Daniel Kahneman's peak-end rule shows that people evaluate experiences based on two moments: the emotional peak (most intense point) and the end. Everything in between gets averaged out or forgotten. Applied to landing pages, this means the section that creates the strongest emotional response and the final section before the visitor acts (or leaves) disproportionately shape their perception of your entire page.
This explains a pattern I see constantly: pages with a strong hero section, weak middle, and strong closing CTA section outperform pages with uniformly "good" content throughout. Consistency matters less than peaks and endings.
Designing peaks and endings
Your peak moment should be deliberate. For many pages, it's a powerful customer success story, a dramatic before/after comparison, or a data point that makes the visitor's jaw drop. Identify the single most compelling piece of evidence you have and make it the emotional centerpiece of your page — not buried in a carousel, not hidden in a tab, but featured prominently.
Your ending is whatever comes just before the final CTA. Most pages waste this with a generic "Ready to get started?" section. Better options: a summary of the strongest benefit, a risk-reversal guarantee, or a final testimonial from someone the visitor identifies with. The last thing they read before deciding should be your strongest closing argument, not a throwaway line.