Unbounce vs. ClickFunnels — Which is the Best Marketing Platform?

Are you in search of the best marketing software for building dynamic landing pages? 

Landing pages are crucial for lead generation, a key metric on the road to achieving the most sales. According to a Forrester report, businesses driven by insightful data develop up to 30% faster than those that aren’t. 

That's why having a professional landing page is essential. This is where visitors will become leads that eventually translate into customers. The art of leading your website visitors down a sales funnel has been perfected by numerous software solutions for digital marketing. These range from lead generation software to landing page builders, along with a host of other utilities.

The landing pages of today are designed using specialized software such as Unbounce or ClickFunnels. The two are definitely some of the most popular solutions, so one question remains — which of them is better at helping you make online sales? We will examine both services to reach an informed opinion. 

Basic Differences Between ClickFunnels and Unbounce

Image source: takesomerisk

ClickFunnels is just what its name suggests—a platform used to construct sales funnels on the Internet. Multitudes of small business owners and individual entrepreneurs have used ClickFunnels to make lots of sales online. Many of these people had quality products and services to offer, but they lacked the knowledge and expertise required to succeed in online marketing. This platform gave them the tools needed to achieve results without much experience, including an easy way to build landing pages. 

Unbounce is also an online platform used to make landing pages. The main difference between ClickFunnels and this software is that landing pages are Unbounce’s only focus, while the former can be used to create entire sales funnels. Remember: 

• ClickFunnels — digital marketing platform based on a sales funnel architecture that contains landing pages

• Unbounce — used to create landing pages only

ClickFunnels 101 — Alpha and Omega for Sales Funnels

Sales funnels are the pillars of modern online marketing. This is an old marketing model, perhaps the oldest one in history. The first sales funnels for analog marketing were recorded back in the 19th century. 

Consider the sales funnel as a set of actions, carefully construed to guide your potential clientele towards making a purchase. The sales funnel begins with lead generation and ends with the emergence of a paying customer. 

The reason sales funnels have been used for a long time is their effectiveness. The theory behind them has been optimized carefully in accordance with the latest psychological breakthroughs. If implemented correctly, funnels are guaranteed to work. A basic funnel functions along these lines: 

1. Awareness

2. Audience education

3. Lead generation

4. Engagement 

5. Final conversion

These steps have been adjusted for the digital era. Today, marketing websites are constructed with the design of a sales funnel in mind. Every part of a product funnel aligns itself with sections on a website:

The successful construction of a sales funnel used to be prohibitively expensive for small businesses and tight-budgeted entrepreneurs. This was a sizable investment because it entailed the work of multiple professionals from different branches. 

Marketing professionals would have to work on the design of a specific sales funnel for your product. This included original website content, copywriting, newsletters, email marketing, newsletters, etc. 

There was some work for web programmers as well. Experts from this industry would work on web design, feature implementation, hosting, domain registrations, and continuous maintenance. Sprawling corporations could afford to house their own marketing teams or outsource their online campaign elsewhere. Small brick-and-mortar retailers were being pushed out, and digital entrepreneurs could not compete either. 

Enter ClickFunnels

Platforms akin to ClickFunnels and Unbounce appeared as the perfect solution for this issue. They provided anyone interested in the world of online sales with a simple way to market their products and services. Creating completely functional websites is now possible without dedicated web programmers or even any personal experience with web programming. 

ClickFunnels abstracts all of the code under the hood and leaves a pristine visual environment for budding online salespeople to work in. There is no need to hire additional marketers either, as the platform helps you come up with the most exceptional content and visual design for your product.

You don’t need to worry about how you will market your product online. Unless what you’re offering is something revolutionary, chances are someone else has constructed a sales funnel for a similar product or niche. It doesn’t matter if you’re reselling digital products or shipping physical items; ClickFunnels can help you do it without difficulty. 

