How to Use Calls to Action (CTAs) to Drive Conversions
We assume conversions are the lifeblood of your business. So if you aren’t getting as many sales, newsletter subscriptions, or leads as you’d like, it could be because your Call to Action isn’t as effective as it should be. Learn what kind of CTA works best for your site and how you can use it to improve all of your digital marketing campaign conversion rates.
A conversion rate is the percentage of your website visitors who take an action you want them to (i.e., make a purchase, download a file, sign up for a newsletter). A high conversion rate is essential if you want people to engage with your website and buy your products or services. As a result, companies like Amazon, Adobe, and Microsoft are spending millions to improve their conversion rates.
What is a Call to Action (CTA)?
A Call to Action (CTA) is a button or link that prompts users to take action on your digital advertising. It’s a simple way to get people to convert, and it’s one of the most effective ways to increase sales.
You can create CTAs in many different places on your site, including email campaigns and social media posts. There are plenty of options for what you can include in your CTA. The most important thing is that the CTA is clear about what action the user should take and why they should take it.
For example, if you’re trying to sell a product online, your CTA might say “Buy Now” or “Add Yours To Cart.” If you’re trying to get people to subscribe to your mailing list, it should probably say something like “Subscribe Now” or “Join Our Mailing List.”
What Makes an Effective CTA?
A compelling call to action (CTA) inspires your target audience to take action. It’s not just the words on your landing page that make it effective, though—it’s also the design and layout of that page.
What’s important to remember about CTAs is that they should be:
- Consistent with your brand’s identity and messaging.
- Specific and clear about what action you want your audience to take.
- Easy for users to understand and follow through with on their own.
- Make it stand out from your other content.
- Use verbs instead of nouns in your CTAs because they’re more likely to get clicked on by readers than nouns are.
- It should be relevant and valuable to the user.
- It should be emotionally appealing and motivating.
Here are some of the most common mistakes people make with CTAs:
- Not Using Them at All
- Using Them Everywhere
- Not Making Them Relevant
- Not Making Them Visually Appealing
11 Most Used Types of CTAs With Examples
There are a lot of conversion rate optimization tips and strategies out there, but it’s easy to get lost. The 11 types of calls to action below will help you find the best type for your website. Remember, there’s no secret formula that works for everyone. Instead, you need to find a strategy that speaks to your visitors instead of speaking at them or shouting at them about what you have for sale.
Lead Generation
Lead generation CTAs are designed to convert casual viewers, first-time readers, and website visitors into potential customers.
Some of the best places for lead generation CTAs are on blog posts. A CTA might appear as a button at the end of the post or in the middle of the content. Lead generation CTAs don’t have to be complicated or hard to understand. Some of the most effective lead generation CTAs are very simple.
Here are some examples of lead generation CTAs you can use on your landing pages:
“Enroll”, “Download”, “Learn More”, or “Sign Up”.
Lead Nurturing
A Lead Nurturing Call to Action (LNCTA) is an action that you can ask your leads to take at any point during the lifecycle of their journey with your company. These actions are designed to move leads along in their journey and keep them engaged so that they become more qualified over time and eventually convert into customers.
To build a successful lead nurturing campaign, you’ll want to create smart CTAs tailored to your audience’s needs and goals. For example, you can encourage users to sign up for a more comprehensive course by using an appealing offer, promoting product features that solve customer problems or providing exclusive discounts to increase sales.
Here are some tips for building your lead nurturing strategy:
- Focus on the buyer’s journey: Your goal is to create content that offers value at every stage of their journey (i.e., from awareness to purchase).
- Use dynamic CTAs: Make sure your CTAs are relevant to the shared content, and use them to collect data and build trust with prospective customers.
- Be personal: Personalized CTAs will help you stand out from your competitors and keep people engaged in your campaign.
Lead Magnet
Lead magnet CTAs are usually promoting free items or services that you give away to gather contact details. These can be trial subscriptions, samples, white papers, e-newsletters, and free consultations.
Lead magnets should use actionable CTA buttons that emphasize the value of the content rather than a generic “Submit” button.
Service or Product Discovery
Service discovery CTAs are a great way to connect with potential clients by telling them how your company can help them.
These types of calls to action encourage users to take a specific action like “Learn More About SEO” or “Get Started with Google”. You might think these types of CTAs aren’t as effective as other types because they don’t tell the user exactly what they’re going to get out of taking the action you’re asking them to take. But these types of CTAs are very effective at getting users to engage with your website.
Why? Because humans naturally want more information about something before they decide on buying it or even using it. Give them the option of learning more without requiring effort (other than clicking). They’ll be much more likely to take advantage of it than if you had just told them exactly what they’d get from clicking through instead of giving them an opportunity for curiosity-driven learning.
