A prelander (bridge page, transit page) is the page between the ad and the offer. An extra step should seemingly lose traffic, but in practice the right bridge page multiplies final conversion: a cold user warms up on the story and arrives at the offer ready. Here is how it works and when a prelander is mandatory.
Why add an extra step
- Warming up cold traffic. The person clicked out of curiosity. The offer immediately asks for money or data — too early. The prelander sells the idea ("here is how it works"), so a warm user reaches the offer.
- Filtering junk. Accidental clicks and bots drop off on the bridge page, not on the offer — approval and traffic quality for the advertiser grow, and you do not get cut for misleading traffic.
- Beating audience fatigue. One offer with ten angles through different prelanders is ten different funnels without changing networks.
- Room for storytelling. You control nothing on the offer page, but on the prelander — every headline, review and button.
Prelander formats that work
Story — "how I …": the classic of nutra and finance; a personal tale with photos, pain and result. Advertorial — a "media article" page with an investigation or interview; the key is a neutral editorial style, not impersonating a real outlet. Quiz — 3–5 questions with a "personalized solution": engages, segments and lifts CR notably in dating, nutra and finance. Checklist/roundup — "5 reasons", comparisons — a soft angle for e-commerce and services. Gamified — fortune wheels and bonus catchers in gambling: primitive, but the vertical's best CR for decades.
When a prelander is mandatory and when it hurts
Mandatory: cold traffic (push, native, popunders, parts of social), complex or expensive offers, aggressive verticals. Skippable: hot branded search traffic, retargeting, simple offers with instant value. The rule: the colder the traffic and the pricier the action, the more you need a bridge page.
Where to get prelanders
Three routes: spy tools (study competitors' long-living prelanders — for analysis, not copy-paste: texts and photos may be protected, and a burned-out page is useless anyway), ready packs from affiliate networks for their offers, and your own — built in a page builder or by a freelancer. A custom prelander written for your source and geo almost always beats a template.
How to test a bridge page
- Split in the tracker: 50% straight to the offer, 50% through the prelander — the first test already shows whether the page multiplies money or eats it.
- Judge by end-to-end EPC, not the prelander CTR: a page with 20% CTR and high approval beats one with 40% CTR and junk leads.
- Change one element at a time: headline, first screen, reviews, button. Our "Affiliate Math" guide covers sampling rules and metrics.
- Localize for real: names, currency, city, dates — machine translation on a prelander kills trust instantly.
A prelander is the cheapest way to lift a funnel's ROI without changing the offer or the source: a page that turns a cold click warm. Build two or three formats for your offer, run the split — and watch the numbers diverge. Share your findings in Beginner Guides on the forum — let us discuss what converts now.