CTAs for Digital Marketing: The What, Why, Where, and How

The What and Why of CTAs 

A call-to-action (CTA) is an image or text that prompts a customer to take an action, such as sign-up for a company newsletter, subscribe to a blog, or purchase a product. CTAs are a pivotal part of search marketing, SEO, and landing pages; they’re often the most effective part of converting your visitors into leads and buyers.

What. Hyperlinked text or button text that communicates an offer and takes you to a landing page.

Why. To drive traffic and increase engagement of your website and landing page.

The path from a click on a CTA to a landing page shows the process of lead generation. In order to increase visitor-to-lead conversion opportunities, you need to create highly specific landing pages, advertise an offer, and use CTAs in the messaging in your ad.

The Where of CTAs

The power of a CTA depends on its placement. You should be using these conversion-drivers in almost any message you craft for an online audience, especially if its goal is to drive direct response. You need to think about the following places when considering where to stick these verb heavy phrases:

Your website. Calls-to-action should be in places across the depths of your website. Your homepage, or main landing page, needs to have the most efficient CTAs since this is typically where the majority of your visitors will land when researching your product or service. In fact, some say that your homepage should have at least three calls-to-action that target different target audiences or types of visitors.

Within content. So what if someone already converted into a lead by downloading your ebook; you need to continue to nurture the lead with other related content and leverage more middle-of-the-funnel offers like free consultations. You may want to think about placing these CTAs in the body of your ebooks.

In presentations. Do you speak at industry events, seminars, or workshops? Depending on the event’s guidelines, you may be able to include a CTA for an offer directly within your presentation. We suggest implementing CTAs across the footer of presentation slides, or pause for an elevator pitch with a CTA during the presentation. 

The How of CTAs

It’s important to create compelling and relevant CTAs; we’ve seen single changes in buttons that can improve conversions by well over 30%. Writing button copy might sound like a simple task, but there are a number of variables that can make the decision seem complicated to your visitor. How big should the button be? What about button color? What kind of text works best? Here’s a list of the most to least pertinent components you should look at when considering CTAs:

• Make the message clear.
• Let the message stand out.
• Make the message actionable.
• Keep it above the fold.
• Create the right context.
• Make sure the message and landing page is relevant to the offer.
• Tweak based upon the stages of the sales funnel.
• Test over and over again.