Long Copy Vs. Short Copy

Your copy length should be based on 3 factors:

  1. The Product: the more complicated your product (more features and benefits), the longer the copy. Box of matches is an easy product. A heatmap tracking software is a complicated product.
  2. The price. The more your product costs, the more information you need to provide. If something costs $1, people don't need to think much. If it's $10,000 they'll take weeks to research.
  3. The Purpose: What's the goal? Generating a lead for a service business requires less detail, but an ad that aims to make a sale must overcome every objection the potential buyer may have.

If you go for the for the long form, remember that you don't need to put all of the information on the same page. You can create sub-pages, it's okay to move supplemental information onto a different page (layer, popup, etc.) and just link to it.

For instance, Amazon often hides full technical information of products behind a link-since it's only interesting to the hardcore tech savvy customers (and most customers are not).

The important thing is that all the information needed to make the decision is on a single page. Don't make people click to read stuff that you want them to read anyway (like features, benefits, testimonials, pricing, etc.).