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- How Many CTAs Should You Have In Your Emails?
How Many CTAs Should You Have In Your Emails?
The correct answer is between 1-100...
Hola amigos,
You’d be surprised how many emails get sent to a list with little to no thought put into WHY the email is being sent.
No one stops to ask themselves:
What is this email’s purpose?
What do I want people to do?
Where is the value in what I’m sending?
Is the process clear?
The expectation seems to be that all you have to do to be “good” at email marketing is send emails — this couldn’t be further from the truth.
My last boss told me something revolutionary when writing digital copy:
This is the only time people want to be told where to go and what to do.
He was correct.
Try being this bossy in real life and you’ll get slapped. But the internet isn’t real life. People on the internet — especially in emails and on websites — want you to be crystal clear as to where they need to go and what they need to do.
This brings us to calls to action (CTA).
A few months, back I published an email about how to write stronger CTAs. Today, I want to talk about how many CTAs you should have in your emails.
Button CTA vs Hyperlinked CTA
Calls to action come in two distinct varieties in emails: Buttons and hyperlinked text.
I am of the opinion that your main CTA should always be a button.
The reason for this is simple. A button-based CTA improves click rates by 127%.
Understanding why this is the case isn’t difficult — think about how you interact with most content online.
Your brain starts by reading the title, you then scan subheadings, you stop for images, videos, and GIFs, and if you’re interested, you’ll then invest time in reading the email itself. If your CTAs aren’t obvious and well-placed, people will lose focus and won’t click.
Personally, I like having primary and secondary CTAs with the primary one being the one that stands out the most.
The magic number is…
Well, it depends.
WAIT!
Before you close this tab because that non-answer was annoying, let me explain what I mean.
I could throw a range at you and say that 1-2 CTAs in an email is a safe amount, but there is no context to that answer.
How long is your email?
What is the purpose of the email?
How different are the CTAs?
How similar are the CTAs?
And so on…
Personally, I like the idea of an email having ONE purpose and within that email, there being a CTA above the fold (near the top of the email where someone would see it without scrolling) and one CTA near the bottom of the email.
Here’s an example of an above the fold CTA:
See how your eyes naturally drift from the headline to the subheader to the bright red CTA? It’s seamless.
Using one CTA would also put you in the company of the overwhelming majority of email marketers.
I’m of the mind that if you have any more than 3 CTAs, you’re probably best sending multiple emails as opposed to trying to cram everything into one.
So there you have it!
As with anything in marketing, your sustained success comes down to testing and finding a recipe that works for your audience.
If you want a few good resources on CTAs, consider reading these blogs:
Adios,Andrew