Landing pages that convert: LeadPages vs GetResponse vs MailerLite in-depth review
Introduction
If you want to capture leads online, you’re better off using a landing page. Landing pages are at the heart of any solid email marketing strategy.
A landing page is a website or sometimes just a single webpage that is distinct from your homepage. Landing pages have a single purpose; to follow up on any offer you promised.
For example, a landing page can give out a special discount, provide free content or share an informative guide. The offer is given in exchange for the prospect’s contact information.
If you’re interested in creating landing pages for your business, the fastest and easiest way is to use a landing page builder.
To help you out, I’ve put together an in-depth LeadPages vs GetResponse vs MailerLite Review, so you can see what the most popular landing page builders in the market have to offer.
Below, I’ll explore their key features so you can gain a detailed understanding of each landing page builder and pick the right one for your needs.
Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
- 1. Landing Page Platform Builders
- 2. Landing Page Builder
- 3. Design and Templates
- 4. Conversion Tools
- 5. Advertising Features
- 6. Support, Resources, and Integrations
- 7. Pricing
- Conclusion
1. Landing Page Platform Builders
What Is LeadPages?
LeadPages is a lead-generation platform that allows you to create amazing landing pages with their templates and easy to use drag-and-drop editor. Their suite of lead generation tools also includes pop-up forms and alert bars, which can help boost landing page conversion rates.
What Is GetResponse?
GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing tool that hosts a suite of email marketing and online campaign management tools. These tools include a landing page creator, which comes with mobile-responsive templates, a drag-and-drop editor, and a variety of other lead generation tools.
What is MailerLite?
MailerLite is an email marketing platform that can help you build and manage email campaigns, automate email marketing efforts, and design landing pages. The landing page feature is geared towards helping you grow your list of subscribers.
2. Landing Page Builder
LeadPages
Creating a landing page with LeadPages is easy!
Answer Quick Questionnaire
To begin, LeadPages gives you the option to create a landing page that can generate leads, make sales, or perform other functions like build brand awareness.
Afterward, LeadPages will ask you what you’re offering in exchange for contact information. If it’s none of the options above, you can jump straight to ‘Browse All Templates’ or ‘Start with a Blank Page’.
Then, you can select a layout you like best.
After answering these questions, you enter the page builder, where you can further customize your selected design.
Page Builder User-Interface
When it comes to LeadPages’ page builder, you can find your menu to your left. The menu is where you make changes to the layout and sections. To the right is your landing page, where you see all the changes updated in real-time.
You can add widgets like headlines, text, images, videos, buttons, forms, lines, or additional space between the sections.
You can also change the page’s style, by selecting the ‘styles’ button on the left. Here, you can customize the font, page background, page width, favicon, and even enable custom CSS.
To change the template’s colors into your brand colors, click on a button or any section with color and add your brand colors.
Once you’re finished customizing your landing page, click on ‘Preview’ to see what the page looks like before hitting ‘Publish’.
GetResponse
When you enter GetResponse’s dashboard, select ’Create Landing Page.’
Select Template From Gallery
Instead of a quick questionnaire, GetResponse will bring you to their Landing Page templates.
Once you select a template, you’ll meet GetResponse’s landing page builder.
Page Builder User-Interface
Here, on the right, you can access the menu and drag-and-drop desired items onto your landing page.
While the large open space makes it easy to edit the landing page, it’s hard to use GetResponse’s landing page builder. For example, on the right, there isn’t much information regarding each of the symbols. You’ll need to hover over each of them to know what they are.
GetResponse, does, however, have a convenient 24/7 chat bar on the left. This way, if you run into any difficulties, you can talk to someone right away.
MailerLite
With MailerLite, while you can create landing pages, these pages are geared towards capturing email signups. So if you want your landing page to sell a specific product, collect registrations for an event, or even send out a thankyou note, you should consider the above options.
Select Template From Gallery
To begin, choose a template from the gallery.
Page Builder User-Interface
With MailerLite’s landing page builder, to the right, you have your menu. You can visualize all your changes on the left. With MailerLite, you can add content, buttons, forms, and other sections to your page.
You can add these features by using MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor. If you want to edit the text or images, click on the ‘Section’ button, and make your edits on the right.
