Writing effective calls-to-action, or CTAs, is one of the most important steps in reaching your client’s goals. Whether you want someone to join their newsletter, purchase their product or refer their friends, CTAs are the linchpin of converting your clients’ prospects.
So how can you optimize your clients’ conversion rate to go above and beyond their current standard? Joshua Brentan, Wix’s content lead for new business, offers a few general best practices for deploying a standardized strategy for any site, whether that’s your agency’s landing page or your client’s.
Craft your CTA strategy
The average call to action on a landing page converts merely 2.54% of the time across industries. That’s less than 3 people in every 100 that visit a website, and it can run even less than that depending on what industry the business is in.
That’s all to say that you can’t shoot in the dark when it comes to creating high-converting CTAs for you or your clients. To dispel uncertainty regarding design, placement and messaging, your call to action strategy must draw on best practices and analytics that yield the best option for each project you take on. Below, a few nuances to consider.
Build your setup first
“Almost anyone can work with CTAs if they know how to work with Google Analytics,” says Brentan. Call to actions are always made better with a supporting infrastructure that can track performance and pinpoint what’s not working. The standard version of Google Analytics (GA) is free, and the premium version (GA360) has extra features determined by tier-based pricing.
“With Google Analytics you can set up UTM links to see who clicks what, as well as where they spend the most time. So say you have a landing page and want to drive to a product page, you should be able to see that flow, and you should be able to see where the drop off is,” says Brentan.
Once you know where it’s happening, it’s time to figure out what you can do to increase conversions. You may not always have the luxury of deducing why it's happening specifically, but you can definitely play around with your call to action to good effect. (These eComm design tips help, too.)
Test your message
According to Brentan, the key to successful CTAs go beyond how they look: it’s really about the idea you’re conveying to prospects.
“You want to a/b test things like size or color,” he says, “and you also want to experiment with different messages until you land on one that really resonates.”
To do that successfully, test for clarity. “You certainly want your CTAs to be clear, right? Because, if you say ‘sign up now!’ for example, and the user gets taken to another landing page with another button, that’s kind of a wonky experience. There’s an implicit expectation that call to actions have the right context so you have a smooth user journey.”
At the same time, you want to stay on brand. “Options like ‘see more’ or ‘buy now’ - well, the entire world says it. So you might want to test being more creative with your buttons to spur people to take action.”
Create a sense of urgency
“In some cases, FOMO is needed to close the sale. A lot of people would likely tell you to create that emotion before the call to action, in the moments leading up to it, as opposed to trying to bake the FOMO effect into a single button.”
So, instead of creating a button that says ‘don’t miss out,’ which lacks clarity per his earlier point, Brentan recommends writing a copy prior along the lines of ‘don’t miss the sale,’ and follow up with a pain-solving button like ‘take me to it.’
Of course, this tactic must be used strategically. Urgency is highly effective, but only when applied sparingly. Otherwise, prospects will see this as a manipulative tactic, and it’ll have the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.
Think ‘or,’ not ‘and’
“You don’t want to have too many calls to actions on your landing page because even if you want to have more info, you risk them leaving the page and not coming back to accomplish the main action you want prospective clients to take,” says Brentan.
For instance, Brentan gives the example of a company selling sustainable clothing. While having a button that says “see where it comes from” can be really nice, it also distracts from the end goal which is to buy. It might be best to consider communicating this directly as opposed to creating a secondary button that links to it.
“In some cases you might even opt for a text link instead of a second call to action button as you don’t want to have dueling buttons in situations where you can avoid it” he adds.
Go small or go home
“It’s a general best practice not to have your buttons too big,” says Brentan. “They can be very distracting, and they shouldn't take up too much of the page and steal the show.”
Ultimately, you don’t want to seem too desperate to make a sale. The right CTA strategy positions your client’s offer as the right solution, and them as an expert, without being in anyone’s face about it. It’s the way to craft banners, buttons and text links that get clicks and drive sales.
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