17 Dec How to Improve Your Call to Action for Online Ads

There is lots of “noise” on the Internet when it comes to digital advertising. At the height of Web 2.0, it was extremely effective and unrivaled for marketers to simply create a design-heavy, visual ad to rise above the noise.

It’s not that easy today. A nice design won’t really stand out. You need a strong call to action.

A call to action is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. While having a good design will draw attention to your advertisement, the CTA is what will increase conversions and convince people to click and take action.

Remember that users get to see multiple advertisements in a day from 1.5 million advertisers trying to grab their attention, so your CTA needs to stand out to stop people dead in their tracks and increase your clickthrough rate above the reported average of .05 percent.

What makes a strong call to action? “Click here for more information” is overused. Here are some other tips.

The dangling carrot. People love to receive offers, so if you want their attention, then offer them something they don’t have to pay for. This could be a coupon, a gift card, a product sample, or free consultation or evaluation.

You can either use ‘Free’ with an offer or try being creative with another CTA such as ‘Grab Yours Now’ followed by an arrow pointing toward the link aimed at your target audience.

Are you struggling with…? Questions are a great way to get people interested in your ad. They are more conversational, so there is a greater chance of getting a response. Strategically pose questions about the problems your customers are trying to overcome.

You can ask product-related questions, random questions or opinion-based questions to get the most out of your ad. Polls are another great way to get the conversation started and obtain valuable information about what problems you can solve for your audience.

Deadlines and urgency. One way to stand out in the digital landscape is to create a sense of urgency. People respond to deadlines and panic if they think they’re going to miss out on a deal.  For example, ‘OFFER EXPIRES TOMORROW’ will get you more conversions than just an ‘OFFER’. A deadline of sorts will give people the push they need to take action.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net