One thing I liked about MailerLite’s page builder is that I can edit the success page. The success page is the landing page’s appearance once the prospect adds their contact information. GetResponse offers a success page too, however, it was easier to use MailerLite’s Page Builder.
Verdict
Overall, LeadPages’ page builder was the easiest, most flexible, and intuitive option out of the three. I found GetResponse’s page builder to be rigid and not so user-friendly. Furthermore, it took more time to create a landing page with GetResponse since the lack of the questionnaire at the beginning, made it difficult to select the right template for the right purpose. While I enjoyed using MailerLite’s drag-and-drop editor, I found that the landing pages were too limited as they were focused on capturing emails.
3. Design and Templates
LeadPages
LeadPages offers hundreds of stunning template options.
If you click on the ‘All Types Dropdown,’ you can filter the templates by category. If you’re not sure where to start, select your category (e.g author, event, or checkout) and go from there.
They’re also sorted by conversion rate, so you know which template performs the best.
GetResponse
GetResponse also offers a large variety of templates. There is a column on the left, where you can choose a template from your desired category.
You can also sort the templates by date added, popularity, and conversion rate.
At first glance, GetResponse’s templates appeared nice, professional, and modern. But the quality of these templates quickly drops, especially the ones designed a while ago.
When I sorted the landing pages by popularity, I found that the most popular template was the plain templates.
GetResponse can be quite rigid when it comes to their templates, so perhaps, starting with a plain template is best for most people who are using their landing page builder.
MailerLite
MailerLite has a significantly smaller selection of landing page templates, approximately 48. But unlike GetResponse, these templates are all modern, high-quality, and look professionally designed.
On the left, next to ‘showing,’ you can select landing page templates from different categories.
An interesting feature I liked was their Preview Option. You can view these templates in detail while browsing other template options. You don’t have to go back-and-forth from the template gallery.
MailerLite is great if your landing page is purely focused on collecting leads via email. But if you want more options, range, and flexibility, their templates are very limiting.
Verdict
Between the three, I liked LeadPages’ quality, quantity, and variety the most. LeadPages has stunning templates that make it super easy to create professional landing pages in any industry. I was disappointed to find very outdated designs in GetResponse’s gallery and found their templates too rigid and restrictive. While I liked MailerLite’s designs, their template gallery was too small. Some categories only had 1 or 2 designs. MailerLite’s landing pages were also only focussed on lead generation for email marketing.
4. Conversion Tools
LeadPages
Pop-Up Forms
You can implement three different types of pop-ups. These include a standard pop-up, a timed pop-up, and an exit pop-up.
Exit pop-ups appear when visitors are moving their mouse in a direction that looks like they will leave the website. For example, if your customer moves the mouse towards the upper right corner of the browser window, the exit pop-up will appear.
Alert Bars
Alert Bars are great ways to boost conversions in a non-intrusive manner. There are several different alert bars you can pick from.
There’s the opt-in bar layout, where you can collect opt-ins from visitors.
With the button layout, you can send visitors to an external URL.
There’s also the text bar alert option. This is a great choice if you just want to get a message and announcement out.
You can also customize your alert bar’s position, text, formatting, and background color.
Opt-in-Texts
You can also invite your audience to opt-in via text message. If your landing page has a phone number and the visitors text the code you promote, they can opt into your email lists via SMS messaging.
Trigger Link
Your prospects can also opt into your email lists and webinars without leaving their inboxes. All they need to do is to click on your trigger link, and they’ll be registered instantly.
Countdown Timer
With LeadPages, you can also include a countdown timer to indicate scarcity which can help boost signups and sales.
A/B Split Testing
You can also A/B Split-test your landing pages to see if you can increase overall conversion rates. You can split-test headlines, copy styles, background images, call-to-action buttons and many, many more.
Real-time Analytics
If you’re looking for data on your landing pages and pop-ups, you can see how your pages are doing from a birds-eye-view under the ListView function.
You can also view analytics for each landing page and pop-up, by clicking on any number in the ListView. At the top, you can find a page summary that features the total counts of views, unique views, conversions, conversion rate, and earnings.
You’ll also find a graph that shows you your views, unique views, conversions, or conversion rate performance overtime.
You can also view these changes on an hourly or daily basis.
Third-Party Analytics
If you want more data from your landing pages, you can use third-party tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel.
