As an entrepreneur, you have done enough research to identify your ideal customer, needed to be marketed to, and what channels or mediums to use. Now comes the hard part: creating an offer to entice your customers to take action.
The CTA of your ecommerce store will determine if visitors will buy or not. Every product page, product catalog, or even a newsletter has a strategic CTA that will capture the attention of a potential buyer and effectively place them into the sales funnel.
What is a call to action?
A call to action (CTA) is a button or a phrase intended to compel a user to perform a specific task. CTAs help in ushering the web user throughout their journey in a way that optimizes conversions and meets business goals, such as “Buy now,” “Sign up,” or “Learn more.”
A call to action is a button, link, or text on a web page that instructs or suggests the next action to be performed by the user. In most use-case scenarios, when they direct users to Buy Now, Sign Up, or Learn More, they allow for more orders to be received, which generates sales.
CTAs in ecommerce either steer individuals towards a product or a brand’s informational page. Merchants use CTAs in hopes of convincing a shopper to progress in the eBuyer journey, whether that is purchasing an item or subscribing to a newsletter.
What types of ecommerce CTAs exist?
In relation to the actions a shopper is motivated to perform, CTAs vary. In general, there are three basic groups of ecommerce calls to action:
Buy Now
As defined, this term is one of the most self-explanatory CTAs since Buy Now is considered the most definitive call-to-action strategy. Because of that, it is also the most aggressive of the CTA types. For this CTA, you better have all relevant offers within reach for your buyers to make their purchase.
Shop Now
A Shop Now action allows people to browse a store’s catalog of products and can help brands that are unknown by a certain segment of the target audience.
Imagine you are in charge of managing an Instagram ad for a shoe company for the first time. The CTA ‘Shop Now’ will most likely perform better compared to ‘Buy Now’ because it is less aggressive. Customers can browse through the collection without feeling forced to make a purchase.
Learn more
Marketing professionals claim a consumer must engage with an e-commerce brand around seven times before actually purchasing something.
Here is where brand and corporate identity CTAs aimed at novice customers can get them to interact with your products.
10 Effective eCommerce Call to Action Examples
1. Mattel Creations
The homepage of the Mattel Creations collectibles store displays several CTA buttons tagged with “Shop Now.” Each of these buttons has a corresponding hero image and phrases related to movie, sports, and toy series that appeal to the fans.
Mattel is aware that a lot of new visitors are searching for popular items. By placing calls to action for popular products on the homepage, these visitors are more likely to make the purchase. This strategy reduces the time spent on browsing, which increases the chances of making a purchase.
2. Fashion Nova
The first thing a visitor notices when they go on the site `Fashion Nova` is the promotion that pops up, which is trying to catch the attention of the visitor. This helps a lot in the initial stages of sales on their websites.
A deal which is not expected can do a few things. It can help motivated users to buy something either on the `Fashion Nova’s` landing page or it could help convince users to spend over their budgets in order to make the most of the deal which is available.
Fashion Nova`s uses a bold, yet simple pop up window which looks like a scratch off lottery ticket and is in the color gold. This design connects the offer with luck and winning which makes the consumer feel as if they won something just by visiting the site.
3. Zanerobe Fashion
Zanerobe has implemented the use of push notifications in order to interact with customers and gather leads. This method of interaction usually has a higher click-through rate, which makes it a good move for this fashion brand.
You can find a simple, action-oriented pop-up at the top of your screen while shopping on the store’s website. Users are able to receive updates and offers by enabling push notifications through the “I’m In!” button.
4. Pura Vida
This part of the list is filled with successful eCommerce CTAs that are integrated into pop-up windows, but there is no love lost for people who cannot stand pop-ups. Today, they are very common; in fact, many times, they are the first thing users encounter when they visit a website.
To resolve this issue, Pura Vida employs an embedded CTA that is less annoying than a pop-up and is found within category pages. By simply browsing, you can subscribe to the SMS list and get 20% off your next purchase. With the blunt CTA Sign Me Up! the company is promoting the offer.
5. Craftd
Craftd, a men’s jeweler, uses pop-ups to gain your attention, provide you with particular information, and collect your email address. If you’re a first-time buyer, the brand will give you 10% off your first order in exchange for your email address.
There is no distraction due to the structure and design of the CTA module, which is audience-centric. In this case, the shop goes dark, which enables more conversions.
6. Lulu’s Fashion
Lulu’s Fashion specializes in women’s clothing and features a highly emotional store that has an all-embracing phrase, ‘Start Sharing the Love’. In this situation, Lulu’s said action is much more powerful emotionally than the typical eCommerce store’s button.
It literally pops out in that particular section. Lulu has premeditated how simple it is for her customer referral program and deemed the emotionally appealing CTA as wanting the customers to click.
7. Hulu
On the sponsor’s site Hulu, you’ll directly see their CTA, which is a dominant part of the page. It lies above the fold and it is one of the most outstanding features on their home page. After the context, users are then presented with the enrollment CTA button, which gives them a chance to start a free trial.
