Last Updated on January 20, 2023 by Alex Birkett
Landing pages are the lifeblood of your marketing campaign.
No shit, Sherlock.
You can’t expect to send emails to random people or publish blogs weekly in the hope of generating valuable leads.
You need to create an engaging landing page first to capture those leads.
And luckily, creating them isn’t all that difficult, especially with modern-day landing page builders.
The important part is selecting a landing page software that aligns the best with your business goals.
Regardless of your business, some of the best landing page software tools have some standard features.
Best landing page builders usually provide:
- Pre-designed templates
- A straightforward page builder that you can use without any technical know-how
- Reporting and analytics
- Extensive customization options
- Split testing functionality (A/B testing)
- Third-party integrations
- Mobile optimization
- Built-in marketing tools
Both Unbounce and ClickFunnels check these boxes.
However, you still have to choose one out of these two popular landing page builders.
To help you make the right decision, I’m going to review their key features and pros and cons in this side-by-side comparison of Unbounce Vs. ClickFunnels.
Editor’s note: I’m going to use some affiliate links when possible to try to earn some revenue from my content. These don’t change the opinions espoused in the content nor the style in which they are written. If I think a product sucks, I’m not going to say otherwise. This is just a bonus and a way to fund the whole operation. Anyway, enjoy the article!
Unbounce Vs ClickFunnels: Introduction
Unbounce:
Unbounce is a landing page builder that helps you create and optimize landing pages to turn traffic into revenue. It comes with a visual, drag-and-drop editor and 100+ customizable templates to make the process easier for you.
Unbounce Pros:
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Suitable for first-time marketers, startups, and small businesses
- Popups and sticky bars
- The ability to clone and edit pages
- Copy and paste between pages
- Mobile responsive pages
- Gated content
- 850,000+ free stock images from Unsplash
- Dynamic text replacement
- Custom form redirect
- Real-time data dashboard
- A/B testing
- Two-step opt-in forms
- Target specific audience and trigger action
- Integration with Zapier and Webhooks
- Account management
- Free hosting
- Two-factor authentication and free SSL
Unbounce Cons:
- Less value for money
- No money-back guarantee
Unbounce G2 Score: 4.4 out of 5 stars
You can check out detailed user reviews here.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels is a website and sales funnel builder that helps you build landing pages and other sales pages inside a funnel.
It allows you to control your buyers’ journeys using numerous lead generation features, email campaigns, automated triggers, customer targeting, etc.
(Image Source: ClickFunnels)
They invest a lot in content educating users on how to build a funnel. A few of their content products that are interesting:
ClickFunnels Pros:
- Drag-and-drop builder
- Suitable for enterprises, professional marketers, and startups
- Building entire sales funnels
- One-click upsells
- Follow-up funnels to send targeted messages
- Email auto-responder
- Numerous data monitoring options
- Add shopping carts in a single click
- Affiliate management program
- Mobile-optimized sales pages
- A 30-day money-back guarantee
- Integrates natively with numerous third-party apps
- Numerous tutorials and training documents
- Membership sites and multiple subscription tiers
ClickFunnels Cons:
- A bit on the expensive side
- A beginner might get a little overwhelmed with all of the extra tools and features.
ClickFunnels G2 Score: 4.7 out of 5 stars
You can check out detailed user reviews here.
1. Drag-and-Drop Builder/Editor.
Both Unbounce and ClickFunnels come with a drag-and-drop builder and numerous templates to help you create landing pages easily. You can either choose to customize the templates or build a page from scratch.
Unbounce:
Unbounce has an intuitive and straightforward drag-and-drop builder.
You don’t have to write a single code and can simply drag and place elements wherever you want.
The navigation is pretty simple, and you’ll get a quick overview of everything before you start. Or you can take a free demo.
Here’s what the builder looks like:
You can select the elements you want from the leftmost toolbar and drop them in the center.
