Leadpages Review

Email marketing is still one of the biggest ways for businesses and individuals to promote their business opportunities, even in this day and age. As this medium grows, or becomes more varied, as do the number of platforms or tools that provide you with the ability to capture those leads.

Be it an affiliate marketer trying to build their email list, or a brick and mortar company ensuring they have a web presence to sell their services or wares and at the same time start capturing potential clients, the ability to gain those valuable emails can really make a huge impact. With many companies not utilising or understanding the importance that an email list can bring. 

There are tons of these types of platforms, all of which fighting for the same space, all wanting to be these page builder or the platform that you use to capture those leads, and make those sales.

Today we look at a platform that has been around for a while, and does get compared to other sites such as ClickFunnels or Kartra.  The site is called Leadpages, and they specialise in creating landing pages, solely designed to garner a sale, or a lead, for you to then follow up with and convert. 

What Is Leadpages?

As briefly touched on before, Leadpages is primarily, a lead generation form and page builder, designed to allow someone to create stand alone forms or pages that allows someone to input an email, usually in exchange for a PDF, free course or possibly some informative emails. 

The other side of Leadpages is the creation of 'Sites', essentially a group of pages that are linked together, great for service led websites, or businesses whereby they only really need simple pages such as contact, services and possible some internal information pages (I would not use this as a blogging site). 

The platform is self hosted, so it doesn't require an external hosts such as Bluehost or Siteground, and if you are running a digital agency that focuses on these kinds of clients, it could be quite useful. 

As we go through this Leadpages review, we will touch on the different areas, features and tools on offer, and give an overview of how decent they are (or not as the case may be).

Leadpages Features & Tools

The heart of any platform such as Leadpages, is the features or the tools that they have on offer to make life easier, quicker and essentially better for the user. For many, using platforms such as Leadpages, or ClickFunnels or any of the other similar services is a great alternative than trying to do it via WordPress, or possibly sites such as Squarespace or Wix. 

Drag & Drop Page Builder

The drag and drop builder that Leadpages uses is found on both the 'sites' and 'landing pages' within the platform, as such it's easier to show the builder in action for the different areas, rather than trying to show it all here. So there will be more about the builder below.  

The drag and drop functionality is fairly good, with elements snapping into place, and Leadpages highlighting the area that the element can be added too. Though as you can see with the image below, there is only a slight difference in the colour, from blue, to a slightly darker blue. 

The page will then update and move depending on what you are doing or trying to put on the screen, with different columns appearing when and where you need it to. 

Once the widgets have been added, you can of course then edit them, from changing the colours, fonts or adding new integrations. I find this integrations section annoying, especially when using it within the page builder.

The 'Edit Integrations' looks like a header, and I feel that if I click the pencil/pen I should be shown the integrations that can be added, but in reality, that just edits the field or the colour. You physically have to click the 'Edit Integrations' text, which is actually a button to be able to add or remove the integrations you want to use. 

I find this tedious, and it's not obvious, and simply blends in with the rest. Probably my only gripe with the page builder. 

Landing Pages

I would say that the landing pages are the main reason people seek out Leadpages, either for the ready made pages, or for the drag and drop builder that can be used to create them.

The ready made landing page templates can be selected and then loaded, with a variety of use cases and even industry types to choose from, I would say there is a pretty decent number to choose from, and you would be hard-pressed not to find one that fits your requirements, or is at least close to those requirements. 

The templates are all well laid out, and look professional, and again cover a wide variety of use cases, such as free eBooks, initiation calls, or calendar invites and bookings. 

You will also find a variety of widgets (sometimes called blocks, elements or a variety of other names) that can all be added to your page. Though some are only available for the higher tiers, which we will come onto later, and why it may be cheaper to go elsewhere for certain requirements.

You will find everything from countdown timers,  icons, text blocks

There are also pre-done sections that bundle together a number of widgets, usually text boxes and call to actions or images and text boxes. They are designed to let you quickly build a page without having to think about all the different widgets you would need, or having to spend the time dragging and dropping them all into place. 

Overall the landing pages are pretty easy to create, and quick to get set up. An everyday user can probably get a professional looking Leadpages landing page set up and running in around 10 - 30minutes, depending on the complexity. 

Sites

A part of Leadpages I didn't know existed until I started to write this Leadpages review, is their 'Sites' builder tool. Essentially a way of having a number of their pages bolted together to create a functioning site. 

Much like the landing pages, you are given a variety of pre-built templates that can be loaded into your account, with a variety of industries, styles and outcomes for you to choose from. 

Each template looks very professional, and I believe they would work really well for industries or companies who are focused on showing their services, offers or want to guide people towards taking action (book a call, send an email, book an appointment). 

For this particular review I decided to check out the Fitness focused site, to see what pages it gave to start with, and how easy it was to change. Of course, the site builder uses the same drag and drop page builder as the Landing Pages. 

The obvious difference is the addition of the menu and the 'Pages' overview. But everything else looks pretty normal. 

The 'add new page' (the '+' next to Primary Navigation - Again, not that clear) let's you choose from a variety of pre-built pages from 'blog articles', image galleries or even 'events'. 

Each New Page type is instantly added to your menus, and becomes available for you to link to from other places. You will also need to add a page title (this creates the URL). 