Contact Sales – Closing the Sale
You can’t just write a contact sales CTA that says, “contact our sales team today”. Your CTA has to tell the customer why they should contact your sales team—and it has to be clear. To create urgency and show the impact or benefits of your product, you should use the copy around the CTA to make customers feel like they might miss out if they do not purchase your product (FOMO).
Free / Demo / Trial
One of the most common CTAs is “Start Free” or “Get a Demo.” This marketing offer CTA makes users feel comfortable exploring your product’s benefits and use cases without any financial commitment.
Some of the most common examples are; “Start free”, “Get a demo”, “Free Consultation”, “Use Code:”, “Free Trial”, or “Get Access” CTAs.
Event Registration
Event registration CTAs are the links you use to promote online and offline events on your website, build event awareness, encourage event sign-ups, and gather contact information. They’re so important, but they’re also really easy to overlook if you’re not careful.
- How your event registration CTA is set up can make all the difference in how many people sign up! Here are some best practices that will help you boost your conversions:
- Make sure the offer is straightforward and easy to understand. If you’re offering a discount or freebie, make sure it’s clear what it is and why people should sign up for it.
- Make sure your offer is personalized and relevant. For example, you wouldn’t want to promote a free tee shirt if someone is signing up for an online course, so don’t expect that same person to be interested in a discount on a tee shirt, either!
- Use urgency (but not too much!). Urgency works well with event registration CTAs because it makes people feel like they need to act fast before they miss out on something great. However, don’t go overboard trying to create a sense of urgency—it can come off as desperate and manipulative instead of persuasive if you use too much of it.
Some very common examples of event registration CTAs are; “Join Us”, “Save Your Seat”, “Buy Tickets”, or “Register Today” CTAs.
Social Sharing
Social Sharing CTAs are a great way to boost and social proof your articles. They are calls to action that let your customers share your content on their social media accounts. The most common type of social sharing links tend to be buttons or icons.
The social sharing buttons or icons on your post will help people share your content with their peers and friends. They just have to click one of the sharing buttons to do so. Make sure they’re visible without being too distracting from the rest of your page, so they don’t take away from the content itself.
The best way to use Social Sharing CTA is to create individual ones for each social media platform you want them to share (for example, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). This is because each platform has different demographics who use it more than others which means different types of content will work better on each platform than others do!
Related Content
Related Content Calls to Action are a great way to get users to click through and view your content. They’re especially effective in eCommerce or lead generation pages, where you can use them to get users to take an action that will ultimately lead to a purchase.
Here’s a quick example: if you have a product page for a new laptop, you could offer Related Content CTA that says “View our latest laptops.” This would link the user to another page where they can see the latest laptops. Related Content CTA can also be used on blog posts, where you might want to send readers over to another blog post from yours that covers the same topic. These kinds of CTAs are called “related articles” or “related posts.”
You can also use Related Content CTAs at the end of an article or webinar; these are usually “read more” CTAs. When using these calls to action, make sure that they’re relevant—the best kind of related content is the kind that will help people! Think about it this way: As a user goes from one blog post to another, they’ll learn more about your product, learn about its value, see your company’s values as they are expressed in your content, and make the leap to purchase.
Newsletter Subscription
Email newsletters can build customer relationships by offering valuable information, discounts, and insights. You can also use them to capture email leads and guide users into a drip campaign.
Several common newsletter subscription CTAs are; “Subscribe”, “Be in the Know”, “Keep Informed” or “Sign Up For Weekly Deals”.
Read More
The “Read More” call-to-action button encourages readers to click and view additional content. Consider using this CTA type at the end of blog posts to keep users on your website longer. They’re also great for guiding readers through the content and helping them find exactly what they want.
How to Drive More Sales with Great CTAs
If you want to elicit an emotional response in your users, increase the length of your CTA. Include multiple modifiers to get the desired effect.
Here are some examples:
- Add adjectives: “Find Your Dream Vacation!”
- Add numbers: “Buy Now and Get 40% off!”
- Make a promise: “Better Search Results in Just 6 Weeks!”
- Influence their FOMO: “Limited Time Offer. Get Your Tickets Today!”
To encourage a quicker response, sometimes shorter CTAs better affect the reader. Including strong action words can also assist in moving the user through the conversion funnel.
Here are some examples:
| Most Desired Action | Strong CTAs |
| General | Learn More, See More, See How, Start, Find Out, Check it Out, Click Here, Continue, Swipe Up |
| Free/Discounts | Download, Get, Grab, Claim, Take Advantage of, Use Code |
| Ecommerce Conversions | Buy, Shop, Order, Reserve, Save, Add to Cart, Pick, View |
| Non-profit Conversions | Donate, Commit, Volunteer, Adopt, Give, Support |
| Newsletter or Community | Subscribe, Join, Sign Up, Refer, Keep Informed, Be in the Know |
| SaaS Conversions | Try, Get Started, Subscribe, Sign Up |
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