How to drive sales online consistently with effective CTAs
Hey there! Welcome back to my blog, and if you’re new then I’m glad to have you!
My goal is to help local businesses gain an unfair advantage over their competitors and level the playing field with big brands through the power of unlimited leverage that is websites. I strongly believe that websites have the power to transform your business… and your life!
I know it’s been a while since my last blog but we’re back and here to talk about call-to-actions (CTAs). Today, we’re going to dive into some strategies on how to create effective CTAs that will drive sales for your business as well as how to avoid major mistakes in your CTAs that could shatter your conversion rates!
CTAs come in all shapes and sizes and can be found on websites, social media, and even physically on billboards, newspapers, and magazines, but what exactly are they and how do they drive sales? A CTA is a prompt encouraging a potential buyer to take immediate action, such as signing up for a newsletter, downloading an eBook, or making a purchase. It’s kinda like the messages on propaganda posters put up during wartime. It catches your attention and has a simple message but without all the politics.
Today, we are going to focus on the CTAs found in most websites that help drive sales for those businesses. They can appear as bright buttons with words like “Sign Up” or “Shop Now” or even entire sections with information about the site’s product and a form at the end prompting you to join their newsletter or a button to make a purchase.
Here are two examples from HubSpot'swebsite of what a great CTA looks like. The first image is a CTA section known as the hero section which has a headline, text, and images to persuade you to take action by clicking the orange CTA button to schedule a demo. The second image is another CTA section that explains their offer through text and video and also has a CTA button at the bottom. Later in the blog, you will see more real-world examples, like HubSpot, of great CTAs that you can use on your site.
When users land on a website, it’s easy for them to get distracted by scrolling around and clicking on random links until they get bored and then leave the site, usually pretty quickly. CTAs prevent that by creating a well-defined path users can take when they get on your website.
If users know what they want, then they can click the main CTA button on the hero section of your page and become new customers but some will need to go through your home/landing page to learn more about your offer before clicking a CTA button and converting to a customer. The placement of your CTAs is key to ensuring new users don’t stray from the path and ultimately leave the site.
Aside from creating a path for users to follow, CTAs are fantastic for driving sales by increasing the number of leads your business is getting and converting more of those leads. For instance, if a site has a CTA button, then 45% of visitors are more likely to click on it and if your CTA is personalized then you will convert 42% more users. Lastly, you can build an email list through CTAs by creating newsletter sign-up CTAs, further increasing your leads and the opportunity to send emails with their own CTAs that turn those leads into customers.
As you can see, CTAs are extremely important and key to owning a money-making website. Unfortunately, not enough business owners take advantage of them, with 70% of B2B businesses in a study of 200 missing a CTA on their homepage. If you happen to be a business without a CTA, then have no fear because the rest of this blog is written with the purpose of guiding you on how to create your own CTAs that drive sales, and where to place them on your site so you don’t miss out on those juicy conversions.
We’ve now covered what CTAs are and why they are important but I bet you’re probably wondering how to create an irresistible CTA that your users can’t help clicking on. Below, are practical tips you can apply to both button CTAs or an entire section that contains images and copy to explain your offer followed by a CTA button like the one from HubSpot.
Shorter CTAs perform better because they reduce cognitive load and decision fatigue for the user. If the CTA is a button, then your word count should be limited to 5 words (preferably 3).
Use verbs like 'Join', 'Subscribe', or 'Shop' to let users know exactly what action they need to take without them giving it much thought. Avoid using ambiguous words that have multiple meanings since that just confuses the user and increases their decision fatigue. If you need help with this, here is a list of the top 100 CTA phrases to take inspiration from.
In the example above of HubSpot’s CTAs, you’ll notice that they use bright orange buttons that pop out at your eyes at the first glance of their page. That’s because CTA buttons are no good if they can’t be spotted instantly by the user.
To make your CTA button stand out, use a contrasting color for the button to the background color where the CTA is located (e.g. a red button over a blue background). Also, bold your text and pick a color that stands out against the color of the CTA button (e.g. bolded white text over the red CTA button).
Your home and landing pages should be structured like a sales funnel in the sense that you want to take a visitor step-by-step through the entire page by introducing who you are and what you do, then explaining your offer, building credibility, and finally, asking them to take action.