Leadmeter
The Leadmeter is a unique tool that can predict your page’s performance before you hit ‘Publish’. It works by analyzing all the content on your page and predicting its performance.
If you score poorly, the Leadmeter will provide step-by-step recommendations on how you can optimize each element on your page.
GetResponse
Pop-Up Forms
With GetResponse, you can have timed pop-up forms, scroll pop-up forms (a form that appears when visitors scroll down your landing page), and exit pop-up forms.
You can also create a pop-up that provides users with free downloadable content in exchange for their contact information.
Alert Bars
Like LeadPages, GetResponse allows you to have a fixed bar that captures emails. You can position it at the top or the bottom of the page as well.
Countdown Timer
You can also drag-and-drop countdown timers on your landing page.
A/B Split Testing
It’s also easy to A/B Split your website. All you need to do is create another ‘Variation Tab’ at the top, so you have both ‘Variation A’ and ‘Variation B’.
To test these pages, all you need to do is to click on ‘Next’, toggle ‘Publish’ to ‘on’, and hit ‘A/B Test’.
Analytics
To access landing page data, go to the GetResponse Landing Pages Dashboard. Here, you’ll see three key metrics: visits, contacts, and subscription rates.
Third-Party Analytics
You can plug into third-party tools to gain deeper analytics about your landing pages, like integrating with Google Analytics.
Google Analytics can give you more information about your page views, sessions, average time on page, bounce rate, conversion rate, channels, and referrals. You can also have a deeper look at your audience.
MailerLite
Since MailerLite is an email marketing platform, its conversion tools for landing pages are significantly more limited than LeadPages and GetResponse.
Countdown Timers
MailerLite allows you to drag-and-drop countdown timers anywhere on your landing page.
Other Key Features
You can include videos, testimonials, surveys, quizzes, events, Instagram feeds, and even ask for customer feedback.
A/B Testing
You can test up to 5 different combinations and split the traffic between the different landing pages.
Analytics and Metrics
With MailerLite, you can also track the results of your campaign. MailerLite gives you metrics on the number of subscribers that opted-in, page views, and conversion rates.
You can use these metrics to compare your A/B tests or all your landing pages to see which one performed the best.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a landing page builder with a lot of conversion tools, look to LeadPages. My favorite feature was the Leadmeter since it would let me know whether I was on the right path. If I wasn’t, it’d show me how to correct it. GetResponse had a variety of conversion tools too, but I didn’t like their user-interface and I found the designs of the pop-ups forms to be quite outdated. While I liked the user-experience MailerLite offered, they had too few features.
5. Advertising Features
LeadPages
Facebook Pixel
When you create a Facebook or Instagram ad inside of LeadPages, LeadPages places your Facebook Pixel automatically. This makes it much easier to track your results and optimize your ads.
Pre-Populating Content
LeadPages also pre-populates your Facebook and Instagram ads using content from your landing page. This way, your ads and landing pages are consistent with one another, which can help boost conversion and opt-in rates. All you need to do is to customize the ad to fit your needs.
For example, here’s a Facebook ad and landing page from Facebook Strategist Jackie Ellis.
GetResponse
Facebook Pixel
With GetResponse, you can also add the Facebook pixel ID to your landing pages. You’ll need to identify your Facebook Pixel first, and then paste the 15 digit code into your GetResponse’s Landing page settings.
Create Ads Within the Platform
You can create Facebook Ads within GetResponse since it’s an all-in-one marketing platform.
Here, you can integrate your Facebook ad and landing page seamlessly together, since it’s through one platform. It also makes the process of managing the ad and landing page more efficient.
MailerLite
Unfortunately, MailerLite doesn’t have too many advertising features since its focus is on capturing, segmenting, and automating your email marketing efforts.
Facebook Integration
MailerLite does, however, have a feature that allows you to integrate your landing page with Facebook.
Here, you can create a form in Facebook pages via the landing pages feature. Facebook integration, however, only works on Facebook Business Pages.
Verdict
LeadPages is the most intuitive tool when it comes to add-on advertising features. However, if you’re looking for more advertising features that go beyond landing pages, you should explore GetResponse. GetResponse is an all-in-one marketing tool. While their advertising features for landing pages are somewhat limited, they have a lot of other advertising tools you can use. I wouldn’t recommend MailerLite’s advertising features since there were too few, to begin with.
