What is the Correlation Between Copy Length and Profitability?

This is a controversial topic among marketers. There have been numerous articles, forum threads and numerous other items published that strongly advocate long copy to enhance profitability. Some advocated copy as long as 100 pages. Short copy also has its supporters. There is also a segment that says it depends on who you are selling to and what you are selling.

A recent study was conducted to determine the facts. A list of sites was divided in two lists. Profitable sites were determined by the fact that they had the same paid advertisement run for over 6 months. A site was deemed unprofitable if it had paid ads promoting it that were changed or terminated within one month.

The next step was to print the landing pages for each of these sites and count the number of pages. The results tended to support short copy as the profitable sites averaged 1.8 printed pages versus the less profitable/non-profitable sites which averaged 2.0 printed pages.

The market served was also considered. The sites were divided into 12 separate generic markets and the variability was examined. There was no statistically significant difference in page length among the markets. Profitable sites tended to have a shorter landing pages in all 12 markets.

The study also revealed that less than 2% of all the sales pages examined were longer than 5 printed pages.

The results of this study tend to support shorter copy length. The results also support not having a sales letter longer than 5 pages. Like anything in marketing, test to see what works best.