Now, not everyone needs that because some people either won’t scroll all the way down or already know what action they need to take, hence you need a CTA at the top of the site and a CTA at the bottom before your footer for the users that need a bit of extra convincing.
Customize your CTAs according to your target audience. Consider factors like their age group, interests, and pain points. Doing so improves your conversion rates because your CTAs are more relatable to someone who just landed on your site, making it more likely for them to take action. In fact, personalized CTAs perform 202% better than generic CTAs.
In addition to personalizing your messages, you can enhance CTAs by making them sound curious and intriguing. This strategy works well for hero sections or other sections on your page where you explain your offer.
A good way to go about this is by crafting headlines that describe your offer in a way that sounds a little too good to be true but within reason so you don’t scare off potential customers. Make sure you can deliver on the offer! An example could be a headline for a personal trainer who has a unique approach to weight loss. The title could say something along the lines of “Lose Weight in as Little as 30 Minutes With This Wierd Hack.” Follow this up with a paragraph that explains a little bit about the hack or the trainer’s qualifications, then add a button that says “Get Started For Free!!”
Emphasize the benefits users receive from clicking your CTA while minimizing any risks or objections they might have about your offer. Make these benefits tangible or quantifiable in some way to build confidence in a potential buyer.
The headline we crafted in tip #6 is a great example because it does more than just create curiosity. It instills confidence because it offers a measurable result (lose weight in 30 minutes) and a risk-free CTA button since you can try the program for free. Later on, you’ll see another great example of this by Netflix.
You want leads to convert into customers because they genuinely care about your offer or believe that it is the solution to their needs, not out of guilt. Getting people to buy your product out of guilt only does a disservice to the value your offer provides. Remove the “no thanks, I don’t want to save” buttons from your popups and instead, use ethical means of conversions like social proof and personalized CTAs.
Unlike guilt trips, using scarcity, urgency, and one-time offers (OTOs) is a great way to give your users that little extra push to take action and drive sales. These tactics don’t force just anyone to buy out of guilt, generating poor leads as a result, but instead, minimize procrastination in those interested in your offer.
What do I mean by this? Have you ever just had something you wanted to buy on Amazon and it’s been sitting in your cart for weeks (currently have a large dishrack that’s been in mine for a month…)? You wanna buy it, but just can’t seem to click that checkout button or you just don’t get around to it? What if Amazon said ‘Here’s a one-time 25% discount but you have 10 minutes to use it (urgency and OTO).’ Or what if there were only 5 products left (scarcity)? Would you buy it then? Probably, right? This is the power of urgency, scarcity, and OTOs, they boost conversions through trumping hesitation. A word of caution though, use these tactics wisely and ethically.
A huge mistake that I see small businesses make, is building their sites perfectly for desktops but not for laptops, tablets, or mobile devices. This plays a big part in the effectiveness of CTAs because if most of your site’s layout is bad on smaller screens, then chances are that the layouts containing your CTAs won’t be good either. You start to see the significance of this when you realize that between 54-60% of users are on mobile devices. When developing your site, make sure to test these sections thoroughly on different devices or you’ll really hurt your conversion rates.
If you read my blog on leveraging reviews then you know how important social proof is in driving sales. Reviews and testimonials build trust and confidence with your audience which increases their chances of clicking on one of your CTAs. Ideally, you want to place your social proof in the same section as your CTA, whether that’s a carousel of reviews or logos of past companies you’ve worked with or on a case studies page at the bottom after showcasing a customer who benefited from your offer.
Now that you have an effective CTA after following the tips above, you need to optimize it if you want maximum conversion. You can achieve this by following a process known as A/B testing. In a nutshell, you create an identical version of the page with your CTA (i.e. a landing page) and keep everything identical except for one detail in your CTA. This could be the color/wording of a CTA button, a CTA headline’s copy, or even an image in a CTA section. After this change, you split your traffic (usually 50-50) between your original page and the newly modified page and examine which has a higher conversion.
If your original page wins, then you repeat the process by testing it with a newly modified page. If your original page loses, then your modified page becomes the original one and you repeat the process until you’re satisfied. If you want more details on A/B testing and how to do it, feel free to read Hubspot’s article on A/B testing.
One final tip for crafting your CTA is knowing that different types of pages for a site require CTAs tailored for that page’s purpose. When designing your CTA, it’s important to know what page you will be placing that CTA in and for what segment of your audience.
