The landing page...more than just a pretty face

I was answering a question on Quora this morning: “Web design: What are the best landing pages you have seen so far?” and I was struck with how often we talk about landing page design, without the context of landing page effectiveness. I fall prey to this all the time. When I see a beautiful landing page I am the first person to pass it around, bookmark it and drool over it. But looks aren’t what is important. What’s important is how the page performs. So when looking at landing pages, I will remind myself that beauty is more than skin deep. Here are some questions to consider when talking about ‘best’ landing pages. 

• Is the page being measured—what’s the bounce rate? what’s the conversion rate? what are the user behavior on the page?
• Is the page tested and optimized?
• Is it delivering ROAS (return on advertising spend) for the organization?
• Is it disposable, ready to be thrown away when something else works better?
• Does it match the ad or link that proceeded it (is it hyper-relevant to the person landing there)?
• Is it easy for the user to convert?

I know aesthetics matter—I’m the first person to stand in line for great, functional design. But we have to look beyond aesthetics to measurement, optimization and performance. What do you think?