The 'blog article' page template creates a large text box, header, call to action in the middle of the article and an author block. If I was someone using this as my primary blog, I probably wouldn't want it to add all those blocks every time, or at least I wouldn't want to have to update the bio section part every time, considering I have well over 150+ articles on this site (at the time of writing). That would be a copy and paste job I could do without. 

The different page types are good though, especially if you are a small business, or you create sites for small businesses, you could probably get a really professional site set up for a gym, or perhaps a local gardener without having too much of an issue.  

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the pages use the exact same page builder, so images, text and the whole layout can be shifted with relative ease. Though I haven't found a way to change the colour scheme for a whole site yet. 

Conversion Tools

Another tool, that is found separately, and not within the Landing Pages, or Sites sections, is the Conversion Tools. 

You are presented with 4 different tools to start creating, for this particular read I decided to go with a tried and tested 'Pop-Up' tool to see what was on offer. 

To be honest, it was quite boring. There where no templates, just a plain old white and blue box to edit or add fields onto. 

I was expecting to see some cool designs to help capture my audiences attention, some different styles, colours, images or layouts. But no, just a box. 

The 'Bar' tool wasn't much better, with 4 simple layouts to choose from.  I really wanted so much more, considering the images and how much they provide with the other areas. I gave up with the other 2, they may have had dragons and rainbows, but I wasn't going to find out. 

Integrations

Unless your platform has a built in webinar, calendar function or email responder (I'm looking at you GrooveFunnels, BuilderAll & ClickFunnels), you are going to need to integrate with other platforms and companies to ensure the smooth running of these pages and sites. 

Now, Leadpages has a number of integrations, though some of these are locked behind pay walls. Which means you have to pay more money to unlock the use. Something I find pointless. There is no additional work involved in running the integration, and I am unaware of any other platform that locks their integrations. Tools, yes, but actual integrations, no. 

There are a number of apps that you would expect, such as GoToWebinar, Aweber, ActiveCampaign and even WebinarJam, the rest are either not available to you on the standard pricing model, or have to integrated with Zapier... Annoying. 

Aside from the really tedious set up process on the page, the actual API connection is easy. Just add your keys, URL and select the account name and you are done. 

How Much Does Leadpages Cost?

Always a good question to ask, because at the end of the day, it's going to cost something. But, the better question would be, what will it cost you to use Leadpages the way you want it to. 

There are 3 tiers within Leadpages, each giving you more 'stuff'. 

For those just starting out, the 'standard' tier is your entry level offering. If you are using Leadpages just for the landing pages, then this should be more than enough for you, though you can only use 1 domain (if you capture leads for different niches, this probably wont work for you)

The most comparable to standard ClickFunnels is the 'Pro' tier. If you want to use Leadpages to sell items or you need to increase the number of niches you target, then this will be the one for you. 

Finally, the 'Advanced' tier, this is their top offer, and is probably for someone who needs a huge number of websites being built, and deals with a lot of different niches. 

Personally, I am not a fan of integrations being behind paywalls, if the API has been provided, and is open, why not simply allow it for everyone. I can understand increasing the sites, or maybe upping the support level or providing new tools, but just locking integrations feels odd.

Who Is Leadpages For?

It's always a difficult question to answer, as it requires me to put myself into someone else's shoes and see if this would fit their scenarios. I would say, that leadpages, could be used by; 

• Local brick and mortar businesses looking to build an online presence
• Local trades persons, gardeners, PT's etc who are trying to book clients or gain new business
• Affiliate Marketers, looking to build landing pages or bridge pages to build their email list

As Leadpages comes with both the Landing Pages, and the Sites functionality, it broadens the type of people who can use it. 

Is Leadpages The Right Platform For You?

If you are someone, who is looking to;

• Trying to capture emails or eve phone numbers
• Trying to grow your business, with new customers
• Looking at simplifying how you book new clients or get new phone calls

Then Lead Pages may work perfectly well for you, and they have the tools to help you do it. 

What I Liked About Leadpages

To be honest, the majority of the platform works really well. 

They have some nice, clean, easy to load and use templates that meant I could create, edit and then publish a lead generation style page in just a few minutes (after I worked out the integration part). 

They have enough variety in their designs and templates that meant I could potentially create a multitude of capture pages based on the different niches I might have interests in. 

The same goes for the Sites. The majority looked professional and well laid out, meaning I wouldn't have to spend ages removing a ton of pointless text or images. Each page they came with, had a purpose, and I could quickly add a new page that would fit in with the theme. 

Their page builder is great to use, one of the better ones I have used with these types of platforms, though as I have said a few times through this review, some of the edit buttons just blend in with borders and look like headings.  

What I Disliked About Leadpages

The three big issues for me are the annoying way that integrations work and how you have to find the edit buttons to actually get them connected. 

The complete lack of themes or variations on the a critical part of the the lead generation part, such as the pop-ups or capture bars. They just look plain, boring and nothing like the brilliant templates that they have set up across the other parts of their platform. 

Lastly, the locking of integrations behind higher pricing tiers, for no real apparent reason, just seems pointless. 

Leadpages Review Conclusion

I would say that all in all, LeadPages is a decent and well put together lead generation platform, and if you are looking for a fairly cost effective landing page builder without needing the bells and whistles of other sites, then LeadPages could very well be the platform for you. 

It could also put website builders a run for their money, especially Squarespace or Wix, considering how easy it is to create a professional looking website.