If you want to place a CTA on your landing page that will be a part of your Google Ad campaign, you might want to consider designing a simplified CTA for an audience that has no idea what your offer is about or if they are even aware of their pain points. Since it’s a landing page, you might want to leverage reviews and testimonials to ease any uncertainty in visitors.
If you design a CTA for your homepage then you can tailor your message to someone who might be somewhat aware of your solution and how it can get them their desired result. You might include more details about your offer and not so many instances of social proof. If your homepage is a storefront for an eCommerce store, then maybe there might be more images of your products tied into your CTAs and your messaging might be tailored to getting someone to go to a products page. Being aware of these nuances is key to crafting the right message for the right lead.
When creating the CTAs for your websites using the tips above, keep the following in mind to avoid a drop in your conversion rates:
If you have a CTA for a free informational item like a course or PDF or even a CTA for people to join your newsletter, avoid unnecessary questions! Too often, people get carried away with forms and start including questions like your phone number, address, company name, etc. Unless this information is crucial, do not include it! Instead, keep CTA forms simple with common fields like someone’s name and email address. If you want to ask for phone numbers or addresses, at least make it optional.
Website users are already paranoid about entering personal information. The more fields they have to fill out, the more likely they will abandon the form altogether due to friction. An example of this is from that A/B testing article I linked earlier from HubSpot. They had a free A/B testing kit that I wanted. I filled out the email address field but then they asked for my phone number. In my mind, I began asking questions like ‘Why do they need my number? Are they gonna text me, call me?? I don’t wanna deal with that!’ What do you think happened? I left the site without entering my personal information. If they had only collected my email address initially and slowly tried to obtain the rest of the data through a series of emails, then I most likely would have taken the action they wanted me to take (downloading the kit).
Avoid using generic copy in your headlines and buttons and certainly avoid using stock images for your CTA sections. People can usually see through this and as a result, engage less with your CTAs. Use words like ‘Learn More’ and ‘Sign Up Now’ sparingly because they add to the bland factor. Find ways to make whole sections dedicated to CTAs more exciting like adding lively colors or even unique animations.
If you recall what I stated earlier in the blog, the main goal of a CTA is to keep users on a path that ends with them taking an action that you want them to take. To reduce decision fatigue, we have to keep the path as straightforward as possible which is why you see most sites only having one CTA on their page. An exception is sometimes made for a secondary CTA like a “Learn More” button that is more subtly colored to draw less attention to it.
The reason for only having one CTA on a page is to avoid increasing decision fatigue. Whenever you add a new CTA, be it a section or button, you’re effectively adding a fork in the path and the user has to make a choice. Add enough of these forks and you confuse the user and ultimately lose them. If you have a great offer then you shouldn’t need multiple CTAs. Site visitors should be able to understand your pitch with ease.
Following up on the third tip, not only do you want your path to be straightforward, but you want clear visibility and a smooth terrain too. A website that has high conversions keeps its layout organized, easy to follow, and passes the Three-Second Test, meaning the offer is easy to understand within the first three seconds of landing on the site. A CTA is not going to be effective if site visitors get overwhelmed looking at your content or if they become distracted by random links and text placed too close to the CTA.
The best practice is to allow CTA sections room to breathe by surrounding them with plenty of whitespace. This means that the user has no choice but to keep their focus on the section without looking at other pieces of content that don’t tie into the CTA section. Inside the CTA section itself, you want to keep the layout simple and easy to follow.
We talked about making your CTA buttons bright and bold so they can be noticed easily in tip #3 of crafting an effective CTA but I wanted to expand on that tip here. When choosing a bright color for a CTA button or the background of a CTA section, first look at what is around the button or section, specifically, the colors and content.
As an example, you don’t want to make a bright blue button on a white background if everything else around that area is also bright blue. That doesn’t mean you can’t use bright blue as a background or button color, it just means that they shouldn’t be so close to one another. You’ll see what I mean in an example of a CTA below from Lemlist.
The same thing goes for CTA sections. Find ways to make them look unique from your other sections whether that’s through better images, different fonts for your copy, or a background that jumps out at a visitor. The reason being that if your CTA sections and buttons look like everything else on your site, then potential leads might miss them while scrolling through your site.
Below, you’ll see real-world examples of successful companies’ websites and how they utilize their CTAs to drive sales and maximize conversions. You’ll notice that most of the examples below incorporate several of the tips mentioned so far to make their CTAs more enticing to users. Feel free to take inspiration from any of these sites to enhance your own CTAs.
