Your website is often the first point of contact for potential customers, and it's essential to make a positive impression. Programmatic landing pages can help you achieve just that - providing a user experience that's dynamic, personalised, and optimised for search engines. 

This article explores the benefits of this digital marketing strategy for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, including their ability to scale seamlessly, automate tasks, and provide deeper insights into their users behaviours. 

We'll also examine real-world examples of SaaS companies successfully engaging their target audience through dynamic landing pages and the challenges and limitations a marketing team face might face when taking this approach.

The goal is to help you make an informed decision about whether programmatic design is right for your business. Let’s dive in.

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Benefits of Programmatic Landing Pages for SaaS Growth

The SaaS sector has become increasingly competitive. Creating a dynamic and engaging web experience that reacts to your customers and is flexible and scalable is no longer just a smart move; it's becoming an absolute must. Programmatic web pages are just one of the tools at your disposal to help you achieve this.

But why do they work we hear you ask?

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They give you flexibility

Traditional static web pages can be a bottleneck for SaaS businesses, which require flexibility to meet evolving user needs and market trends. Programmatic landing pages, on the other hand, offer the ability to adapt swiftly. They equip you with the power to modify content and functionality on the fly, enabling you to react to shifts in user behaviour or user needs.

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They reduce your development costs

Traditional web development involves writing and debugging code for each webpage, a process which can take weeks or even months depending on the complexity of your website. Any changes or updates require additional time and resources. 

As programmatic pages are generated automatically based on a template and database, a large part of the manual coding effort (and therefore time and cost) is eliminated. The web pages’ design, layout, and content can be changed dynamically by simply updating the underlying database or modifying the template. 

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They’re easier to maintain

In comparison to traditional websites, programmatic web pages significantly reduce maintenance efforts, and in turn, your maintenance costs. Updates can be rolled out effortlessly, which not only saves you time but also ensures your website remains up-to-date and relevant for your user base.

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They help you personalise the customer experience

Programmatic web pages enable the automation of various tasks and help you minimise manual input. In turn, this gives you the capability to personalise content shown to different users based on their behaviour or preferences. Ever noticed how Netflix shows different thumbnails depending on who’s account your logged into? Now you know what’s going on behind the scenes.

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They help you with search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the lifeline of any online business and one of the core pillars of a decent SEO strategy is delivering immediate value to your customers. A programmatic SEO strategy helps you achieve this with dynamic pages that show your customers exactly what they're looking for at the exact point they're looking for it. Looking to give customer A one offering and customer B another without it being confusing or overwhelming? Look no further.

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The Best Practices for Successful Programmatic Web Pages

While programmatic web pages can help you to simplify the development process, it's important to follow certain best practices to ensure you maintain your quality of output.

Firstly, you should maintain a consistent, standardised template for web pages. This creates a uniform look and feel across your website, and ensures a satisfying and easily understood experience for your users.

Secondly, businesses should keep their database updated and organised. Since the content of programmatic web pages is driven by the underlying database, any discrepancies or errors in the database can lead to issues in the web pages.

Lastly, it's vital to still test web pages thoroughly before launching them. This involves checking for any errors in the layout or content, verifying the load times, and ensuring compatibility with different browsers and devices.

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Using Data and Analytics to Grow Your Customer Base

The beauty of programmatic web pages lies not just in their ease of creation and maintenance but also in their potential to serve as a rich data source. Every user interaction with a programmatic web page can be tracked and analysed. From the time they spend on the page to the links they click, the information they input, and even the point at which they leave the page.

Through integrating analytics this data is collected in real-time, allowing your sales, marketing and development teams to identify trends, detect patterns, and understand the factors that drive your user engagement and conversion.

And since each page can be personalised based on the user's attributes or behaviour, it's possible to gather detailed insights about different user segments–further enhancing your ability to make informed marketing decisions and reach your target audience.

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Using Programmatic Pages to do Multivariate testing and Gather User Feedback 

Multivariate testing is a method of comparing different versions of a webpage to see which one performs better and produces greater results.

With programmatic web pages, multivariate testing can be carried out seamlessly. Different versions of the web page can be served to different user segments, and their performance can be tracked instantaneously.

