Timing Here we saw that many landing pages were offering assets to the user that were not appropriate for where they were in the buyer's journey. Top-funnel offers just ask for contact information Mid-funnel offers can push branded experiences like email subscription Bottom-funnel offers get to focus on scheduling meetings and calls Lastly, whatever you offer, make sure you explain what they heck the user is downloading so they aren’t blindly clicking spam. Case study 1: Changing the CTA convenience We were able to drastically increases this client’s conversions by optimizing their CTA. To make the conversion more convenient, we created a demo video that was available for download. Case study 2: Changing the CTA copy By optimizing the exact phrasing of this software site’s CTA button, we were able to drastically increase their paid leads. But copy-focused CRO goes beyond just focusing your CTAs. Previously, this landing page CTA was focused on a singular goal (scheduling a demo), but there were multiple search intents behind who was clicking on their ad. In the screenshots below, you can see how we created three unique experiences for different expected users: This newly segmented landing page campaign saw a drastic increase in conversions by targeting each of these different buyer's journeys. Takeaways: Smooth slide to conversion As far as golden rules go, your CTAs should be following one: Make conversion easy for your users. The more convenient your offer and the more value-driven your landing page & button copy, the more enticed your users will be to convert.
You can’t afford to throw money away on inefficient tactics in the paid advertising space. Keeping your campaigns cost-effective is a must. To streamline your paid campaigns, there are many different landing page best practices you can employ. We’ve seen the most significant of these results often come from optimizing your call-to-action.
Now, optimizing your CTA can include a few different factors. Not only is there placement, copy, design, and the usual list of CRO check boxes — there’s also the psychology of the interaction itself to consider.
To truly optimize your individual paid campaigns, you should get far more granular with your CRO. This will include taking your actual value proposition under investigation. Here are a few questions you may want to ask yourself regarding the psychology of your landing page and CTA:
- Where is my user in the buyer’s journey?
- Are they in the right stage for this conversion?
- Is what we are offering convenient/valuable enough?
- Does our offer align with the information we’re asking for?
You’d be surprised how often your CTA issue is offer-related as well as copy-related. Too many marketing managers are focusing on fixing their landing page copy, when they should be asking their CMOs to consider changing what they offer in the first place.
Results from our CTA psychoanalysis study [SaaS]
The best insights are built on hard-earned data — so we decided to get some for you before we started. The CTA Psychoanalysis Spreadsheet (which you can click the image to download for free) analyzed the CTAs of the top 100 SaaS landing pages:
What we found in the study is that most CTA issues fall under one of four categories:
1. Clarity
The main issue here is that the goal conversion of the page is unclear. This can be because you are using vague copy (like “click here”) on your buttons. Or it could come from your landing page lacking the necessary information to educate your user on their need for your service.
As you can see in the screenshot below, the landing page may look clean but it lacks any helpful information to educate the user on why they should convert. Especially for early-stage searchers, this page might as well be a black-hole of mystery and friction.
Make sure that your landing page has any necessary information your user needs to be adequately informed on your product/service. Here are a few things to focus on:
- Time-saving value of your product
- Competitive pricing of your product/services
- The exact pain point your product/service solves
2. Timing
Here we saw that many landing pages were offering assets to the user that were not appropriate for where they were in the buyer’s journey. For example, if a user hasn’t been given the right contextual information to understand their need for your service, offering a free trial in your CTA is a bit misplaced.
The same goes for offering digital assets with zero explanation of what they are:
Make sure that your offer properly aligns with where your user is in the buyer’s journey.
- Top-funnel offers just ask for contact information
- Mid-funnel offers can push branded experiences like email subscription
- Bottom-funnel offers get to focus on scheduling meetings and calls
Lastly, whatever you offer, make sure you explain what they heck the user is downloading so they aren’t blindly clicking spam.
3. Friction
Whenever you’re asking for contact information from a user, you need to walk a fine line between value and friction. The more information you ask for (name, email, business, competitors, etc.) the more friction you’re going to force on your landing page.
If your forms are asking for every bit of information your user could possibly supply, they’re probably bouncing off en masse. Make sure what you ask for is equal to what you offer.
The majority of B2B search marketers report that the form field “sweet spot” for conversions is somewhere between 3–5. Any more than that and you start pushing users away.
4. Placement
This has been, and always will be, an issue for CTAs. Online readers aren’t known for their attention spans — and you only have a few seconds to grab and hold their attention.
This means that your goal conversion (your CTA) should be highlighted and attention-grabbing. At the least, it should be visible immediately when you land on the page. You’d be surprised how many sites we still see with nearly invisible CTA buttons buried under a forest of irrelevant images:
Pro tip? Make sure your buttons are easily found… that is, only if you want your users to click them.
These are just the common issues we ran into while studying an entire industry. While these prove that there are many common CTA issues that can be easily fixed, it doesn’t prove how impactful fixing them can be.
To see just how powerful optimizing your CTAs can be, keep reading.
COMMENTS