Mobile Call-to-Action Buttons: Best Guidelines for Placement, Copy, and Design
All you need to know about mobile call-to-action buttons to increase conversions. Don’t miss out on these call-to-action (CTA) button design guidelines.
The world is mobile. Some users may not even own a desktop and, with the probable exception of work, they prefer mobile. And we say “probable” because nowadays some workplaces offer tablets. So, let’s not forget about tablets.
You want every visitor to count towards your conversion goals, and this includes your mobile conversion goals.
Mobile best practices don’t really exist. Every audience is different, and we have the tests to prove it. What works for one business doesn’t always work for others.
There is an almost infinite number of things that you can consider for testing on a website. And many of them aren’t worth testing.
We are going to share some design ideas for your website’s mobile call-to-action buttons, so you can test them and discover what works for yours.
Conversion Sciences’ Guidelines for Mobile Call-to-Action Buttons
We’ll split these ideas into three major categories: placement, copy, and design. You can elaborate your own list of ideas — we call them hypotheses — based on what you know about your visitors and your website that could result in a lift in conversions.
Remember, there are no best practice unicorns hidden in this article.
Before delving into CTA button placement, copy, and design, let’s review some mobile conversion testing concepts.
Mobile visitors are in a fundamentally different context than their desktop counterparts
Most mobile websites are responsive designs, designed first for the desktop. This only gets you 50% of the way to a high-converting mobile website. Why? Because a mobile visitor is immersed in a context that is essentially different than the one for desktop visitors. They are waiting for a table, standing in line at the bank, or relaxing on their couch. Often, they are better positioned to start a conversation than to finish a transaction.
This is one reason we often see mobile conversion rates that are a half or a quarter of desktop conversion rates.
As we test for conversions the mobile version will evolve and differentiate itself from the desktop version. We have to make different decisions on which calls to action to use, which calls to action to prioritize, where to place them, whether to use text or icons, and so on.
It is not obvious how to design your mobile call-to-action buttons to maximize conversions.
Always Test your Mobile CTA Buttons
Consider the symbol for infinity. The infinity symbol represents to us the fact that there is an almost infinite number of things that you can consider for testing on a website. From the operating system to the type of visitor and everything in between.
The number of tests we could elaborate could really reach infinity.
Placement, size, call to action text, stickiness, and frequency all combine to increase the number of possibilities. And don’t forget to consider interactions with other elements. Is that chat icon covering up your mobile call to action button?
Note: In the following sections, we run the design tips, ideas and guidelines from the top organically ranking articles on mobile call-to-action button by the conversion scientist himself: Brian Massey, who’s been a conversion optimization expert since 2007.
Discover what he has to say on mobile call-to-action button placement, copy and design. You’ll be surprised and learn a ton from his answers.
How to Identify the Optimal Placement for your Mobile CTA Buttons
Your visitors’ thumbs are spending too much time on your screens and your mobile conversion rate is suffering. – Brian Massey, Conversion Scientist®.
Conversion Sciences Team: mobile call-to-action button placement best practices
We found articles on this topic that recommended organizing mobile CTAs according to their priority. For example, on an ecommerce site, you should order these calls to action: “Continue shopping”, “View your cart” and finally, “Check out”. The literature said they should be ordered to follow eye movement, from top to bottom,
Is this correct and what guidelines would you give somebody regarding mobile call-to-action button placement?
Brian Massey: What you mention isn’t wrong on desktop screens, but on mobile it’s very different.
For mobile websites, the first question we ask is, which call to action do we optimize for.
How hard is it to take action on a mobile device? It’s pretty hard, even for digital “natives”. Forms are just more difficult to fill out on a mobile device than using a keyboard.
This is one reason for lower mobile conversion rates. In general, the longer your forms, the lower your conversion rates. This problem is amplified by small digital keyboards.
On one particular ecommerce website that was researched, visitors have to go through a four step registration process to buy from this e-retailer on desktop.
If your signup process requires them to find a piece of information, such as a password or account number, your mobile conversion rates will drop.
On mobile, it may make sense to prioritize for something easier to complete. We have to find out which call to action to optimize for. For example, we may find that the best option is optimizing for collecting emails.
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