Landing Page Checklist Before You Buy Traffic

Why check your landing page before buying traffic

A landing page checklist is a short list of things to verify before you pay for visits: the page matches the ad, loads fast on a phone, has one clear goal, is tracked, looks trustworthy, and meets the rules of the traffic source. Paid traffic does not fix a weak page. It multiplies whatever the page already does, so a page that converts 1% of visitors will keep converting about 1% no matter how much you spend on it.

The checklist below is split into seven parts. Run through it once for every new page and again after any big change. The last part covers the page rules for Sharklio click and task campaigns, which have a few specific requirements of their own.

1. Message and offer

• The headline matches the ad or task. If the campaign promises a free trial, the first thing on the page should be the free trial, not the company history.
• One goal per page. Sign up, install, buy, or join. Remove navigation and links that compete with it where you can.
• The benefit is clear in five seconds. Show the page to someone who has never seen your product and ask what it does and what they should click.
• The call to action says what happens next. “Start your free trial” beats “Submit”.
• The price or the catch is visible. If a card is required or the offer is limited to some countries, say so near the button. Surprises after the click cost you sign-ups and trust.

2. Speed and technical health

Every second of loading loses visitors who never see your offer, and with paid traffic you pay for them anyway. Google’s Core Web Vitals give concrete targets. Google recommends measuring them at the 75th percentile of page loads, split by mobile and desktop.

Source: web.dev, “Web Vitals”, by the Chrome team at Google.

• Compress images and size them for the screen they appear on.
• Cut third-party scripts you do not need on this page, such as chat widgets and extra trackers.
• Serve the page over HTTPS with a valid certificate. Browsers warn visitors away from anything else.
• Check that nothing is broken: every button, form, and link, and the page at a few screen widths.
• Make sure the server can take the load. A campaign can send hundreds of visits in an hour. Caching or a CDN keeps a small server from falling over.

3. Mobile and in-app browsers

Much paid traffic, including rewarded traffic from apps, arrives on phones. Some of it opens inside an in-app browser rather than Chrome or Safari, where the screen is smaller and there may be no saved logins or autofill.

• Test on a real phone, not only a desktop browser at a narrow width.
• Keep the main button visible without scrolling on a typical phone screen.
• Make tap targets big enough and keep them apart, so users do not hit the wrong one.
• Avoid anything that needs a desktop, such as hover menus or file uploads the task does not need.
• If you target one platform, such as an Android app, say it on the page and target only that platform in the campaign.

4. Tracking and measurement

If you cannot measure what paid visitors do, you cannot tell a good source from a bad one.

• Your analytics tag runs on the page and records visits in real time.
• The goal is set up as a conversion, such as a sign-up or purchase event, not just a page view.
• The campaign URL carries UTM tags, with at least source, medium, and campaign. UTM parameters explained shows a naming convention that keeps reports clean.
• The tags survive redirects. Open the tagged URL in a private window and check the address bar after the page loads.
• You know your target cost per result. Decide what a sign-up or install is worth before launch. What is CPL? and What is ROAS? show the math.

5. Trust and legal basics

• Say who you are. A company or product name, a contact method, and a real address or support page if you sell something.
• Link a privacy policy on any page that collects personal data, and make sure it describes what you actually collect.
• Ask for cookie consent where the law requires it, for example for visitors in the EU and UK, before non-essential trackers load.
• Use real proof only. Genuine reviews, customer logos you have permission to use, and numbers you can back up. Invented testimonials are a legal risk as well as a trust problem.
• Disclose referral or affiliate links if the page pays you per sign-up.

6. Forms and the conversion step

• Ask only for what you need now. Every extra field loses some visitors. Collect the rest after sign-up.
• Show clear errors next to the field that caused them, and keep what the user already typed.
• Test the whole flow, including the confirmation email, which often lands in spam on a new domain.
• Show a clear success page. It confirms the action to the user and gives you a clean conversion to track. For task campaigns, it is also a natural screenshot for proof.
• Keep bot protection light. A challenge that fails in an in-app browser blocks real users too.

7. Page rules for Sharklio campaigns

Our team reviews every campaign before it goes live, and the landing page is part of that review. The rules differ slightly by campaign type.

Click campaigns send users to your page for a view time you choose: 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45, or 60 seconds. A click is credited once the user has stayed for that time and passed our fraud checks, and you pay only for credited clicks. The page:

• Must start with https:// or http://, up to 500 characters.
• Must load normally, without pop-ups, forced downloads, or redirects to other offers.
• Must not contain content that stops users from leaving.
• Cannot be a direct file download, such as an .exe or .apk file.

Task campaigns can require users to open a starting link first. That page has to load normally, work on the devices you target, and match what your instructions describe. Write instructions that pass review lists the most common reasons a campaign is sent back, and a broken or mismatched starting link is one of them.

Two practical points for click campaigns. First, users came for a reward and will stay for the view time, so the first screen has that long to earn real interest: put the offer and the button at the top. Second, the view time you pick changes the cost, not the rules. A longer view time filters for more attention, and you will usually need a higher bid to attract users. Set bids by country shows how to pick a starting price.

Common landing page mistakes

• Sending paid traffic to the home page instead of a page built for the offer.
• A slow hero image or video that pushes the main content past the time users are willing to wait.
• No tracking, or tracking that was never tested with a real visit.
• Changing the page mid-test, which makes it impossible to tell what caused a change in results.
• Judging by clicks alone. Cheap clicks that never convert are expensive. Ad fraud and bot traffic covers the warning signs when numbers look too good.

The final pre-launch checklist

1. The headline matches the campaign, and the page has one goal.
2. LCP is 2.5 seconds or less on mobile, and nothing jumps while the page loads.
3. The page works on a real phone and in an in-app browser.
4. Analytics records the visit, the goal is tracked as a conversion, and the URL carries UTM tags.
5. A privacy policy, contact details, and any required consent banner are in place.
6. The form asks only for what you need, and the success page works.
7. The page has no pop-ups, downloads, or redirects to other offers, and matches your campaign instructions.
8. You know the most you can pay per result, and your first budget is small enough to learn from.

With the page ready, Create your first campaign walks through the campaign builder, and How to get website traffic compares the other channels you can send to the same page.

Frequently asked questions