Features of ClickFunnels

The ClickFunnels software package contains the following features: 

1. Sales funnels

2. Templates and themes

3. Website hosting

4. Complete split testing

5. Visual editor

6. Conversion data

7. Email management

8. Membership sites

Sales Funnels

Plenty of online content management platforms offer visual assistance with the building of landing pages. The thing that helps ClickFunnels separate itself from the fold is its much broader scope. Platforms akin to Unbounce can be used effectively to create attention-grabbing landing pages. ClickFunnels goes beyond that, providing entrepreneurs with all they need to grow the volume of their online sales through the construction of whole sales funnels. 

Templates and Themes

The ClickFunnels design environment for pages and funnels is highly intuitive. Many people would still prefer not to spend too much time on visual design, and ClickFunnels can accommodate them as well. The platform includes an expansive range of premade page templates and funnel themes for any kind of product. Some of them are available for free with a basic ClickFunnels membership, while others have to be purchased. 

Image source: finsmes

Website Hosting

Finding the right hosting for your sales website is one of the menial technicalities that ClickFunnels helps users avoid. Anyone with a ClickFunnels account can buy a domain within the platform, or add their own dedicated domain if they wish. People who deal with this manually sometimes spend days searching for the right solutions, while ClickFunnels solves the issue in a couple of clicks. 

Complete Split Testing

A/B testing is one of the basic tenets of UX design. There is no other way to be sure that all elements of your sales funnel are working as intended. That's why ClickFunnels has extensive capabilities for split testing of all website sections. 

Visual Editor

Buying a premade template for pages and funnels isn’t a necessity with ClickFunnels. You can also customize every element of any funnel in incredible detail. The intuitive visual interface functions on a simple drag and drop principle. Anyone can use it to make the sales funnel they want without even the basic knowledge of web programming or design. 

Conversion Data

This platform has excellent data tracking capabilities. You can easily surmise the performance of any sales funnels and see how many conversions you've achieved. Other metrics critical for the success of your business can be viewed as well. 

Image source: smartinsights

Email Management

Marketing software providers like Sell SaaS offer intricate email marketing platforms, allowing industry professionals to automatize the most time-consuming engagement tasks. One of the advantages that ClickFunnels can boast is its own email marketing platform. People looking for an end-to-end software solution will be more than happy with the Actionetics system found on ClickFunnels. They also offer options for integrating with third-party email software. 

Membership Sites

Diversifying your revenue stream is never a bad idea, and paywalled content is an excellent way to do it. ClickFunnels helps you in that regard by offering options for creating membership websites. You can produce content and make it available only for loyal paying customers.  

ClickFunnels Integrations 

Email marketing platforms aren’t the only external software solutions that ClickFunnels can integrate with. There is also support for: 

Unbounce 101 — Landing Page Builder

The depth of your sales funnels depends on your overall marketing strategy. There are some websites that contain nothing more than a landing page and a sales page. The entire pitch is found on the former, making the landing page even more crucial for lead conversion. There isn't much need for a whole funnel builder in that setup. You may require a piece of software that enables you to create landing pages easily. Unbounce isn't a wrong choice in that regard. 

There is no question about the fact that Unbounce is a more straightforward piece of software compared to ClickFunnels. This is no big wonder considering their histories. Unbounce was created all the way back in 2011. It was one of the first SaaS platforms that allowed for drag and drop editing of landing pages. 

The first version of ClickFunnels was released a couple of years later, building on the Unbounce principles but also expanding on its intended scope. The relationship between the two software suites isn't one of rivalry, but of evolution. ClickFunnels took the genius simplification of page building that Unbounce pioneered and adapted it to the entire sales funnel model instead of just one part. 

Features of Unbounce

Unbounce offers features that are similar to the ClickFunnels’ ones, but more detailed in some respects:

• Data reporting

• Templates for landing pages

• Split testing

• Form construction

• Drag and drop editor

• Custom code

• Opt-in forms

Data Reporting

Following the right set of metrics is crucial if you want to design an efficient landing page. That's why Unbounce features real-time tracking options for conversion and other visitor data. Once you construct your page, you will be able to see relevant performance metrics on the Unbounce dashboard. This allows you to react swiftly in case any changes need to be made. 

