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Kill Plugin Bloat & Stop Wasting Ad Spend: The Ultra-Lean Landing Page Playbook

Are your performance marketing campaigns bleeding money? Your WordPress site, weighed down by plugins for forms, analytics, and pop-ups, is likely suffering from severe 'plugin bloat.' This bloat destroys your page speed and Core Web Vitals scores, causing visitors to bounce before your page even loads. The result is a sky-high cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and a crushed return on ad spend (ROAS).

This playbook implements 'The Ultra-Lean Startup Stack,' a radically simple solution designed for maximum conversion speed. We ditch the slow, bloated WordPress setup for a lightning-fast, purpose-built landing page using Carrd. We then integrate a powerful email marketing platform, MailerLite, via Zapier to capture every lead without sacrificing an ounce of performance. This lightweight system ensures your ad-driven traffic sees your offer instantly, dramatically lowering bounce rates and maximizing your campaign's profitability.

Expected Outcomes

  • Dramatically improve Core Web Vitals and achieve top-tier page speed scores.
  • Significantly reduce bounce rates on paid traffic landing pages.
  • Lower your Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) by converting more clicks into leads.
  • Boost your campaign's Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) by eliminating wasted clicks.
  • Launch new, optimized landing pages in hours, not weeks.

Core Tools in This Stack

Carrd

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Carrd is a simple, responsive, and easy-to-use platform for building one-page websites. It's ideal for creating personal profiles, portfolios, landing pages to capture leads, or any other simple online presence.

Key Features
  • Responsive one-page templates
  • Simple drag-and-drop editor
  • Custom domain support (Pro)
  • Email capture forms (Pro)
  • Third-party widget embeds (Stripe, PayPal, Gumroad, etc.)
  • Google Analytics integration (Pro)
  • No 'Made with Carrd' branding (Pro)
  • Generous free plan
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Creative & Media, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low-cost

Ease of Use

Very Easy

MailerLite

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An all-in-one digital marketing platform that helps businesses of all sizes grow their audience and revenue through email marketing, automation, websites, and landing pages.

Key Features
  • Email Automation
  • Drag & Drop Editor
  • Landing Pages & Websites
  • Signup Forms & Pop-ups
  • A/B Testing
  • E-commerce Integration
  • AI Content Generation
  • Segmentation
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Beginner

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "The Ultra-Lean Startup Stack" direction LR N0["Carrd"] N1["MailerLite"] N0 -- "Sends form submissions to create/update subscribers" --> N1 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue;

Integration Logic

  • Zapier: Carrd to MailerLite

    This integration works by using a Zapier Webhook as the trigger for new form submissions on a Carrd website. When a user fills out and submits a form, Carrd sends the form data (e.g., name, email) to the specified Zapier Webhook URL. Zapier catches this data and triggers the action step. The action is configured to use the MailerLite app, where it 'Creates or Updates a Subscriber' using the data received from Carrd. The user maps the email and name fields from the webhook to the corresponding subscriber fields in MailerLite, and selects a specific subscriber group for the new contact to be added to.

Slash Your CPA: Get the Free Playbook

Learn to build lightning-fast landing pages that stop visitor bounces and maximize your return on ad spend.