What is a microsite? Definition, examples and when to use one

Microsite, defined

A microsite is a small, purpose-built website — often a single scrolling page, sometimes a handful — created separately from an organisation's main website to do one job: launch a product, promote an event, tell a story, run a campaign. It typically lives on its own subdomain or domain (think vision.avatr.com or report.adidas-group.com), carries its own visual identity, and is archived or retired when the campaign ends.

The word matters less than the discipline it implies. A main website serves every visitor and every goal at once; a microsite serves one audience, one message, one action. That focus is why brands keep building them — and why the best ones feel more like an experience than a web page.

Microsite vs landing page vs website

The three get confused constantly. The quickest way to tell them apart:

Rule of thumb: if the content belongs in your funnel, it's a landing page. If it deserves its own identity and address, it's a microsite. If it needs a navigation menu with more than five items, it's becoming a website — stop.

When a microsite is the right call

• A product launch that deserves theatre. Ray-Ban's Meta glasses showcase exists apart from the store because the product needed a story, not a shelf. One product, full attention.
• A recurring flagship moment. Shopify's Editions ships twice a year as its own experience; Adidas and BMW publish annual reports as standalone scroll stories. Versioned microsites become an archive of the brand's best work.
• A campaign with its own audience. Cause campaigns, festivals and conferences target people who may never visit your corporate site. Meet them at their own address.
• Editorial that outgrows the blog. When a story needs motion, pacing and a hero — the treatment SBS gave The Boat — a blog template flattens it.
• Testing a message before the main site can move. Corporate sites change slowly. A microsite ships this week, gets measured, and either graduates into the main site or retires quietly.

…and when it isn't

Skip the microsite when the content answers questions your main site should own (that's a page, and splitting it away donates your SEO to a domain with no authority), when there's no one to maintain it after launch, or when the "campaign" is really just one ad's worth of traffic — that's a landing page.

Anatomy of a microsite that works

• A hero that sets the scene in three seconds. Full-screen, cinematic, and specific to the campaign — not a recycled brand banner.
• One message, developed — not many messages, listed. The page should read as a narrative arc: setup, evidence, payoff.
• Motion that means something. Scroll-driven reveals, pinned scenes and animated numbers hold attention; decoration for its own sake doesn't. This is exactly what scrollytelling techniques were built for.
• Exactly one call to action. Pre-order, register, donate, subscribe — pick one and repeat it, don't add four.
• Its own address, linked both ways. A subdomain gives the campaign identity; links to and from the main site keep brand trust and SEO intact.
• Measurement from day one. A microsite is an experiment. Decide what "worked" means before you ship it.

See these principles working in our teardown of 8 real microsites — from Chanel's single-product page to Unseen's annual report.

How to create a microsite (without an agency)

The classic route — brief an agency, wait six weeks, pay five figures — still exists, and for flagship campaigns it's justified. For everything else, the modern route takes minutes:

1. Define the one job

   Finish this sentence before anything else: "A visitor should leave this page and ______."

2. Describe it to the microsite builder

   One sentence about the campaign. The AI writes the copy, generates imagery and a hero, and assembles the scroll experience.

3. Make it yours

   Edit any word, image, colour or section in the visual editor — or start from a microsite template instead.

4. Publish on its own address

   A free scrollytelling.ai link to start; connect a subdomain like promo.yourbrand.com when the campaign is ready.

The long-form version, with all four build methods compared: How to create a microsite.

Microsite FAQ