How to Optimize Email Calls to Action

The main key that unlocks readers by inspiring them to follow your intended course of action is triggered by the ‘call-to-action’ sentence within every email.

For many businesses, this is how you encourage the subscriber to click and engage.

The following article will help you learn the foremost techniques that experts use to optimize their emails for maximum clicks. 

What Is An Email CTA? 

If you think the headline of your email copy is important, according to 2019 Unbounce stats, 90% of readers who go through the heading also go through that CTA.

The call-to-action can be a button, phrase, or sentence and it encourages the reader to take action.

For example, a jewelry website you’re subscribed to might send emails with a link at the end of the email inviting you to check out more designs or buy from them.

In another case, you might have received PDF files from software service providers preceded by the CTA.  

Why Is It Important?

A call-to-action anchor text embodied in an email can boost the conversion rate by 121% and helps you measure the success rate of an email campaign. 

Here are the top benefits of adding a button or sentence to all your emails:

• Clearly convey the point: By expressing the exact intent of the email, you can lead the customer to take action. 
• Targeted conversions: CTAs can resonate with the behavioral patterns of the customer when used for intent targeting.
• Brand recognition and loyalty: You can maintain a serious, casual, friendly, or helpful tone in your CTA to expand brand awareness.  
• Complete the sales funnel: A CTA can serve as a powerful motive for the customer to buy/click.

Top Tips

Email offers the best ROI for marketers because of the endless layouts, color palettes, templates, and other value-added tools.

With creative placements, unique and clickable phrases, visual impact, secondary CTAs, and purchasing psychology, you can make your call-to-action button extra impactful.

Keep reading to discover the best tips and practices. 

1. Focus On Placement

A typical email reader takes as little as 10 seconds to read your entire email.

Once you accept the value that the customer expects from email CTAs, the next step is to place where it piques their interest the most. 

According to experts, the best area to place your call-to-action button or copy is above the fold so that it’s visible, legible, and readable to the subscriber.

In short, such a placement protects you against readers who bounce without reading the complete email.

You can go a step further and keep it to the right and slightly away from the content to avoid breaking the reader’s flow when browsing through the email. 

2. Use Powerful Copy

If your call-to-action sentence is too wordy or crammed in a small button, it can defeat the purpose of the whole campaign.

The trick to writing a good CTA for emails is using actionable verbs like create, sign up, submit, buy, explore, read, and so on. 

Instead of using bombastic words, stick with words that trigger emotional and logical responses from the reader including the following:

• Stop/Start
• Join/Get/Create/Save
• Buy now/ Sign up/Upgrade
• Explore/Read more/Find out

3. Choose The Right Colors

It’s true that the total design of your marketing email can affect the way a customer feels about your email after reading it.

This is why you need to focus on designs with favorable colors around the CTA button or text to draw attention to it.

Take a closer look at what you can do:

• Choose a different color for the call to action as opposed to the text.
• Use a different font size/font style for the CTA button or text. 
• Pick complementary colors that display well across most devices used by your subscribers. 

4. Make Use Of Secondary CTAs

While deploying six calls to action in a single email isn’t ideal, giving the reader a choice with two call-to-action buttons is brilliant.

In marketing, the secondary CTA is referred to as the muted call-to-action.

The best thing is that this secondary version is that it can be used to convey an opposing message to convert the customers who agree otherwise. 

For example, an online boutique that’s sending an email with new products might use ‘Buy now’ as the primary CTA whereas the secondary CTA directs them to ‘View new products’. 

5. Generate FOMO

Did you know more than half of customers make purchase decisions because of the ‘fear of missing out’? If your target audience is aged 18 to 30, you’ll find it interesting that over 56% in this age group experience FOMO.

However, not all customers associate urgency-driving CTAs with positivity according to Psychology Today. Accordingly, it’s best to make room for both in the emails.

Bottom Line

An email’s call-to-action can be a button or a sentence, but it has to be appealing with complementary colors with easy readability.

This advertising copy must be as straightforward as it is motivational so customers take the exact action you desire, leading to higher overall conversion rates.