4 Tips to Optimize your Ecommerce CTAs

“Buy now,” “click here,” “learn more,” “get a demo”—when it comes to Calls to Action (CTAs) we’ve seen them all! And while CTAs can feel ubiquitous and at times even unremarkable to the average shopper, for ecommerce marketers these hyperlinks and buttons are of the utmost importance!

And yet, with the median ecommerce CTA click through rate (CTR) at 1.56% there’s no doubt that the industry as a whole is leaving untapped revenue on the table. So what can you do to fly by this industry benchmark? While the perfect CTA variations will vary company to company, our four tips for optimizing ecommerce CTAs should give you a good place to start.

Build CTA Experiments that Account for Attentional Bias

Attentional bias refers to how we pay more attention to emotionally dominant stimuli, while simultaneously ignoring other information presented to us when we make decisions. When trying to build a website that effectively converts, it’s imperative to create a digital environment that harnesses the power of attentional bias to motivate visitors to take the actions you’d like.

One way to create attentional bias on your website is through repetition– a strategy that can be easily implemented when building and designing CTAs. Test repeating CTAs throughout your website, perhaps on every other content block down the home page. Or, try a sticky CTA that remains present as a visitor scrolls down the page. Testing out the placement and number of times the same CTA appears on a page will give you great insight into what your particular visitors typically pay attention to.

Prioritize Expectation Management

Expectation management means setting users’ expectations so that they have clarity around what will happen next. While this seems like an obvious concept, it can often get left behind when testing different CTA variations. 

For example, let’s just say an ecommerce brand is testing three copy variations of the primary CTA button on their homepage: “buy now,” “learn more,” and “try today." While the copy options differ, all three variations lead to a check out page that asks visitors for their credit card information. In this scenario the only CTA variation in the bunch that suggests that clicking the button will start the check out process is “buy now”—the other two…not so much. When a CTA doesn’t aptly communicate what will happen when clicked on visitors may feel confused, or even worse downright misled by your company.

While the effectiveness of any CTA variation will vary greatly by company and individual visitor, a best practice is to always make sure that the CTA copy you’re testing accurately indicates to the visitor what will happen when they click it. And of course, if you’re not sure if the copy accurately conveys what will happen next—test it out!

Leverage AI

Sometimes when testing new website elements, like CTAs, it can be tricky to come up with enough copy variations to figure out what really makes your site visitors engage. When writer’s block hits, it’s critical to have AI at your fingertips to help you create compelling and persuasive CTA variations that work for your specific audience and goals. 

Investing in a CRO tool with AI-powered copy suggestions, like Intellimize, will give you the inspiration you need to create high-quality personalized CTA variations—so you can spend less time brainstorming and more time testing.

Always Be Testing

Once you’ve run a CTA experiment on your website and found a variation that leads to results that you’re satisfied with, there is no need to test that element for a long time…right? Wrong! 

While you may have found a great CTA that works this week, your competitor may launch a digital campaign that may impact your visitors’ behavior next week. Maybe tomorrow there will be a global current event that will render your best CTA out of touch. Or, perhaps your visitors’ needs will just simply change between the first and second time they come to your website. To safeguard against external events that can impact the efficacy of your CTAs, always be testing.

We hope these four CTA optimization tips give you the inspiration you need to start testing new and improved variations ASAP! Happy optimizing!

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