8. Spotify
For those looking for interesting materials on CTAs, visit Spotify’s website. They have two colored CTAs on their page. These include getting premium or enjoying a limited-time offer of two months free on a premium subscription.
9. Starbucks
Starbucks is another example of a business that uses the call-to-action strategy to generate sales on their website. Their website has several CTAs, and all of these prompts drive customers to take a desired action.
In this case, when scrolling through the selection of food and beverages, there is an “add to order” CTA button that is available for you to press as you scroll down to see the specifics of the item and customize it to your liking.
10. Medium
Medium is a large global network where users can freely write, read, publish, and share content on any topic. Users can follow other users and read articles from their central accounts, which are more focused on news content rather than blogs, similarly to WordPress.
Since the content is user-generated, Medium is always in pursuit of more users, and their CTA quote captures that notion in “minimalism,” which needs no elaboration sometimes.
What first captures the eye upon arriving at Medium’s homepage is the call to actions, strikingly integrated just like the buttons contrasted with the banana-colored background. Like the rest of the website, the experience is artfully designed.
When scrolling down the page, the button begins blending to a light green color, which is very calming and blends with the white environment of the web page.
How to Draft an Effective Call to Action and The Best Actions To Take
There is no standardized guide to creating a call to action (CTA) for an eCommerce store. Nevertheless, there are some practices that have helped a number of eCommerce stores. According to a study by Sweor, approximately 70% of websites of small businesses do not include any CTAs. If you are one of those entrepreneurs, try following these tips, and you might get positive responses from customers to your calls to action.
Leverage Time Constraints
An eCommerce store has to ensure that the customers want to take action immediately when browsing through the eCommerce store. A psychological incentive works very well to achieve that, such as Buy now, Limited offer, Only x products left, and so on.
Almost all successful eCommerce businesses employ FOMO CTAs. These were shown to increase conversion rates by 332%, which has been fairly recently popularized in the RevenueHero study.
Be sure to review your CTAs. Add a little bit of urgency and those results will speak for themselves.
Advanced Usage of Action Verbs
Call-to-action phrases should suggest specific actions a visitor can take while they are on the site. One of the best ways to facilitate this is through the use of strong verbs.
An exemplar of an actionable Manpacks’ eCommerce CTA is the ‘Build a Manpack’ button. It not only uses social proof to guide the user but also makes sure that the user knows what step to take next.
Such CTAs will catch the attention of the visitors and help in increasing their curiosity towards other parts of the site.
Maximize the Value in Texts
To increase conversions, consider using a value-based CTA instead of an action-based CTA. When “Buy Now” is provided as a CTA, it does very little in triggering action on the part of consumers, particularly during festive seasonal sales. Let’s demonstrate what value can be gained instead, using “Buy Now and save 30%” as the proposed CTA.
Be Original With Your CTAs
Every business owner understands their target audience, so customizations for an eCommerce store are possible for everyone. Surely this must be one of the core aspects for any winning CTAs.
Then, put into action some of these tips to formulate a good CTA.
- Make sure that your CTA grabs the attention of the viewers.
- Your CTA should not have more than four words. It is best kept short.
- Make certain that CTA stands out clearly because of the empty spaces.
- We want to ensure that your CTA is visible to all device users.
That is how Tommy Hilfiger looks at them: the color of the CTA matches their brand and the white space around the CTA brings even more attention to it. Sixth City Marketing conducted a study where they added arrow icons to buttons and the clicks increased by 26%.
Color of the CTA
The button stands out from the rest of the website as a result of the color of the CTA.
You simply need to think about your customers’ needs, your brand’s needs, and apply color thoughtfully. The color of the CTA should be nice, distinctive, and in contrast with the rest of the page content.
In terms of best practices that apply to the copy, using striking colors, and in particular, bright colors, has been proven to be helpful because visitors would immediately notice those colors.
- Some helpful tips for you:
- Use empty spaces to highlight color.
- Do not overuse animation and contrast.
Make sure the CTA is distinguished against the background
Ensure universal compatibility across devices.
Default settings for call-to-action buttons remain unchanged on most e-commerce websites. Not accounting for mobile sales, which account for 67.2% of sales, may cost you revenue. Being able to address every device in terms of your CTA is very important.
Conclusion
A call to action on your webpage is crafted in such a way that it guides your potential customer into performing actions that are beneficial towards your eCommerce store. The examples I shared concerning ultimatum, severance, and relevance all showcase how function CTAs install a need for the audience’s attention. Each of the phrase constructs visually prompts and leads the users towards the desired actions. Combined, every individual strategy serves a much higher purpose: interactivity with customers.
On the other hand, if you alternate these CTAs with other seasonal or time-based campaigns, then the results are even further elevated. Take these pointers and turn your online store into a sales-generating machine. Do something now and ensure that your site is delivering on its conversion promises.