Unbounce also offers options for using Google Analytics by integrating it with Unbounce landing pages. 

Templates for Landing Pages

Unbounce also gives you the option to skip most of the work that goes into designing your own functional landing page. Much like ClickFunnels, it lets you choose from a variety of developer templates. These were developed by expert online marketers skilled at conversion. There are different templates for Unbounce sticky bars, popup forms, and entire landing pages. You don't need to start from a blank slate — there's always the option to edit one of the templates. 

The variety of templates leaves something to be desired compared to the ClickFunnels marketplace. Unfortunately, Unbounce doesn't allow users to share their work as quickly. You can only use the themes and templates that were created by the Unbounce developers, making the range of content far more limited. 

Split Testing

Online marketing isn't just knowledge put into practice — it also means a lot of trial and error. You always need to tweak things and see if they work per your intention, regardless of the product or service that you're pitching online. 

That's why Unbounce has split testing options for all parts of your landing page. You can perform A/B tests on the hero image, forms, your call to action, and all of the copy. Such fine-tuning allows you to achieve the highest conversion rate possible with any given landing page.  

Form Construction

Any online pitch involving a landing page needs some bells and whistles for lead generation. This usually includes a checkout form at the end or an email opt-in for the start of your sales funnel. Unbounce has excellent functionalities for constructing interactive forms. There are a variety of features like hidden fields and checkboxes to make your copy shine and convey your message loudly. 

Drag and Drop Editing

The core of Unbounce’s platform is the drag and drop editor for visual design. It allows anyone to construct a landing page from scratch (or edit a template) without knowing anything through a simple but powerful process:

1. Select the element you want to implement on your landing page

2. Drag it across the screen to where you want it to appear on the page

3. Tinker with the details like size, color, content, etc.

Custom Code

Advanced users with web programming knowledge may wonder if using Unbounce pays off in their case. The answer is a definite yes. You can still edit HTML and CSS and insert your custom code into the landing page, but you can also immediately visualize the changes that you're making. It makes coding much more comfortable, even if you already know what you're doing. 

Opt-in Forms

Creating a sales funnel means trying to predict every single action of a website visitor and the order in which they’ll occur. Unbounce lets you fiddle around with the details of your landing page with that in mind. You can create custom popups that will appear when visitors first access your website. These can also emerge when users spend a specific amount of time on the landing page, or when they scroll to a particular element. 

Use of Unbounce in Your Business

Unbounce offers a more limited software solution for digital marketing in comparison with ClickFunnels. This doesn’t mean that the platform does not have its uses for online sales. Entrepreneurs won’t have much luck constructing an entire sales funnel with this platform, but they can still make a killer landing page using Unbounce. 

It is perfect for people who want a fully streamlined sales experience that doesn’t include more than the landing page itself. More complex funnels would require a more intricate platform like ClickFunnels.

Unbounce Integrations

Unbounce is capable of integrating with a more limited selection of third-party apps compared to ClickFunnels, but it covers all the crucial bases:

• Zapier — integrating a landing page made in Unbounce with other digital marketing tools

• Mailchimp — managing emails sent out to cold leads and follow-up messages for engagement

• Google Analytics — tracking metrics related to user interaction on the landing page

• HubSpot — managing content for inbound marketing and customer relations

Unbounce vs. ClickFunnels — How They Stack Up

The difference between these two platforms is evident. ClickFunnels is a comprehensive marketing software solution. Using this end-to-end platform to construct your sales funnel saves you the money you would otherwise spend on multiple products in the digital marketing niche. ClickFunnels lets you build sales funnels quickly, among other things. Unbounce lets you do the same thing, but lacks functionalities for creating other types of sales pages found in a funnel. 

Conclusion

Your decision between Unbounce and ClickFunnels depends on what you expect from the platforms. For people who only need to build a landing page without much effort, Unbounce is still a proper choice. Others who require more intricate digital marketing features would do well to opt for ClickFunnels.