Secrets of Successful CTA Buttons

Calls to Action, also called CTAs, can make or break your website’s conversions. Different factors like placement, size, and color of CTA buttons all play a role in how successful they are. These factors are explored below, giving you a guideline to follow on how to make your CTAs as impactful as possible.

Small changes matter

• A simple CTA button change increased monthly revenue by 16% for Lifeproof.
• HubSpot increased subscribers by 128% in a 90 day period by using blog opt-in boxes (which are essentially CTAs) on dedicated landing pages.

Be picky with what color you choose

• A European ecommerce brand saw a 35.81% increase in conversion by changing the button color from blue to green on their product landing pages.
• The SEO Blog Matthew Woodward grew his click-through rate by more than 10% simply by changing the color of a single button.

Amount of CTAs

• Having more than one CTA button in the same screen can decrease conversions.

Location of CTAs

• You can expect different conversion rates of CTAs depending on their location: sidebar (0.5 – 1.5%), pop-ups (1 – 8%), sliders and bars (1 – 5%), welcome gates (10 – 25%)
• Google research shows the best place for a CTA button is “above the fold” of a page, but closer to the bottom than the top of this area. They’re better off after text but before scrolling is necessary for them to be seen.
• Google penalizes pages that show full-screen popups on mobile that interrupt the user experience.

Still don’t know know where to start?

Here are some recommendations that could help you see different results. Remember, every business is different so you have to test these out and see what works best for you.

✔️  Have a direct and/or indirect CTA button(s) in the main menu. Highlight it/them so that they stand out.

✔️  Place your direct and/or indirect CTA button(s) in the hero section, about 2/3 of the way down the first screen (above the fold).

✔️  Repeat your call(s) to action in a section lower on the homepage, and in the footer.

✔️  Your CTA buttons should have a contrasting color and it should be the obvious button to press.

✔️  Use popups and opt-in boxes, but use them intelligently. Popups on mobile should take no more than 15% of the screen.

If you want to learn more about effective CTAs, a good reference book is Building a Story Brand which details how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media (and the rest of the book is also great).

 

I challenge you to put yourself in the consumer’s shoes. As you shop online for yourself this week, take note of which CTA buttons you click and which ones you ignore. You just may find out a better way to structure your own CTA buttons.

 

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Sources

• The Framework That Makes Marketing Easy (Building a Storybrand)
• Are Mobile Pop-Ups Dying? (Smashing Magazine)
• 10 Call-to-Action Case Studies (Convert Verve)
  
• 13 Ecommerce Conversion Optimization Examples (Optimizely)
• How To Convert Blog Traffic Into Customers With CTAs: The Complete Guide (Grow & Convert)
  
• Where is the Best Place to Put Ads and CTAs? (Brafton)
• How to Create an Effective Call to Action Button (UX Planet)
  
• How to Improve CTR Instantly By Tweaking This Colour (Matthew Woodward)
• Data-Driven CTAs for Each Stage of Your Sales Funnel (Neil Patel)