The simple answer is no, it’s an awful CTA, even if it got you to click a link and start reading this article. Why? Because it wasn’t accurate. It’s going to result in a high bounce rate, low average time on site, and probably make this content page your primary exit page. What does all that actually mean? And why does it matter?

Keep Reading to Find Out!

What do marketers mean when they say Call to Action?
Whether you’re working with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertisements, Social Media posts, Email Marketing or just Website CTAs, a Call to Action is the part of your message that tells your audience what to do. It relays a simple expectation, and by clicking it they are expressing an interest in what you have to offer. It’s the beginning of a pact, and the precursor to valuable conversions.

Making it simpler, the CTA is the button you want them to click, the link you want them to view, the post you want them to share and the subscription you want them to make. It is an action you want them to physically take, leading to the next step in your conversion process.

Breaking Down the Jargon
Let’s imagine: You’re looking for a social media manager to handle your business’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts. You do a basic search on Google and see a link for Media Manager LLC: Your all-in-one team for Social Media Management. The description looks about right, so you click the link to visit their website.

Once the page loads, you see a full-screen video of Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up. Congratulations, you just got Rick-rolled. You click the back arrow, return to Google and continue your search. The entire process took less than 10 seconds, but in those ten seconds a lot of things happened to that website’s analytics.

Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is a measurement of the people who land on a page but don’t actually interact with it before they leave. They don’t click any links or buttons, they don’t subscribe or make a purchase, they don’t create a conversion. They see your site, realize it isn’t what they want, and they bounce in search of something better. Essentially, this is a wasted visit, and you want this number to be relatively low in most cases.

A poorly written Call to Action will bring the wrong people to your page, and they probably aren’t going to hang around if you aren’t what they’re looking for, increasing your bounce rate and wasting money on PPC campaigns.

Average Time on Page
This one is exactly what you think. How long does the average user stay on your page (also known as “dwell time”)? Well, that depends on how relevant, interesting, and conversion-worthy your content is. Your time on page is affected by a lot of factors, one of them being (you guessed it) your Call to Action. If a CTA is driving people to relevant content, they’re more likely to spend time consuming it. Blog articles, interesting images, special offers and relevant videos are all great ways to keep someone on your page longer, and to entice them to visit other pages on your site.

The higher your dwell time, the more conversions your site will generate. Take some time to ensure your CTA is directing the right people to the right content, and also to see which pages have low average time on page so you know which pages need enrichment.

Primary Exit Page
Another well-named metric, your Primary Exit Page is the page from which users primarily leave your site. If this page isn’t your conversion page, you’re not closing the deal. Once you identify your Primary Exit Pages, you need to find out why people are leaving. Is it a badly constructed Call to Action? Are you failing to hold their attention? Is there a problem in the copy writing, images, or page functionality driving them away?

It’s important to find out which issues are preventing visitors from becoming customers. Sometimes it’s the copy on the page itself, a loading time issue, or just the overall aesthetics. Sometimes it’s the Call to Action, either the one that brought them to your page or one on the page itself. If you’re bringing the wrong demographic to your page, they aren’t going to convert. But if your on-page CTA is poor, unengaging, or badly constructed, you’re also going to lose out on a lot of the traffic that should convert. You’re getting them on the hook and then cutting the line, a whale of a mistake for your conversion percentage.

Not All CTAs Play by the Same Rules
Calls to action are EVERYWHERE. Order Now, Subscribe, Like, Follow, Share, Donate, Learn More, and on and on and on… But they’re not all the same, and you should have a different strategy for Calls to Action on different marketing channels.

A successful digital marketing campaign includes a number of synchronized assets including some combination of Website Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, Banner Ads, Email Marketing, and Influencer involvement. While all CTAs need to be clear and accurate, some of them allow wiggle room to have fun and really engage the audience in creative ways.

Want to know what Makes a Good CTA?

Check out our next blog article!
We’ll cover how to write a compelling Call to Action, how to vary it for different channels, and even how to use multiple CTAs to walk a visitor through multiple pages of your site. Don’t want to wait that long? Reach out and schedule a talk, we’d be happy to help you increase the power of your Calls to Action, saving you money on your PPC and Paid Social Media ads, and driving your website analytics back into a more profitable direction.