Some of the common elements that you can add and customize include:
- A new section
- A box
- Text
- Image
- CTA buttons
- Lightbox button
- Opt-in form
- Video
- Social Widget
- Custom HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code
There’s also a navbar at the top that lets you perform quick actions like:
- Undo
- Redo
- Move Up/Down
- Send Backward
- Bring Forward
- Copy/Paste
- Duplicate/Delete
Your options don’t end here.
There’s another toolbar on the rightmost side of your builder that lets you tweak every detail of your page.
From here, you can edit details like your landing page’s border, font, colors, background, title, metadata, and more.
Once you’re done with the page, you can publish it directly to your WordPress site (using the WP landing page plugin) or to your custom domain.
Here are some other key features you get with Unbounce’s editor:
- Accelerated mobile pages (AMP)
- Script manager
- Mobile responsive pages
- Over 950 built-in Google fonts
- Access to over 850,000 free stock images
- Auto image optimizer
- Parallax scrolling option
One of the things I liked the most about Unbounce’s builder is how visual it is. You can edit and preview every change you make in real-time. This means you don’t have to wait for the end result and can finalize each section as you go.
Another good thing is that there are no boundaries, and you can tweak just about anything you want. There are no fixed blocks and sections either.
Besides landing pages, Unbounce’s drag-and-drop builder also lets you create pop-ups, sticky bars, and lead capture forms to add to your landing pages. All of these elements further help you generate targeted leads.
You can test the builder yourself here.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels’ drag-and-drop editor, called the Etison Editor, also helps you design and launch a landing page in minutes.
The platform has specific templates to help you build different types of pages for different goals, including:
- Optin pages
- Sales pages
- Order form pages
- Upsell pages
- Webinar funnels and event pages
- Membership sites
The builder lets you quickly swap elements like logo, headings, videos, products, text, and more.
(Source)
Editing your landing page gets even easier with their color-coded building blocks.
The blocks, namely Sections, Rows, Columns, and Elements, make it easier for you to differentiate all of the parts of your page and customize it.
Here’s a quick overview of how the Etison Editor works:
What’s more, there are built-in tools that give you more control over your landing pages and let you tailor them the way you want.
The Etison Editor offers the following editing options:
- Custom CSS
- Padding adjustments
- Color adjustments
- The ability to add a shopping cart
- Add more buttons and timers
- Optimizing web pages for mobile devices
- Embed videos from YouTube, Wistia, and Vimeo
There are options to add other elements like surveys, video popups, membership content, bullet list, audio player, SMS signup, FAQs, etc.
Final Verdict: It’s a Draw.
2. Templates.
Unbounce:
Unbounce offers hundreds of ready-to-use landing page templates to help you create landing pages, sticky bars, and popups.
You can browse through different categories by the campaign, type of page you want to create, or other special features like parallax effect, lightbox, and video backgrounds.
Is the idea of choosing from hundreds of templates is overwhelming for you? In that case, you can simply answer a couple of questions about your goals and business, and Unbounce will handpick a suitable template for you.
You can also browse Themeforest’s Marketplace to get access to over 240 customizable templates that are compatible with Unbounce.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels also offers both free and paid funnel templates for various purposes. You can narrow down your search based on different categories, template types, and tags.
There’s also a search option that allows you to browse templates directly using relevant keywords.
Final Verdict: It’s a Draw!
3. Marketing and Lead Generation Features.
Creating a landing page isn’t nearly enough. You need to run digital marketing campaigns, use several marketing techniques, and optimize your pages for SEO to generate leads and sales.
Let’s see how they perform when it comes to their marketing, promotion, and SEO features.
Unbounce:
Unbounce offers plenty of tools and options to generate leads and push your potential customers down the funnel.
Here’s everything you get with Unbounce:
AI-Powered Smart Traffic.
Unbounce comes with a built-in “Smart Traffic” feature that determines your potential customers’ attributes and directs them to the most appropriate version of your landing page.
