Website vs. Marketing Platforms: Where Should You Host Your Landing Pages?

Whether you should host your landing pages on your website or in a platform like Pardot, HubSpot, or Marketo depends on your goals, resources, and workflow preferences. Here are the key considerations for each option:

Hosting on Your Website

Pros:

1. Full Control: You have complete control over the design, branding, and functionality.
2. SEO Benefits: Landing pages hosted on your website contribute to your site’s domain authority and improve search rankings.
3. Customization: Greater flexibility for advanced customizations with your development team.
4. Analytics Integration: Easily integrate with your existing website analytics tools like Google Analytics.

Cons:

1. Resource Intensive: Requires involvement from web developers or technical teams for creation and updates.
2. Longer Turnaround: If you rely on a development team, it might slow down the process of publishing and iterating on pages.
3. No Built-In Marketing Features: May lack built-in A/B testing, form handling, and analytics features that marketing platforms offer.

Best For:

• Businesses prioritizing SEO and have access to in-house developers.
• Companies needing custom, highly branded pages.

Hosting in Pardot, HubSpot, or Marketo

Pros:

1. Ease of Use: Drag-and-drop builders make it easy to create and launch pages quickly without coding knowledge.
2. Built-In Marketing Features: Tools for lead tracking, forms, automation, A/B testing, and analytics are integrated.
3. Fast Deployment: Marketing teams can create and publish independently of the development team.
4. Consistency with Campaigns: Seamless integration with email campaigns, workflows, and CRM systems.

Cons:

1. Limited SEO Impact: Pages may not contribute to your main domain’s authority if hosted on the platform’s subdomain (e.g., yourcompany.hubspot.com).
2. Branding Limitations: Customization might be limited depending on the platform.
3. Platform Dependence: You are tied to the features and limitations of the chosen platform.

Best For:

• Businesses focused on lead generation campaigns or time-sensitive marketing efforts.
• Marketing teams without access to technical resources.

Hybrid Approach

Many businesses adopt a hybrid approach, hosting evergreen or SEO-driven landing pages on their website and using marketing platforms for campaign-specific pages.

Example:

• Use your website for long-term, high-value pages like product details or key services.
• Use a marketing platform for temporary campaigns, A/B testing, or event-specific pages.

Key Questions to Decide

1. How important is SEO for your landing pages?
2. Do you have access to a technical team for ongoing support?
3. How quickly do you need to create and iterate on landing pages?
4. Do you need built-in analytics, A/B testing, or marketing automation?