The best call to action tips for guaranteed success

You are doing everything right but you still don’t get enough conversions and subscribers. Why?

Well, think about your call to actions. The CTA is a crucial part of your marketing campaign. Are yours persuasive enough? Or simply mediocre?

That’s the difference between making a sale and losing a potential customer.

Read on to learn all the best call to action tips which will help you boost conversions and sales in no time!

What is a CTA (call to action)?

In digital marketing, a “call to action” (CTA) is the part of the advertisement that tells the target audience what they should do and how. It is a clear and direct message that persuades consumers to click and take the desired action. This can be as simple and short as “Buy now” or 1-2 sentences.

The most common types of CTAs are the following:

• CTA buttons on a web page;
• Anchor texts in blog posts (a text with a hyperlink);
• Text links or buttons in emails;
• Text in social media posts (e.g. a Facebook ad);
• Buttons in opt-in campaigns like pop ups, page banners, and so on.

Generally, people are more prone to clicking on a button. A hyperlinked text just doesn’t look as attractive. That’s why most websites use buttons.

Why do you need a strong CTA?

Relying on a bland call to action button saying “Sign up” isn’t a good idea if you want to drive conversions.

To succeed, you need a strong, persuasive CTA at the heart of your ads and email campaigns that you put so much effort, time and money into. You have to find the best way to convince your target audience to act.

There are two main points in a call to action – telling someone what they should do and giving them the motivation and purpose to do it. However, if you forget the Why part, your click through rate won’t be impressive.

Now, let’s see what the top call to action tips are to boost your conversions!

15 surefire call to action tips

Use a strong verb

Read this!

Always make sure to use a strong command verb to start your CTA. By starting with the action, you put the focus on it. Otherwise, your CTA won’t be that powerful. People might not even read the whole sentence.

So get straight to the point and tell your audience exactly what you want them to do – use “buy”, “shop”, “order” for online stores, “subscribe” or “download” for a newsletter, “learn how to …” and so on.

Use emotionally charged words

We can all agree that some words work better than others. “Amazing” or “incredible” instead of “good,” for example.

Think of words that will provoke a strong positive response or a pleasant image in your readers’ minds. “Plan your dream trip now!” is more likely to bring you conversions instead of simply “Plan your trip.”

Be enthusiastic

Here is another great call to action tip that often gets neglected.

If you don’t show enthusiasm, how can you expect to persuade your prospects to take the action you want? Apart from using enthusiastic words, don’t forget to put an exclamation point to bring some more excitement to the deal.

Keep your CTA concise

We aren’t saying your CTA can’t be two sentences long but it should be straightforward and clear of anything unnecessary that can only dilute your message. Brevity is key if you want to keep your audience’s attention.

Provide a clear benefit

As you already know, a powerful CTA consists of two points – What and Why. In no case should you skip the Why. Giving people a reason to do what you want them to is crucial.

They have to see the benefit clearly. Will they save money, receive some valuable information, lose weight? If you don’t point it out, your audience might not understand what they’ll get out of this deal, so they won’t be persuaded to click, subscribe, shop, and so on.

Take advantage of FOMO

You’ve probably heard of FOMO – fear of missing out. It’s a powerful motivator. Many marketers use it to their advantage to urge people to click and take action immediately.

It is most commonly used for time-sensitive sales and promotions.

A message in the lines of “Order now! Sale ends on Sunday” or “Get it while supplies last!” creates a sense of urgency and can definitely drive conversions. Consumers might otherwise postpone their purchase and even forget about it, but when there’s a chance of saving money only today or of the product they want going out of stock, everyone would feel the need to hurry up and act now before it’s too late.

Focus on one goal

It’s important that you determine what your main goal is with each CTA and focus on that instead of trying to persuade your website visitors to do two things at the same time. If you confuse or overwhelm them, you’ll simply lose customers.

So think what one specific action you want them to take and place your CTA strategically. For instance, put a “Buy now” CTA on your products’ pages instead of “Register” or “Subscribe.” On the other hand, suggest to users to subscribe to your newsletter or download a PDF when they’re reading your blog.

Improve your CTA visually

It’s crucial to place your CTA button somewhere where the user is bound to see it. Don’t leave it for the bottom of your page.

What’s more, make sure you choose attractive colours that match your website’s style and a background that makes your CTA stand out. You can read about the psychology of colors to help you choose your button colors but you don’t have to do everything by the book.

Experiment with the format. You don’t want your call to action words to be too small but they shouldn’t be too big either. The text or button has to be visible and large enough so that users can easily click on it.

Besides, adding an appropriate or fun image can easily boost conversions. Just make sure it doesn’t take too long to load because it will have the opposite effect.

Make it fun and curious

We all get excited at the prospect of winning something.

Use a coupon / fortune wheel or some other kind of game to make people want to join. You get their email address so that you keep in touch with them through email marketing even after they leave your website, while they get a chance to win something. Most often that’s some percentage off of their purchase.

Another commonly used example is the promise of a raffle – “Enter your email now for a chance to win a free product!” That’s guaranteed to help you grow your email list.

Show social proof

Here is another powerful call to action tip.

People want to belong. If you show undecided customers that they’ll be joining thousands of other people by purchasing your products or services, you’re likely to persuade many of them. What’s more, a social proof pop up can once again create some fear of missing out, which will work in your favour.

Get creative

Of course, you can stick to the tried and tested methods of doing CTAs but, with a little risk, you can go further and outsmart your competitors. You need to stand out somehow so that you grab consumers’ attention and they choose you.

Try using the first person, numbers, percentages, and whatever else you can think of in your text. Of course, don’t overdo it.

You can also try using some humour and jargon in your text but be careful. Think about who you’re targeting.

Always test your CTAs

Go through the whole process as if you are a user who has just arrived on your landing page. See how, when and where your CTA pop up, text or button appears and whether it looks well. Click on it to see if there are any bugs that need fixing.

Moreover, it’s a good idea to A/B test your CTAs. Change just one thing – this can be the text, the button’s colour or location – and analyze whether users click more on the first or the second version of the CTA. However, don’t be tempted to change many aspects simultaneously because you’ll end up not knowing which one makes the difference after all.

Have several CTAs

No one wants to scroll back. Place a few CTAs strategically throughout your website and blog posts so that users either don’t forget about them, or don’t have to go back to search for them – because it’s more likely they’ll get impatient and frustrated and leave. Saving them the time and the trouble might get you some more conversions.

Choose a negative or a positive approach

In your CTAs, you can either emphasize what people will gain by clicking, or what they will lose by not doing so.

Here is an example:

“Tired of constantly starving without any result? Try this new diet now!” vs. “Want to lose weight in 4 weeks? Learn how by getting this ebook!”

The first one focuses on the customer’s pain points. It aggravates the problem and offers a solution so it might be more effective in this case.

Experiment to see what works better for your target audience.

Customize your CTAs accordingly

Depending on the users’ devices, your CTAs might look differently. They can perform perfectly on desktop, but seem awful on mobile. So you need to optimize them carefully.

A great solution is to customize your CTAs and use one version of them for desktop and tablets, and another for smartphones. The idea is to change the text according to the customer’s device. Here’s why:

Usually, people on a desktop or tablet are more likely to be doing research and just browsing, while those on mobile devices don’t have time for that. They need instant gratification. That’s why it’s a good approach to add a “Call now” button for mobile users so that they can receive more information before they lose interest.

To sum up

Now that you’ve read all these call to action tips, it’s time to try them out and see for yourself how your conversion rates will skyrocket.

But wait. There’s a way to make your CTA pop ups even better.

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