Unbounce claims that pages using their Smart Traffic function witness an average convert lift of 30%.
The best part about this feature is that it’s completely automatic. You just have to switch on the smart traffic option, and Unbounce will do the rest of the work.
Add Popups and Sticky Bars.
Unbounce provides ready-to-use sticky bars and popups that you can add to your landing page and nudge your visitors to convert.
You can customize pre-built popup and sticky bar templates just like a landing page and target potential customers.
There are even options to display your stick bars and popups to specific audiences and dynamically swap relevant keywords based on your target customers’ search terms.
Unbounce also allows you to schedule seasonal offers, run A/B tests, trigger popups based on visitors’ actions, etc. You also get advanced targeting options, and show offers based on your visitors’ location, past behaviors (cookie targeting), or their reference source.
Fast Loading Pages.
Unbounce’s landing pages are optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, which means they look good and load quickly on all types of devices.
Here are some of the Unbounce features that speed up your pages:
- Automatic image optimization
- SVG image support
- Accelerated mobile pages (AMP)
- Minified JavaScript resources and optimized CSS delivery
- They claim to follow recommendations made by Google’s PageSpeed Insights
- Five data centers globally and Unbounce Content Delivery Network (CDN) ensures quick load time
Dynamic Text Replacement.
Dynamic text replacement (DTR) is one of Unbounce’s most amazing features.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, the dynamic feature allows you to personalize your campaigns by matching page text (it can be your headline, your CTA button, or any element on the page) to your visitors’ exact search queries.
Here’s an example of DTR by Unbounce:
If the user searches for “Foreign Exchange Fees,” they’ll see the landing page on the left. And if they’re searching for “Credit Card Fees,” they’ll see the one on the right.
Impressive, right?
It increases the relevancy of your landing pages and eliminates the need to create hundreds of landing pages for a single product.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels also features some impressive marketing and optimization features, especially when it comes to email marketing.
Email Auto-Responder.
It has an email auto-responder built into its dashboard. The tool helps you send follow-up campaigns and email sequences to convert existing and past customers.
The automated email marketing tool (previously called Actionetics) helps you trigger emails based on your audiences’ buying patterns and reference sources (where they came from).
The tool also helps you create “Smart Lists,” which is essentially a segmented list of subscribers.
Smart Lists are based on factors like
- Who abandoned your cart?
- Customers with a considerable social media following.
- Consumers using freemium products.
- Buyers who end up buying everything you offer.
Once the tool identifies all of these things, it sends out relevant emails to boost your conversion rate. It also lets you track essential metrics like open rate, most valuable customers, revenue accrued from each email campaign, etc.
Besides creating email follow-up funnels, you can also create complete sales funnels with ClickFunnels. In fact, building complete, sequential sales funnels is one of the biggest selling points of ClickFunnels.
One-Click Upsells.
ClickFunnels gives your visitors an option to add any upsell to their purchase – with just ONE click.
It helps you offer something valuable to your audiences and increase your cart value at the same time.
The best part? Customers won’t have to repeat the entire checkout process again.
Final Verdict: Unbounce.
Unbounce is the winner here due to its AI-powered features. Although, it also depends on your requirements. For instance, if you solely require automated email marketing features, then ClickFunnels is the tool for you.
4. Reporting & Analytics.
You’re creating a landing page to convert visitors into paying customers. But how would you identify your conversion rate and overall success rate unless you measure them?
Luckily, both Unbounce and ClickFunnels offer comprehensive tracking and reporting features.
Unbounce:
Unbounce’s dashboard gives you real-time insights into your landing pages and helps you determine how your pages are performing.
For more detailed reports, you can set up Google Analytics with Unbounce. There’s also an option to add and manage tracking like Facebook Pixels to monitor how your ads are performing.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels’ dashboard gives you a pretty good picture of how your landing pages or funnels are performing.
