When can we expect Email Editor 2.0 functionality in Guided Landing Pages?

[Anonymous]

We have seen the future and it's far more flexible. Specifically, the lack of modules in Guided Landing Pages makes them very rigid and requires users to create many templates that are all very similar, just with different modules in different display orders within the same landing page template.

It's gotten to the point where we are considering guiding our clients to use Squarespace, Weebly or another CMS on a different subdomain to create landing pages because the UI is so much more flexible while still removing the limitations of free-form landing pages.

It stands to reason that the updates we saw in Email Editor 2.0 would be ported to Guided Landing Pages, but the question is when. If it's soon, we can tell our clients to keep patient. If it's a ways off, we may need to make a move. Has anyone heard anything about an update from Marketo? How are you navigating templates?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Steve,

I have been writing at length on this here: 

Justin Cooperman​, this question is for you

-Greg

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Grégoire! I'll read through your discussion and see if there's anything I can contribute.

[Justin_Cooperm2 · Accepted solution]

This isn't on the short-term roadmap, however we will want to add some of those features to the "Guided" landing page editor in the future. Not that it isn't important, but our product team is working on a few large projects (Project Orion + others) that have taken priority. If you ping me again in a few months I can give you an update if things change.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Justin! I know you guys are cranking out some awesome stuff with Orion and that Orion is no small undertaking. I was just hoping this fell under the category of low hanging fruit.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Steve, is the main stopper/distractor the ability to set the displayed Element order at the LP level?

[Anonymous]

I think it's a combination of display order and which elements are on the page. To echo a point in Grégoire Michel​'s discussion linked above, by only using CSS to hide and show elements on the page, we unnecessarily increase the overhead of the page for every optional section we add.

I vaguely recall some newer CSS properties in CSS3 that would, in theory, allow us to use the existing templating options to control display order, but we haven't implemented that for ourselves or any clients.

The bottom line is that we keep getting asked to create new templates by our clients when the ones we have produced thus far are very close, but not quite right, to meet the objectives of the campaign or program. It's usually a matter of having the right pieces, but having to put them together differently. If we had modules that could be added, removed or dragged up or down in the display order, it would significantly reduce the number of templates and thereby reducing the opportunity for error and/or the cost of maintaining all these templates.

[SanfordWhiteman]

For rearranging blocks, we've built in a drag-and-drop library into our templates that allows the template consumer (i.e. LP author) to choose the display order, similar to how we built a branded color palette into GLPTs.

For totally removing non-displayed blocks, you can do some tricks w/partials. But rarely is there a substantive difference in performance from just suppressing HTML content. (Most pages are so outrageously bloated with scripts and images that those assets dwarf the size of the HTML by 10-100x. In one upcoming blog post, I'm going to point out one aspect of Marketo LP design that at least doubles the bytes of HTML that needs to be fetched unless you pay attention to it.)