6. Support, Resources, and Integrations
LeadPages
Support Team
LeadPages has a dedicated support team with priority given to advanced subscribers. If you’re under the standard plan, you’ll need to rely on chat support which operates 9-5 pm central time on the weekdays. Alternatively, you can open a support ticket and wait for their staff to get back to you.
Resources
LeadPage’s Help Center was extremely helpful, especially since they had step-by-step instructions that contained images, GIFs, and videos. They also have a resources tab that features a resource library, a blog, webinar, podcast, and customer stories.
Integrations
Here, you can integrate with numerous apps that are compatible with LeadPages or via Zapier. With Zapier, you can integrate with over 1400 different web apps.
GetResponse
Support Team
GetResponse is the first ESP to provide 24/7 chat support. They’re also available on the weekends (great for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and hustlers!). They also offer support in 7 different languages.
Resources
Their Help Center has detailed blogs, but I was disappointed to see that their answers didn’t have much visual content. They also didn’t have any video tutorials as well.
They do, however, offer additional resources like blogs, whitepapers, infographics, and courses. Unfortunately, when I looked into these resources, some of the articles and infographics were outdated. The video content was also of poorer quality than LeadPages.
Integrations
GetResponse can integrate with more than 130 different apps.
MailerLite
Support Team
MailerLite offers both email and live chat support. However, their live chat is only available for those with a premium plan.
Resources
MailerLite’s support section is helpful and it’s filled with visual and detailed video tutorials.
They also have a comprehensive guide to email marketing and host regular webinars. While their blogs and guides are detailed and interesting, the content is geared towards email marketing rather than lead generation.
Integrations
You can integrate MailerLite with more than 100+ apps.
Verdict
If you need support setting up your landing pages, I recommend GetResponse. Having 24/7 live chat support is extremely useful and handy. It’s definitely what sets it apart the competition here. If you’re confident to navigate landing pages yourself and can troubleshoot problems easily by following a simple guide, try LeadPages or MailerLite. They both have very extensive Help Centers.
7. Pricing
LeadPages
LeadPages has 4 plans.
The price increases as the number of domains you connect with grows.
- Starter Plan: $19/month
- Standard Plan: $37/month
- Pro Plan: $79/month
- Advanced Plan: $321/month
GetResponse
GetResponse also has 4 plans.
The price increases as your email list size and demand for marketing features grows.
- Basic: $15/month
- Plus: $49/month
- Professional: $99/month
- Enterprise: $1,199/month
MailerLite
With MailerLite, there are no fixed plans.
Your monthly cost increases as your subscriber count grows.
If you have a few subscribers, you pay very little. But as your subscribers increase, you’ll pay a lot more. For example, if you have 600,000 email subscribers, you’ll have to pay almost $2,000 per month.
Conclusion
In conclusion, LeadPages, GetResponse, and MailerLite have both similar and different features when it comes to creating landing pages. Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s best if you choose a platform based on your budget, requirements, and needs.
If you’re a small business owner, startup founder, or digital marketer for a small company, I recommend signing up with GetResponse. GetResponse’s landing page features are not as intuitive and easy-to-use as LeadPages, but it’s significantly cheaper, especially if you consider all the tools included in a package. It’s a great option for anyone who’s starting on a budget.
Alternatively, you can use MailerLite, since it’s free to start. But MailerLite can quickly get expensive as you scale. Furthermore, the features available for landing pages are quite limited.
If you’re investing a lot of money into lead generation, and you’re going to be using landing pages often, go with LeadPages. LeadPages isn’t cheap, considering it’s a tool mainly for landing pages. But if lead generation is an important part of your sales and marketing strategy, it’s a worthwhile investment.
If you’re not sure which option is the best fit for you, you can try LeadPages, GetResponse, and MailerLite for free.
I hope this in-depth LeadPages vs GetResponse vs MailerLite review has been helpful! If you have any other questions, please feel free to comment below, and I’ll get back to you shortly.
Disclaimer: Some of the links here and elsewhere on this blog are affiliate links that may provide me with a small commission at no cost to you. This enables me to run this site without annoying ads and to keep providing relevant and actionable content for free. Thank you!
Comments