It helps you:
- Track opt-ins, page views, and sales for multiple landing pages and funnels.
- Identify how many people are joining your email list and where your leads are coming from.
- Determine which funnels are performing the best
- Get an overview of your business is performing over time.
You can also integrate it with Google Analytics for more detailed insights into your landing page statistics.
Final Verdict:
ClickFunnels appears as the clear winner here with its ability to measure numerous statistics. That said, Unbounce has an edge in one department, i.e., the ability to track everything in real-time.
5. Integrations.
Unbounce:
Unbounce connects with almost every business app on the market. The integrations are either built right into Unbounce, or you can use Zapier and Webhooks for other third-party integrations.
Famous in-app integrations include ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Marketo, and more.
Following are the app categories offered by Unbounce:
- Utilities
- CRM
- Chat
- Social
- Marketing Automation
- Customer Support
- Call Tracking
- Education
- Analytics
- Webinar
- Optimization/Testing
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels integrates with almost every popular autoresponder you can think of.
And even if there isn’t any integration option with the autoresponder of your choice, you can connect to a funnel via the HTML form.
They also have several API payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Recurly, NMI, Easy Pay Direct, and Keap.
Integration with Zapier also allows you to connect ClickFunnels with over 3,000 third-party apps to boost productivity and automate your work.
Additionally, ClickFunnels provides native integration with SMTP, SMS tools, delivery tools, domains, webinar platforms, etc.
Final Verdict: It’s a Draw.
ClickFunnels provides integrations with more tools than Unbounce, but Unbounce lets you use Webhooks and Zapier to connect with unavailable tools.
6. A/B Testing.
Unbounce:
Unbounce allows you to run unlimited A/B tests with all of its payment plans. You can launch the test easily by duplicating an existing page.
You can even repeat the process by testing the winner against another page to keep increasing your conversion rates.
ClickFunnels:
ClickFunnels lets you perform a split test by either using a template page or by duplicating any of your existing pages.
After the test gets executed, you’ll get confidence scores for both of the pages, after which you’ll be prompted to choose the winner manually.
(Source)
The page that loses gets archived automatically in the end.
The only downside is that it doesn’t let you A/B best your email campaigns, and you’ll have to pay an additional fee for the split testing function.
Final Verdict: Unbounce.
Unbounce vs ClickFunnels: Pricing Plans
Unbounce Pricing:
Unbounce has four payment plans, including:
- Launch – $80 per month
- Optimize – $120 per month
- Accelerate – $200 per month
- Scale – $300 per month
All plans include unlimited landing pages, unlimited popups & sticky bars, unlimited sub-account, and a 14-day free trial.
ClickFunnels Pricing:
ClickFunnels has three payment plans, including.
- Basic plan – $97 per month.
- ClickFunnels Platinum – $297 per month
- TwoCommaClubX – $2497 per month
You’ll get a 30-day money-back guarantee and a 14-day free trial with all of the plans. The Platinum plan also provides access to additional courses and training modules.
Final Conclusion: Who’s the Winner?
That’s it!
This was my in-depth comparison of both the landing page builders, Unbounce Vs. ClickFunnels.
Both tools have their fair share of advantages when it comes to building landing pages for your online business. In the end, it all comes down to your requirements, budget, and business goals.
You should use Unbounce if you want to:
- Focus on building landing pages
- Add sticky bars and popups to your landing page
- Analyze your performance and statistics in real-time
- Run A/B tests at no extra cost
- Use AI-based features to optimize your landing pages and digital ads.
You should use ClickFunnels if:
- Build entire sales funnels along with landing pages
- Create one-click upsells and downsells
- Create membership sites
- Promote your products using affiliate programs
To give you an overview, use ClickFunnels if you want to create more than landing pages and generate leads by creating entire sales funnels and setting up sequential campaigns.
On the other hand, use Unbounce if you want to focus solely on creating and promoting landing pages.