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Andy Black

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I came off a video call with a client this week.

I’d been building out their Google Ads campaigns to get website visitors more likely looking to give him their money.

Numbers are going the right way and he asked what the next low hanging fruit was.

I had a quick look and saw his conversion rate was a lot lower on mobile compared to desktop and tablet (for the visitors I’d been sending in the past couple of weeks).

“Hmmm... let’s see how your homepage looks on a mobile.”

(Yes, I’m sending visitors to the homepage, and yes, I hadn’t really bothered to look at it.)

So I open the page in Chrome, right-click, and select “inspect”. I can see the page (kinda) how it would look on a smartphone.

“The video on the homepage may be slowing things down. I’d get your web guys to check it’s as small as possible.”

“The headline matches what most of the visitors were searching for on Google, and the headline of the ad... that’s good.”

I scroll up and down the page from top to bottom.

“What’s the main thing you want people to do?”

He gets me to scroll up and points out three blocks that people can click on.

“Oh, I didn’t even see they were clickable. They don’t look clickable.”

“Ahhh.” he says.

“Make them look like clickable buttons.”

“Also... those headlines in each section. They read wrong.”



For confidentially let’s pretend the client was selling cruise trips.

The three sections that I didn’t realise they wanted me to click on had section headings (like):
  • Build my cruise
  • Full service
  • Cruise finder

I told him the first one was good, but the second two weren’t.

My advice to him (as well as making them look clickable), was to put “Click here to ...” before each section heading.

This would make them read:
  • Click here to build your cruise
  • Click here to full service
  • Click here to cruise finder

That blatantly doesn’t read right does it?

Change it so it reads right:
  • Click here to build your cruise
  • Click here to get full service
  • Click here to find a cruise

Now remove the “Click here to” part:
  • Build your cruise
  • Get full service
  • Find a cruise

Now they at least read right. This should work better already.


Now try and improve the middle CTA of “Get full service”. What does that actually mean? Can you rewrite that better in a handful of words?
  • Get concierge service?
  • Contact us?
  • Let us build your dream cruise?


So there you go - a mathematician’s guide to writing call-to-action statements.
  1. Put “Click here to” in front of it.
  2. Write it so it’s clear and enticing.
  3. Remove the “Click here to”.
  4. Test it.


(PS: Notice how I didn’t once mention clicks or traffic. Conversion rate optimisation 101 is to stop talking about clicks and traffic.)
 
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RazorCut

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Love it. It's not rocket science but often the easiest way to increase sales and profits is right under our noses and so often overlooked. I love A/B testing as that panders to my OCD.

Someone told me just over a week ago that their sales increased by 47% last month. They have a mature business, not a startup, so that is a considerable amount of money. How did they do it? Simply by optimising their sales page and a few other key pages.

What was the optimisation? Mostly just reducing the size of the images on those pages so they loaded quicker as they were so large it was creating time outs.

They didn't realise the issue existed until it was pointed out as their PC had cached those images so they were blissfully unaware there was a significant lag in page load speed. It just took another pair of eyes in a different country to see the glaringly obvious.
 

Stargazer

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Andy (or anyone else)

Good post. Out if interest have you ever just left the 'click here to ' ?

That is to say, leave it as an instruction.

Click here to find a cruise v Find a cruise

I am thinking of a post you wrote about your father. The one about him having been an NCO.

There is a reason the military use short, sharp commands. They are dealing with... people!

Dan
 

Andy Black

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Andy (or anyone else)

Good post. Out if interest have you ever just left the 'click here to ' ?

That is to say, leave it as an instruction.

Click here to find a cruise v Find a cruise

I am thinking of a post you wrote about your father. The one about him having been an NCO.

There is a reason the military use short, sharp commands. They are dealing with... people!

Dan
I use “Click here to” in the CTA in the threads in my chats with folks.

Google doesn’t allow us to use “Click here” in ads. There’s probably a reason right?

My default would be the shorter the command the better.
 
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Einfamilienhaus

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@Andy Black Serious Question: Have you written a book about Online Marketing in General? I'm really annoyed to find all the good advices in thousand different threads.

Even if the book has 100 pages. I would buy it.
 

Andy Black

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@Andy Black Serious Question: Have you written a book about Online Marketing in General? I'm really annoyed to find all the good advices in thousand different threads.

Even if the book has 100 pages. I would buy it.
I’ve not written a book (yet?). A few people have suggested I should. I’ve a paid email newletter in my signature that might help.
 

Jon Anthony

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Love it. It's not rocket science but often the easiest way to increase sales and profits is right under our noses and so often overlooked. I love A/B testing as that panders to my OCD.

Someone told me just over a week ago that their sales increased by 47% last month. They have a mature business, not a startup, so that is a considerable amount of money. How did they do it? Simply by optimising their sales page and a few other key pages.

What was the optimisation? Mostly just reducing the size of the images on those pages so they loaded quicker as they were so large it was creating time outs.

They didn't realise the issue existed until it was pointed out as their PC had cached those images so they were blissfully unaware there was a significant lag in page load speed. It just took another pair of eyes in a different country to see the glaringly obvious.
That was me and thanks for helping me out with that! Hahaha.
 
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RazorCut

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