Gathering user feedback, on the other hand, provides direct insights into the user's experience and perception. Through incorporating feedback mechanisms in the programmatic web pages, SaaS companies can gather qualitative data to complement the quantitative data from analytics and multivariate testing.

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Designing an Engaging Programmatic Landing Page

While the functionality and data-driven capabilities of programmatic web pages are valuable assets, they should not overshadow the importance of design. The aesthetic appeal, user-friendliness, and accessibility of a web page will still have significant influence on your customer engagement and satisfaction. 

A visually appealing, clean, and intuitive design can attract users, increase engagement, and foster trust. On the other hand, a cluttered or confusing design can deter users and reflect poorly on your brand.

In the context of programmatic web pages, maintaining visual appeal and user-friendliness can be challenging due to their dynamic nature. However, it's not impossible. By using consistent, attractive templates and prioritising usability in the design process, SaaS businesses can create engaging programmatic web pages and continually drive search traffic.

It's crucial also to ensure that the web pages load quickly and perform smoothly. Since user-friendliness encompasses not just the layout and design but also the functionality and performance, any issues in these areas can undermine the user experience.

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Proof That Programmatic Web Pages Work

We’ve shown you how they work, now we’re going to give you some cold hard proof with a little help from the team at Untalked SEO. Using SEMRush and SEO analytics tools, they’ve managed to find out the following.

Zapier, one of the most popular integration SaaS businesses has been able to generate 2.8 million people per month in organic traffic, through using programmatic design to generate 339,000 unique web pages.

Enhancv, a modern SaaS resume builder has used programmatic design to create content and generate over 1,226 unique landing pages targeted at people searching for CV templates and examples. It generated 270,000 organic searches per month.

From our own experience, we’ve enjoyed Notion’s use of programmatic web pages. Notion is a fast-growing productivity platform, which offers a dynamic and personalised onboarding experience to its users. Depending on your specific use case–whether it’s note-taking, project management, or data organisation, their web pages dynamically adapt to guide the user effectively.

Notion also utilises programmatic pages for its customer support section. The knowledge base articles and FAQs are dynamically generated, with content tailored to the user's query or reported issue. It’s immediately obvious when you use their product how well this style of development works in this setting. 

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The Challenges and Limitations of Programmatic Web Pages

While the advantages of programmatic web pages are considerable, they are not without their challenges and limitations. Just as with any technology, understanding these potential issues will help you to navigate them effectively.

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The complexity of implementation

Although you’re avoiding expensive development costs, programmatic web pages do require an initial investment of time and resources to set up properly. A robust back-end database and a dynamic content management system are essential, and this requires technical expertise. Additionally, creating a flexible yet consistent template for your programmatic pages can be a complex task.

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Data management

Since the content of programmatic web pages is driven by the underlying database, maintaining the integrity and accuracy of this data is crucial.

Incorrect or outdated data can lead to inaccurate content being displayed on your web pages, which can negatively affect the user experience and your brand image. You should work where possible to regularly audit your data and fix any inconsistencies.

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Personalisation vs privacy

While personalisation is one of the key benefits of programmatic web pages, it relies heavily on user data. You must ensure you're compliant with data protection regulations, such as GDPR, and that you're transparent with your users about how their own data is being used.

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When You Should Not Use Programmatic Web Pages

Programmatic web pages may not always be the best solution. For instance, if your website is relatively small and static, and your user base is homogeneous, the benefits of programmatic web pages may not outweigh the costs and complexity of implementation.

Similarly, if your brand heavily relies on unique and carefully crafted web design, programmatic web pages might restrict your creative freedom. While they offer flexibility in terms of content, they generally adhere to a set template, which may not align with your aesthetic vision.

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Considering Going Programmatic?

Looking ahead, programmatic web pages are set to become a cornerstone of SaaS product innovation. As technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to advance, the potential for programmatic web pages will expand even further. They could, for instance, adapt in real-time based on a user's behaviour during a single website visit or utilise predictive analytics to anticipate user needs. It's a trend you will need to be on the right side of.

We hope to have given a complete overview of both the advantages and weaknesses of this strategy. But if you’re still unsure whether they might be right for your business, let’s jump on the phone and talk it through. As always the coffee is on the house!

Reach out here

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