The scroll audit that saved a long-form page from a redesign

The scroll audit that saved a long-form page from a redesign

A finance publisher had a 4,000-word guide that ranked well but converted poorly. Leadership wanted to gut it. Before tearing it down, one analyst checked where people actually stopped reading.

The scroll-depth playbook:
— Enable GA4 scroll events or set custom depth triggers at 25/50/75/90%
— Pull the percentage of readers reaching each depth on that page
— Find the depth where the drop-off cliff happens
— Map that pixel position to what content sits there
— Move your CTA and key offer above the cliff, not below it

Only 18% reached the 75% mark, but the CTA sat at 85%. Almost nobody saw the offer they were optimizing.

They moved the CTA to just before the 50% drop, where 61% of readers still lingered. Conversions tripled from 0.6% to 1.9% without cutting a word.

Lesson: a page doesn't always need less content. Sometimes it just needs the ask placed where people are still reading.