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All projects·From: Inversion: Solving Problems Backwards
MiniAudit· 25 minutes

What Would Kill This Landing Page? An Inversion Audit

Warby Parker

Objective: Given a real landing page brief and audit notes, apply the inversion checklist (slow load, wrong headline, unclear next step, mismatched ad intent) to flag every failure signature before launch.

You're a growth marketer at Warby Parker reviewing a new prescription-glasses landing page before it goes live behind a paid search campaign.

Invert the question from 'how do we improve conversion' to 'what would kill it,' then check the draft against each failure signature.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Sheets
FreeScore the page against the 4-item failure checklist

Free, shareable audit format

The process

1 step

Step 01 of 01

Inverting a design question into its failure-mode checklist

The lesson inverts 'how do we improve conversion' into 'what would kill the conversion rate': slow load, wrong headline, unclear next step, mismatched intent from the ad.

Given this page-audit-notes.csv (load time, headline, CTA placement, ad copy vs. page copy), which of the four failure signatures does this draft actually have?

Google Sheets— Import page-audit-notes.csv, add a checklist column for each of the four failure signatures.

Procedure

  1. Import page-audit-notes.csv
  2. Score the page against each of the 4 failure signatures: load speed, headline clarity, CTA visibility, ad-to-page intent match
  3. Mark each signature present or absent with evidence
  4. Rank the present signatures by which one is cheapest to fix first
Sample output
PAGE AUDIT: warbyparker.com/rx-launch-lp
1. Load speed: 4.8s on mobile (target <2.5s) -> FAILURE SIGNATURE PRESENT
2. Headline: 'Reimagining Eyewear for Everyone' (vague, no benefit) -> FAILURE SIGNATURE PRESENT
3. CTA: 'Shop Now' button above the fold -> ABSENT (this one is fine)
4. Ad-to-page match: ad says '$95 prescription glasses,' page never states the price -> FAILURE SIGNATURE PRESENT

Healthy

The team fixes the page-load and price-mismatch issues before spending a dollar on traffic, since those are the two cheapest, highest-impact fixes.

Unhealthy

Launching the campaign and waiting for the conversion rate to reveal the problem after budget is already spent.

What this means

Every failure signature you find before launch is one you don't have to diagnose after the money's gone.

So what do I do about it?

SymptomActionEffort
Load time exceeds 2.5s on mobileCompress hero images and defer non-critical scripts before launchhalf day
Ad promises a price the landing page never statesAdd the exact price from the ad copy above the fold on the page30 min
EitherYou or a developer can handle this, depending on your access.

Final deliverable

A scored failure-signature checklist for the landing page with the two cheapest fixes flagged for pre-launch action.

See a reference example
Sample output
Zomato, gold-membership LP audit (excerpt)

1. Load speed: 2.1s -> ABSENT (passes)
2. Headline: 'Get Zomato Gold, Free Delivery on Every Order' -> ABSENT (specific benefit stated)
3. CTA: buried below 3 scrolls of testimonials -> FAILURE SIGNATURE PRESENT
4. Ad-to-page match: ad says 'Free Delivery,' page confirms it in the headline -> ABSENT

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

  • Correctly scores the page against all 4 failure signatures with evidence
  • Ranks the present signatures by fix cost
  • Recommends the 2 cheapest fixes before launch