A/B Testing Idea #1: Place irresistible and clear CTA buttons

A/B Testing Idea #1: Place irresistible and clear CTA buttons

Are you wasting much of your time and effort A/B testing every single idea that pops into your head, yet you're not generating sufficient traffic to your website? Don't worry—we've got you.
 
We'd like to introduce you to the A/B Testing Ideas learning series, a collection of easy-to-use design tips to A/B test your website pages. This series will include techniques to effectively optimize various elements on your website and boost conversion rates in a short time. These ideas can also give you a strong framework to start your conversion rate optimization and discover what design changes work best for your website. Do Follow the page and post your comments about the content shared in the comment box below.

So, here is our first post in the series: Place irresistible and clear CTA buttons



As we know, the basic intention of any website is to make somebody do something—for example, getting visitors to fill in a form, download a PDF, or purchase an item. And, of course, the best way to make visitors perform these actions is through the simple CTA (call-to-action) buttons placed on your web page, such as "Buy now", "Learn more", or "Sign up" links.

However, at times you might notice that your website is getting a good traffic but the conversions obtained on your CTA are poor. This is exactly when you need to A/B test your CTA buttons. In today’s post, we'll learn a few simple, yet powerful, CTA testing ideas to maximize conversions and recover those lost leads on your site.

So how do you create and test a persuasive CTA?

There are three parts to look at: the text, the position, and the graphical presentation of the CTA on your web page.
 
Testing the CTA words
Good CTA copy is more than just text. In general, CTA copy that speaks directly to your visitor outperforms generalized CTA copy. Here are a few points to consider while crafting your CTA copy:
  • Decide what action you want your audience to take and describe what will happen next—for example, use text like “Subscribe to our blog " or "Request a product demo" and not "Subscribe" or "Register here." This will tell visitors what to expect by clicking on the CTA.

  • Start with action-oriented words in your CTA like "read," "download," "call," and more. This can make your button stand out from the rest of the page content and convince visitors to click it instantly.

  • Create a sense of urgency with words like “today,” “now,” or “in the next 24 hours” in your CTAs to garner those extra clicks with less effort.
Focusing on the above tips can help you kindle your audience’s emotion towards your products/services, build a sense of trust in your business, and eventually achieve your website goal.

A few examples of good CTA copy you can test out include:
  • Using a "Grab my ebook" CTA on the web page  instead of a CTA that just instructs visitors to “Download.” This will create a more personal touch and draw interest towards the button.



  • Using a "Access courses for free" CTA instead of an overused "Sign up" button to build connections and boost sign ups on your newly developed elearning website.

Extra tip: Your CTA buttons should always have a healthy chunk of white space surrounding them. White space helps instantly grab your visitors' attention and adds focus to your button.

Testing the CTA position
Strive to achieve CTA placement that is noticeable but not disruptive to your audience. If you place your CTA button in a spot where your users don’t naturally look, you’re going to lose conversions. There are generally two points to look at while testing CTA position:
  • Identify and utilize smart button placement based on your visitors' natural reading flow (top to bottom and left to right or right to left) and behavior on your website. This includes the path users follow on your website to complete a process, the design elements they click on, and the barriers that prevent them from achieving their goal.

    Tip: You can use Session Recordings in PageSense to see how and why users are interacting with your CTAs the way they are.

  • Place the CTA button above or below the average fold of your page depending on the length and complexity of the content. This could also be determined by how far down the page your visitors scroll on an average. However, adding your CTA above the fold is the most common placement choice used on homepage/landing page designs.

    Tip: You can set up heatmaps, scroll maps, and attention maps in PageSense to determine whether people are responding to—or even seeing—your CTAs.
A few examples of good CTA placement you can test out include:
  • Showing a glimpse of soon-to-be-released products with feature highlights, and then at the end placing "Pre-order for free" CTA on your digital store. This uses the below-the-fold area of your web page to catch the attention of the visitors first, even before redirecting visitors to the preferred page(s).



  • Adding a “Buy Now” or "Add to Cart" button at the top-right section of the product page where a user would immediately click to buy after viewing your product offers page on the ecommerce site. This type of CTA placement adds visitors to your sales pipeline quickly by canceling extra steps like add to cart and check out.

Testing the CTA appearance
The color and appearance of your CTA button are the most important aspects while testing and optimizing your website. As humans, we always have a greater tendency to stick to information that looks bigger and brighter. Below are some practical tips on designing and testing an appealing CTA button:
  • Add a bold, bright, and contrasting background color to CTAs. Give more important CTA buttons a brighter color and the less important functions a lighter color or simple text links.

  • Have your CTA appear more clickable. This could be done by adding some visual effects such as a slight gradient or a small shadow to create that real push-button effect. However, if you think none of the effects will suit the chosen style of your website, add emphasis by applying rounded edges to the button.

