Thank-you pages

What a thank-you page is

A thank-you page is the page shown immediately after somebody sends a form, downloads something or completes an order. It has two jobs: confirm that the thing worked, and tell the person what happens next and when. A good one adds a third — the single most useful thing that reader could do in the next five minutes.

It is the most wasted page on the internet. On most sites it says “Thank you, we will be in touch shortly” in the middle of an empty screen, and sometimes it is not a page at all but a green bar that disappears. It is also the one page where attention is guaranteed: the reader has just acted, is looking at the screen to check it worked, and is more willing to hear from you than at any other point.

It is not a sales page and it should not behave like one. Somebody who has just enquired does not want another offer pushed at them; they want to know they will be looked after.

Who this is for

Anyone with a form on their site, which is nearly everyone, and particularly three cases. A business collecting enquiries, where the gap between the form and the first human reply is where interest cools. A business giving something away, where the download is the whole reason the address was handed over. And an online shop, where the order confirmation screen is read more carefully than any product page ever was.

You do not need this if nothing is reaching the form. A polished thank-you page behind an empty form is money spent in the wrong place, and the contact page or the pages that feed it are the better job. It is also poor value on its own if your follow-up is genuinely broken — a page promising a reply within a day, on a site where replies take a week, makes things worse rather than better.

What goes in it

Three or four short blocks. This is a page that should be read in twenty seconds and be entirely true.

• Confirmation, specific. What was received, from which address, and a reference if there is one. “Your message is with Sarah” beats “Submission successful”.
• What happens next, with a time on it. Who replies, how, and by when. If the answer is two working days, say two working days. A named day beats “shortly” even when it is slower.
• The thing they came for. If it is a download, put it on the page as well as in the email. Plenty of people never open the email, and the file is already theirs.
• What to do if it does not arrive. The address the email comes from, a line about junk folders, and a phone number. This one sentence saves more lost leads than any other on the page.
• One useful next step. The case study most relevant to what they asked about, the preparation for the call, the guide that answers their next question. One, chosen deliberately, not a row of six.

Order confirmation pages add the practical material: what was bought, when it ships, how it arrives, what to do about a change, and who to contact.

What you get

The pages. One per form, written in full, with heading, body, next-step wording and button labels. Three to six is usual, because an enquiry, a download and an order need different pages and most sites have one shared page doing all three badly.

The matching emails. The automatic confirmation that follows each page, written to say the same thing in the same voice, with subject lines.

A next-step recommendation. A short note on which single link belongs on each page and why, based on what that reader has just told you about themselves by which form they used.

A page checklist. A one-page list for whoever builds the pages, covering wording, file links and promised timings, so nothing goes live with a promise nobody has agreed to keep.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A Calgary bookkeeping firm offers a year-end checklist as a download. The form works, the address is captured, and the visitor lands on a page reading “Thanks. Your download is on its way.” Nothing else. The email goes out from the form plugin with the subject line “Form submission” and a bare link, and many of those emails are never opened.

The new page puts the checklist on the screen as a download button, so it is in hand before anyone leaves. Under it, three lines: a copy has gone to the address given, it comes from a named sender, and if it is not there in ten minutes it is in the junk folder. Below that, one paragraph says who wrote the checklist and what the firm does, with a single link to the page on year-end work for incorporated owner-managed businesses, because that is who downloads this file. The last line offers a twenty-minute call and says plainly that nobody will phone unless it is booked. The download itself is unchanged; only the page around it is different.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. Which forms you have, what each one means about the person who filled it in, and what really happens after each. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. The number of pages, the price and the dates, agreed before anything starts.
3. A look at what exists. Every form on the site, the page each lands on and the email each sends. This takes an afternoon and usually finds one form nobody knew was still live.
4. Drafts. Three to five working days for a small set. The promised reply times are agreed with whoever has to keep them.
5. Delivery. Pages, emails, the checklist and one round of changes, handed to whoever builds them.

Seven to ten working days from first call to delivery is typical.

What it costs

Thank-you pages are quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, because the job is sized by the number of forms rather than the number of words. It is one of the cheapest pieces of work on this site and one of the few that can be done in a week. The number is fixed in writing before anything starts, and the pricing page shows the four ways of working. Most owners have this written alongside the contact page, since the two have to make the same promise.

What happens next

A thank-you page hands the reader over, and the next question is what reaches them afterwards. For enquiries that are not yet ready, that is usually the first few emails, while attention is highest. For a download, it is whether the file itself is good enough to have been worth the address, which is the lead magnet. For a completed order, the useful next job is what a new customer is told first. Each of those is a separate decision. The thank-you pages are finished work on their own and nothing further is assumed.