From the legendary and personal favorite (no biases or paid promotions, promise!) marketer Russell Brunson, is ClickFunnels. An all-in-one sales funnel builder that did a fantastic job of creating what I think is the perfect CTA! I’m not just saying that because I’m a huge fan of Russell Brunson, but because they use most if not all of the tips I mentioned above.
The most prominent one that stuck out to me was how their entire message is tailored to overcoming objections. They immediately acknowledge the problem of finding customers, then reassures you that their solution works for every type of business and doesn’t require you to be a tech wiz, and finally, they top it off with a risk-free CTA button that offers you a free trial. If you’re still not convinced, they follow up with an entertaining and high-quality product demo video. ClickFunnels also makes its CTA buttons stand out by enlarging them and making their color completely different from any of the other backgrounds on the page.
As you scroll through the site, you also notice each section is a CTA of its own and crafted so well that they can get away with having CTAs everywhere (inspiration for your own CTA sections!). They leverage social proof by showcasing testimonials from well-known marketers who use ClickFunnels such as Tai Lopez and have a final CTA section that I absolutely love because they appeal to your emotional desire for success. That section shows you images of their Two Comma Club Award recipients before asking you one final time to sign up for a free trial. Lastly, they finish off with an FAQ section that is solely there to alleviate any concerns someone might have before making an account, hence why so many of them are security-based FAQs.
Lemlist is a great example of a website that leverages social proof to get its site visitors to take action. Right off the bat, they show you logos of big-name companies that use their tools. If you were to scroll down, you’d see a testimonial section with an increasing counter of how much money their email campaigns have generated for customers along with high-quality testimonials. In addition, they make their offer sound risk-free by using the word ‘free’ in their CTA buttons and emphasizing ‘get replies’ in their hero section title.
If you remember earlier, I said you should be aware of what’s around your CTAs before placing them and that Lemlist was a great example of this. If you notice, their CTA button is a blue color and sits on a greyish-blue background that takes up most of your screen. This is because the blue section below would overshadow the CTA button if placed any closer.
In the image below of Netflix’s hero section and navbar, you will notice how simple they make their CTA. The messaging is concise and tailored to sound risk-free since you can cancel anytime. They use bright buttons that don’t get overshadowed by the background and keep the text short. The background image is also pretty clever since it's made up of popular shows and movies that you or I might want to watch.
CTA placement is key to driving sales and boosting conversion rates but also something that should be used sparingly, only sprinkled on your pages wherever necessary. Below are some great places to put a CTA:
The navigation bar: A CTA button can be used here, typically on the right side
Hero section: The most important and probably, the bread and butter of your conversions. So important in fact, that I’m going to link the Three-Second Test again which is all about the navbar and hero section so you can get this part perfect.
This is an entire CTA section and the most critical part of your website, which means it needs to be convincing. You need a clear headline, message, great image/video, social proof (optional), and a CTA button.
Product demo/explanation sections: Also another CTA section. This one is centered around explaining your offer and then making an ask for the user to take action. You should use messaging that goes in-depth about your product as well as images and or videos that demonstrate how it works.
Pricing sections: The pricing section itself is a CTA and a standard, especially for service-based sites with multiple pricing plans. You want to place this section after you’ve explained your offer and presented social proof but before FAQs.
The reason is that the demo and social proof sections build trust and confidence in the visitor but FAQs overcome any objections and concerns they might have before purchasing. The key to an effective pricing section is making your offer sound like a no-brainer and having a layout that isn’t overwhelming.
Contact form sections: Contact forms are an interesting type of CTA because they can be your primary CTA if your goal is to get someone to book a call with you or a secondary CTA if contacting you is not the main action you want someone to take.
If they are your primary CTA, then they should be placed in the hero section as a form, as buttons throughout the areas mentioned above, and as a section of its own above the footer of your site.
If contact forms serve as a secondary CTA then you only want to place them at the bottom of your site before or with the footer. Lastly, remember to avoid asking for too much personal info. Only mark the critical fields on your form as required and the ‘nice-to-know fields as optional
CTA section above the footer: The final CTA section, like the hero section, is also important if you want to drive sales for your business because it is the bottom of the sales funnel that is your page. This section is the final ask to the users to take action and your final chance to convert them into leads/customers.
