What is Call to Action or CTA?

Call to action is an element used to prompt a user to carry out a desired activity by the site owner. This is generally a button placed on the landing page of a website requesting users to do a defined action. Site owners use call to action buttons to provide directives to users in order to achieve the main objective of the site.

Examples of Call to Action

The purpose of call to action button completely depends on the site owner and some of the generally used examples are:

• Drive traffic to particular page for more page views.
• Offer a discount on a product and attract users to that product page.
• Used to inform an offer on a popular free or paid download.
• Request users to try out a demo.
• Offer a signup a button to quickly register for site membership.
• Offer a call back option for services like restaurants.

Below is a real example of call to action button with a title, text and a button element:

Effectiveness of CTA

The effectiveness of call to action is generally measured with the conversion rate using the below formula:

Conversion rate = successful number of calls / number of impressions

For example, a call to action button placed on a page had an impression of 1000 and the user clicked it on 100 times then the conversion rate = 100/1000 = 0.1 or 10%. The more the conversion rate the more the effectiveness of your CTA element.

Success Factors

Success factors of a CTA element depend on the following things:

• Basic design – CTA should align with the site’s layout using attractive colors.
• Offer – there should be a clear explanation of what users will get by clicking on the call to action button.
• Using attractive words – CTA element should use attractive words from user’s perspective. Some of the plain words include – download, subscribe, call, buy and donate. It could also consist of few words to convey a sense of urgency on users to quickly act upon. Some examples are:
  • Offer valid for 2 days
  • Buy 1 get 1 free only today
  • Get a free gift by ordering today

• Positioning of the element – it should be placed appropriately inside the content. for example below is a call to action button on skype asking users to download the app:

Completion of Call to Action

Besides effectiveness and success factors to encourage users to click on the CTA element, site owner should pay more attention on how to process and complete the conversions to a sale or any other desired action. The landing page from call to action should be simple and precisely offer what had been mentioned. For example, clicking on a free PDF download button can directly initiate the download action without any additional content in-between.

If it is a paid offer then the email confirmation, payment interface and the delivery are to be handled effectively to make sure users are getting best experience. Satisfied users will also click other call to action buttons on the site or recommend the product to other users thus benefitting site owners.