  • Size of the button is another crucial factor in designing an effective CTA button. Larger CTAs have a higher chance of being noticed and clicked by readers. It’s also common to arrange UI components according to their importance. 
A few examples of good CTA appearance you can test out include:
  • Adding an attractive 3D or shadow effect to the "last minute deal" CTA button on your ecommerce site. This effect can spotlight the CTA, making it bright and prominent in comparison to other features like wish lists, view cart, or check out buttons.



  • Applying a bright color to the most recommended plan on your pricing page that you think will be a good fit for the majority of visitors. This might help highlight the best features in your product and avoid confusing buyers.

Found this useful? We would love to know what you think about this post. And, do you have any favorite A/B testing tricks or preferred approaches that you experiment on your website CTAs? Let us know in the comments below!

Happy testing. Happy converting!




        • Recent Topics

        • How to add new deal to existing contact

          Hi, I want to add new deal to existing contact.

        • Domain verification is in progress... (How long do I need to wait?)

          Trying to setup my first email domain by connecting with GoDaddy. Have been here for quite some time and the screen is not changing. How long should this take?Send DataSend Data

        • email address autocomplete

          Is there a way to eliminate certain addresses from showing up in auto complete when entering an address? Many old and unused addresses currently show up, many of which I would like to get rid of. Thanks

        • Linking an email to a Contact when the email is sent in deluge via sendmail

          The "to:" address in this code is a CRM Contact. Email address is forced unique in CRM This sendmail gets sent via a workflow which is in a custom module. It works, except that the outbound email does not appear (i.e, get linked to) the Contact such that

        • How to restore deleted Field

          I edited a field in zoho form and by accident I deleted a field (email address). The form is ongoing to be filled by respondent. Then, when I checked to the all entries and report, the email address is gone. I checked in audit log, there is a record that

        • How to select multiple notes at once in the PC client?

          In the PC client, you can select notes using ctr+LMB. But why can't you use shift+LMB? PC version 3.2.0

        • How I can add customized Invoice

          Hi, I wanna use a customized Invoice, how i can add that

        • Zoho Analytics Pivot Table - How to compare month vs last year same month

          Hi, I had created a pivot table with setup as below: Column: - Delivery Date Row: - Customer Group Data as column - Total amount (sum > normal) (show data of the month) - Total amount (sum > % difference from previous value) (compare between this month

        • Recorded imported goods

          I have imported some goods from a foreign vendor called ABC. to Bahrain. My Customs duty and VAT are paid by an agency called XYZ to authorities. I have paid the amounts to XYZ and they have paid to authorities in behalf of us using our TRN Number. Now

        • Notes created in mobile app not syncing with web notebook

          I have created certain notes in a new notebook in mobile app. The new notebook is also created using mobile app and when I logged in through web I am unable to see notebook that I have created using mobile app. there is no trace of notes in which i have created in mobile app on the web even after days of creating in mobile app This is not the case vise-a-versa. the notes and note book created on web are accessible on mobile app on real time.  this is very inconvenient and big demotivating factor

        • Match Transaction > Filter | Allow wildcards in search

          The Filter function is useful for narrowing down to a specific set of transactions. It would be useful to have the ability to use wildcards in search. e.g. customer name "starts with" or " * " as a placeholder. e.g. "National * " instead of "National

        • Marketing Automation Emails Going to Spam

          Google is trapping all the marketing automation emails in spam. My domain has a perfect reputation and it looks like Zoho has a low reputation which is sending it to spam. When I pull the email out of spam and click on a link in the email, I get this

        • Convert Request to Forum Topic

          I know you can convert a forum topic to a request and a request to a solution in the knowledge base, but how do you convert a request to a forum topic?  Is this possible?  If not is this a feature coming down the pipe in the near future? Thanks!

        • Zoho Sign / Prefill By You - Editable by Them!

          Zoho Sign seems to have two field options available - an empty field for signer(s) to complete or a field that has been prefilled by you, that becomes read only once sent.  What I would like is an option on the pre-filled by you fields, to leave them

        • Is the Contacts sync between Campaigns and CRM bi-directional?

          Is the Contacts sync between Campaigns and CRM bi-directional?

        • Task does not syncing to google calendar shedual

          Hi why does the tasks activities do not syncing with the google calendar like the event option does?

        • Bug with Zobot Human transfer

          I have configured the brand, the operator, and the Zobot in Spanish. However, no matter what I do, it always says "YES" instead of "Sí" or "Sure, why not " instead of "Claro, ¿por qué no?" when asking if the user wants to contact a human operator. The

        • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

          Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?

        • Something went wrong. One or more fields contain errors

          I am getting this error but there is no way to debug what field is causing the issue . I have over 100 fields. Everything was working fine and then i fixed some fields that should have the same field names but had a typo and i am getting this error. It

        • Integrating Zoho Desk Instances from two separate organizations

          Is it possible to integrate Zoho Desk with an instance from another organization? For example, creating a ticket in one organization can cause the creation of a ticket in the second organization? Or certain tickets from one organization be viewable by

        • Knowledge base bug - Error: Article couldn't be updated.

