarna's pay-in-3 option prominently, which reduced purchase anxiety even for customers who ended up paying in full
Step 4: Optimized for Mobile Context
Since most Facebook traffic was mobile, I ensured the product grid worked perfectly on mobile and that the shipping calculator was thumb-friendly. But I didn't sacrifice functionality for simplicity.
The key insight was this: stop trying to convert everyone the same way. Someone clicking from a discount-focused ad has different expectations than someone clicking from a brand awareness campaign. Your post-click experience should honor those expectations.
Traffic Source Mapping
Document every channel, target segment, and value prop combination to identify opportunities
Context Alignment
Match landing page messaging exactly to the ad that drove the click
Smart Friction
Add helpful friction (shipping costs, payment options) where it reduces later drop-off
Conversion Tracking
Monitor page-specific performance to optimize each post-click experience individually
The results were immediate and dramatic. The homepage conversion rate doubled within the first month. More importantly, the homepage became the most viewed AND most used page on their site again - people were actually engaging with it instead of just passing through.
The shipping calculator eliminated the shock factor at checkout that was causing abandoned carts. The payment flexibility option increased conversions even among customers who didn't use it - just having the option reduced anxiety about the purchase decision.
But the biggest win was strategic: we'd created a scalable framework for optimizing any traffic source. When they launched new ad campaigns, we could quickly create matching landing experiences instead of hoping their generic homepage would convert.
The client went from seeing their website as a cost center to understanding it as a revenue multiplier. Every marketing dollar was now more effective because the post-click experience matched the pre-click promise.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This project fundamentally changed how I approach landing page optimization. Here are the biggest lessons I learned:
Context beats design every time - A "ugly" page that matches visitor expectations will outperform a beautiful generic page
One-size-fits-all is one-size-fits-none - Your Facebook traffic needs different treatment than your Google traffic
"Best practices" aren't always best - Sometimes breaking conventions (like putting products on the homepage) is exactly what your business needs
Helpful friction can increase conversions - Being transparent about shipping costs upfront prevented checkout abandonment
Payment psychology matters more than payment processing - Offering flexible payment options reduced anxiety even when customers didn't use them
Mobile context is different from desktop context - Don't just shrink your desktop experience; rethink the mobile journey completely
Test against intent, not just against variations - The best optimization comes from better alignment, not better button colors
The biggest takeaway? Your post-click experience is where marketing meets product. It's not just about conversion optimization - it's about honoring the promise your marketing made and delivering on the specific expectation you created.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, focus on trial-specific landing pages that match the exact feature or use case mentioned in your ads. Implement contextual onboarding flows and consider adding "smart friction" like demo booking for high-intent prospects.
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, create product-category-specific landing pages that continue the conversation from your ads. Add transparent shipping calculations and flexible payment options to reduce checkout anxiety and cart abandonment.