They’ve seen the initial ask, learned about your offer, gained some reassurance through your social proofs and FAQs, and now it's time for them to decide to take action. Like other CTA sections, you want a headline, message, and a button but a bit more simplified and crafted with the intent of asking the user ‘What are you waiting for?’ This section is a great place to use scarcity, urgency, and even OTOs depending on your offer as a final push to take action.
If contacting you is the primary action you want users to take, then you don’t need this section, that’s what the contact form section is for.
The purpose of this blog was to focus on website CTAs but I wanted to take this time to briefly share other places you can put CTAs to drive sales and additional traffic back to your website. These CTAs follow some of the rules we discussed above like personalizing your message and making it stand out, leveraging social proof, keeping your message concise, and only focusing on one CTA. Keep in mind that these CTAs have their own rules, depending on the platform you use. I’m not going to go into those rules otherwise this blog would go on forever and I only want to make you aware of these other areas.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are a fantastic way of amassing a huge following and building a personal connection with your audience. When it comes time to sell them something or promote your site, you can place CTAs in the form of posts that contain images or short-form content (i.e. TikToks or Instagram Reels) as well as stories and ads. The best part is that you are advertising to people who already follow and like you which means easy conversions for you!
If you want to get instant results from advertising efforts to drive sales, then Google Ads are the way to go. Typically, these come in the form of landing pages, a very similar version of your homepage but tailored for people who have no idea about what you’re offering or for people searching for a very specific topic. In these pages, you can use the tips we discussed earlier when crafting CTAs.
Last but certainly not least, are the emails you send to those who join your newsletters. Like your social media audience, they are already familiar with your content and like you. In every few newsletters, you can add a brief CTA (typically at the bottom) that is simple and related to the content of the email. You’ll find that email CTAs really help to drive sales since they can increase clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%
There’s been a lot said in this blog about CTAs and while I know it was really thorough, I can’t stress enough how important CTAs are for your website or any other digital marketing initiatives that your business might be pursuing to drive sales. I mentioned a lot of tips and information so I want to recap the key ideas here to make it easier to remember.
What are CTAs: CTAs are the prompts and messages that guide your users along the path that is your offer, with the end result being them taking an action that converts them into customers. CTAs can be brightly colored buttons or entire sections
Importance of CTAs: CTAs prevent the user from getting distracted while visiting your site and are responsible for guiding the user toward a primary action. They contribute highly to conversion rates and without them, users wouldn’t know which action to take.
Crafting an effective CTA: Creating an effective CTA that drives sales involves several key strategies like keeping CTAs clear and concise to reduce cognitive load and decision fatigue on the user, using clear action verbs, making CTA buttons visually prominent, and positioning them strategically on the homepage. Personalizing CTAs for your target audience makes them more relatable and adding curiosity increases the likelihood of someone clicking your CTA. Both can boost engagement, especially if framed as a low-risk high-reward CTA. Avoid guilt-inducing tactics, but employ scarcity, urgency, and OTOs to reduce procrastination and friction. Ensure CTAs are optimized for all devices and build confidence in the user by leveraging social proof. Finally, regularly perform A/B tests to refine your CTAs, and tailor them to the specific page and audience for maximum impact.
What not to do: If you want your CTAs to have high conversions, then avoid asking for more than what is necessary in your CTA forms to prevent users from abandoning them. Always personalize your messaging and add a little bit of flare to boost engagement. Make sure your CTA sections are organized and stand out amongst the rest of the content on your site. If your offer is great, then you should only need one CTA so avoid having multiple to prevent distractions and decision fatigue on the user.
Placing your CTAs: Place CTAs in prominent positions on your website, such as the hero section, navbar, product demo sections, pricing sections, and above the footer. These areas resemble a sales funnel pattern and are more likely to receive engagement from the user. We saw real-world examples of these placements by companies like ClickFunnels, Netflix, Hubspot, and Lemlist. You can also put CTAs on your social media, Google ads, and email newsletters to drive sales or traffic to your site since you have an audience that knows you and likes you.
Well, there you have it folks! We covered a lot in this blog but you now have the tools and real-world examples to go and craft amazing CTAs for your website that are guaranteed to get you more leads and customers. I hope you found these tips helpful and use them every time you need to make a CTA for your site or social platform.
