Even if you have a great product, you’ll need to do some heavy lifting to get people to buy it. And the way to do that is with a call to action (CTA).
But what is a CTA? And how can you create an effective one?
In this article, I’m going to show you 33 powerful call to action examples that you can use in your own campaigns.
Table of Contents
What Is a Call to Action (CTA)?
A CTA is a term in marketing that describes any prompt designed to motivate a user to take a meaningful action. That “action” could be buying a product, subscribing to a service, signing up for a free trial or eBook, or even watching a video.
At its core, a CTA is a tool of persuasion. It’s constructed specifically to encourage a person to become a customer – or otherwise bring value to an organization.
Good CTAs have high conversion rates. Bad CTAs… aren’t worth your time.
The 7 Elements of an Effective Call to Action
So what makes a “good” CTA?
It’s going to vary, depending on your industry, your target demographics, the medium of your choice, and other variables.
But these are some of the most common characteristics of effective CTAs:
1. Targeting and relevance.
A CTA might work well for one specific demographic but be completely useless for another. If you write a message that doesn’t appeal to your audience, even a juicy monetary reward (like a $50 bonus) won’t incentivize people to take action. A good marketing funnel, strong audience targeting, and ample knowledge from your market research can help you get this right.
2. Directness.
Don’t beat around the bush. Come out with what action you want your user to take and use strong action words to do it. For example, “Save 30 percent on our top product when you buy today” is much more effective than something vague and generic like, “Consider buying one of our products.”
3. Conciseness.
If you’re having a conversation with a prospect on the phone, you’ll have time to ask discovery questions, get to know your customer, and make an extended pitch about why your product is awesome. But if you’re placing an ad or developing a blog, you don’t have this extra time. You need to be as concise as possible, reducing your CTA to one or two sentences (though some platforms give you a bit more wiggle room in terms of content volume).
4. Originality.
You’ve seen thousands of CTAs, whether you paid close attention to them or not. You tune most of them out. Why? Because they’re unoriginal. Uninspired. They look like every other CTA you’ve ever seen, so they kind of blend together in a messy, bland soup. If you want to see better results, do something original.
5. Clear benefits.
Why would I buy from you? You don’t have time to write a paragraph about your cutting-edge, game-changing technology, so make the benefit shorter, cleaner, and clearer. For example, mention the 40 percent discount your customers can get. Explain how most customers save 4 hours per week by using your software. Any hook can greatly increase your chances of getting that conversion – and if it includes a quantifiable number, your chances will increase even further.
6. Placement.
It’s not much of a CTA if your customers never get to see it. You have to think about your placement sometimes. With short ads, your entire message is a CTA, so you don’t have to give it much thought. But if you’re including a CTA in a blog, on a landing page, or in an email, you’ll need to make it prominent – without detracting from your main purpose.
7. Urgency or scarcity.
You know fear of missing out (FOMO)? It’s that pervasive anxiety we all experience when we’re worried about losing out on something incredible. You can stoke FOMO by implying a degree of urgency or scarcity in your CTA. For example, you can offer $50 for 24 hours only, or you can offer a free eBook only to the first 100 people to sign up for it. It’s a great motivator and a hard counter to all the would-be procrastinators out there.
Now let’s take a look at some examples of effective CTAs – and see these qualities in action.
Social Media Ad Call to Action Examples
Social media ads typically come with a basic CTA “baked in” to the ad. For example, on Facebook, your ads might come with a button that encourages users to “Learn more” or “Like page.”
In addition to these buttons, it’s a good idea to include text in your ad to encourage specific user behavior.
For example:
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Email Newsletter Call to Action Examples
Email newsletters afford you some extra flexibility. You’re usually spending most of the email providing content or describing an offer – and you get a chance to make an email call to action toward the end.
You can also send an email that serves the function of being a CTA all on its own.
Either way, you’ll have much more room to play with in an email than you will in a social media ad. The CTAs here are concise, but you could spend an entire paragraph (or more) leading up to them or providing further information.
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Landing Page Call to Action Examples
Landing pages are an instrumental marketing tool, capable of quickly and easily filtering your audience.
Like with emails, you’ll have plenty of room to describe your products and expound upon your ideas.
But eventually, you’ll need to resolve your message with a concise, clear CTA such as:
18. Find a store near you!
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22. Save time. Improve communication. Do work better. Sign up for a free trial!
23. Surprise! Get 50 percent off your entire cart when you shop today.
Blog Call to Action Examples
Content marketing is my favorite marketing strategy. It works well with search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media marketing, and many other strategies.
But it’s also a great vehicle for making sales with CTAs.
Once people read your content, and become impressed with your expertise, they’ll be much more likely to buy whatever it is you’re selling.
Close the deal with a CTA like these:
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26. Your business is losing money. Do you know how? Or what you can do to stop the losses? Book a free consultation with me today – and we’ll work together to improve your business.
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Other Call to Action Examples
These are an assortment of other CTA examples. Some of them fit perfectly well in the other categories. Others are best served in line with another marketing or advertising tactic.
Use them as inspiration for just about any kind of CTA!
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33. What’s in your closet? It’s time for a wardrobe update. Treat yourself!
If you have a personal website and are looking for CTA examples, check out these personal website examples.
Want to see a really good call to action?
I saved the best one for last. Here it goes:
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Jayson is a long-time columnist for Forbes, Entrepreneur, BusinessInsider, Inc.com, and various other major media publications, where he has authored over 1,000 articles since 2012, covering technology, marketing, and entrepreneurship. He keynoted the 2013 MarketingProfs University, and won the “Entrepreneur Blogger of the Year” award in 2015 from the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs. In 2010, he founded a marketing agency that appeared on the Inc. 5000 before selling it in January of 2019, and he is now the CEO of EmailAnalytics.
