What is a call to action (CTA)?

A call to action is a request to a user to perform a specific action and thus interact with the website. The call to action, CTA for short, can appear in image and/or text format.

Common goals of a CTA:

• Lead generation
• Increasing the conversion rate
• Start of a download
• Purchase of the advertised product
• making contact
• and so on

In order to be perceived by the target group in the best possible way, call-to-actions should always be clearly recognizable as such and correctly placed.

In order to be perceived visually in the best possible way, this often takes the form of a button with a call to action, such as "Buy product XZY now", "Download guide now" or "Find out more about product XYZ". The positioning is usually above the fold, i.e. the area that is directly visible to users without scrolling.

In online marketing, CTAs are often used on landing pages, in mailings or in the meta description. However, they also play a major role in other areas, such as print advertising or radio and TV commercials as well as search engine advertising (SEA).

In every medium, attention should be paid to a balanced placement of the call to actions so that informative content elements alternate with CTAs and users are prompted to take action in a structured manner, but not overwhelmed.