My landing page is not working: find the drop

The paid visitor taps the ad, and that click is usually billed whether or not the page finishes loading. On a phone, the link can open inside a social app's own browser, which may run scripts late, block some pop-ups, or show an embedded form slowly. If the page renders, the first screen may answer a different question from the one the ad asked, so the visitor scrolls looking for the offer. Only the visitors who find the form and start it reach the count you watch. Everything before that is invisible to a dashboard that shows sign-ups alone.

• Compare yesterday's ad clicks with the page visits in analytics for the same day, and note the gap.
• Split visits by device and browser, and see whether phone traffic from social apps looks different.
• On a phone, does the headline above the fold say what the ad said?
• Start the sign-up form yourself on a phone and count the fields before the submit button.
• Submit once, then confirm the sign-up reaches your inbox or database and that the thank-you page fires your tracking.

Pull the four counts for one day: ad clicks, analytics visits, form starts, and sign-ups that reached your inbox or database. Ad platforms count a click when the ad is tapped, and analytics counts a visit only once the page loads and its script runs. So the gap between those two is the first thing to read. If clicks far outnumber visits, the page did not finish loading for those visitors. If visits far outnumber form starts, the first screen is not doing its job. Use the same day in every tool, or the gaps will mislead you.

A link tapped inside a social app opens in that app's own browser, and that browser can behave differently from the phone's main one. Scripts can load late, a pop-up the app blocks can take a form down with it, and an embedded sign-up widget can fail to draw. The visitor sees a blank screen or a page with no form, taps back, and returns to the feed. Analytics records a visit only when its script ran, so the gap between ad clicks and visits grows without any error appearing on your side.

A visitor who reads the first screen and leaves never starts the form. Ads promise one thing, but a landing page can open with the company's story instead of the offer. The stranger scrolls for the offer, finds a long list of features, and gives up before the form. The owner sees a steady visit count and few starts, and cannot tell from that whether the offer is wrong or the form is. Read the first screen's words in the order a stranger sees them, and compare them with the ad.

Each new ad creative sends a different stranger to the same first screen, so a headline that matched last month can miss this month's ad. Run the same visitor after each change, with the ad's text pasted in as the arrival, and keep one run for each ad. Test the form on a phone before you raise spend, because a form that worked for last week's ad can stall on a new audience.