          It took me a while to figure this out, truly one of the most irritating bugs in Zoho. I hope you find this information helpful. When using the knowledge base to create articles, make sure your keywords are in lowercase and separated by commas. Otherwise,

        • Is this possible with Campaigns?

          My company is currently moving CRM's from Monday to Zoho One. Currently, our marketing lead process is send out 7 sms messages over 14 days if the lead is in a certain status. If we don't get a response the lead is put into a "Closed" status. Do we buy

        • How to view two portals (Zoho CRM & Zoho Books) in single login

          Hello there, I need to create a portal access for the Customers. Customer data present in two applications namely Zoho CRM & Zoho Books. My requirement is to show the two different portals(Zoho CRM Portal & Zoho books Portal) in single login. I could

        • Updating Bounced Contacts in Campaigns to the CRM

          The article explains how to update Opt-outs from Campaigns to CRM, but not bounces. While Campaigns will automatically remove any bounced emails from future campaigns, is there a process by which a bounce will update or make a notification in the CRM

        • Bandwidth, voice and poor video

          Dear Team, The webinar has made things quite easy and convenient for educators around the world. We are an art & culture-based organization where students and researchers are our major audience.  While using the Zoho webinar platform, we have observed that the audio lags and the video is of poor quality and often freezes. Some participants don't hear what is being spoken.  We also found that even a slightly slow internet connection disrupts the webinar while it should be working well even on lower

        • Zoho books and venmo

          Hi, Is there a way to hook Venmo into zoho books? I have a Venmo business account and want to be able to sync that. I know you can do it with the paypal integration but I dont want to use paypal for the fees and that doesnt allow me use/integrate my current

        • Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists

          When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.

        • 550 5.4.6 Unusual sending activity detected. Please try after sometime. <a href=https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/usage-policy.html target=_blank>Learn more.</a>

          Please help me with this. Sending of mails is blocked.

        • The Social Wall: November 2024

          Hey everyone, As we move into December, we're excited to share all the updates that went live in Social during November. View, monitor, and respond to your WhatsApp and Telegram messages from Inbox Take your communication a step further by integrating

        • Segmenting Contacts Based on Product Purchased

          I am trying to organize our main Marketing Automation email list in a way that segments contacts based on products they have purchased (for example in this case it is 3 different products). To my knowledge, this would require the sync from Zoho CRM to

        • Urgent Assistance Needed with DKIM Verification

          Hi, I have been trying to verify the DKIM for the past month using your instructions as well as other resources. Unfortunately, I have not been able to resolve the issue, and it remains persistent. I need to address this problem as soon as possible so

        • How do I attach tasks from one task to other tasks in the same project

          How do I attach tasks from one task to other tasks in the same project

        • Incorrect Handling of XLSX data

          Trying to import an XLSX schedule of bills into Zoho Books I ran across the problem of date formatting. To replicate: Build a CSV file with bill dates in whatever format you like and import it - this should work if you match the "dd/MM/yyy" etc. format

        • Zoho Books Invoice Salesperson: requires ID but there is no "Fetch salesperson" action

          Hi, I am trying to attach a Salesperson to a Zoho Books invoice. In Zoho Flow, the salesperson field required an ID. However, I only have the salesperson name, I need to fetch salesperson by name and then provide the ID. There is no option to fetch salesperson...

        • Change format of quantity format

          Hi,  I would like to change the qunatity format from 1,00 to 1.  Is this possible?   thanks!

        • Ticket Views: filter criteria -> dynamic date values in relation to the current date

          Hello all, It would be very helpful if you could build custom views in such a way that you do not have to adjust the criteria daily or at whatever interval in order to change the fixed date value as needed. For example, I would like to create a view that,

        • Captchas: No support for Google reCAPTCHA or similar

          Hi all, The current captcha integrated into Creator is very basic, and often near-impossible to read. I'm building an app for a charity which includes a couple of public-facing forms, and this is a real issue for people with dyslexia and related conditions - it's effectively excluding them if you want any form of spam protection at all on your published forms (and that being said, the current captcha doesn't even seem very effective - bots can often read it more easily than humans). I've raised this

        • Maintain consistency in ticket responses with shared snippets

          Hello everyone! We are excited to announce that our highly anticipated snippet sharing feature is now available to all users. As you know, snippets are pre-defined message templates, or canned messages, that help agents respond to tickets with efficiency.

        • Tickets - Zoho Desk

          Hi Team, My Clients need to see their tickets created and the status of the ticket in the Zoho Support Desk itself. How can I do this? My Client doesn't have a Zoho Account. They need to access the ticket by the provided link without signing in.

        • Automatically assign Contacts to Account owners

          Hi, I have a finite number of accounts set up in the CRM, and each new contact that comes in is automatically assigned to an Account according to a rule I set up. I want the Contact owner in the Contacts module to be assigned to the relevant Account owner.

        • Next Page