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Learn more about contrast in our conversion-focused design blog post.
Types of calls to action
In general, every email you send should have a primary goal. But what if you have more than one CTA?
Primary CTAs
Your primary CTA is the main action you want your subscriber to take. It should be the most noticeable thing in your email and designed to stand out.
Source: Litmus' Email Design Basics
One of the most important ways to make your primary CTA stand out is to use whitespace: spaces that are not interrupted by other elements.
In addition to whitespace, you can make your primary CTA stand out with:
- Make your primary CTA a button
- Make your button a different color than the other design elements
- Use of typography, e.g. E.g. larger or bolder text
You want your primary CTA to be seen quickly too. A good way to ensure this is to place your most important CTA early in the email. While some may argue that this fold doesn't exist on mobile, you should place your primary CTA at the top of your campaign accounts for readers who are unlikely to scroll.
Secondary CTAs
After the primary CTAs, any additional actions you want your subscriber to take are secondary CTAs. These should be styled less dominantly.
Designing your primary and secondary CTAs differently will prevent them from competing with each other. To achieve this, you can still offer a button but opt for a muted style, such as: E.g. a not so bold color or a white button with a colored border as shown below.
Here are some examples:
Source: Litmus' Email Design Basics
You can also simply offer a designed text link, which we'll cover in the next section.
Design CTAs
There are several ways to design your CTAs to stand out in your designs. Below are some methods to help subscribers more clearly identify your CTAs, whether they are primary or secondary.
Styled text links
Designers typically don't have the same level of control over text links as they do over images and buttons. Design techniques – such as adjusting the size of a link within a text block or increasing the space around text links – are not as effective and can affect the design of the email. Therefore, color and font weight are the most important tools when dealing with text links.
For a styled text link to be effective, you should consider two things: 1) the text should be a different color than the primary copy and 2) it should be underlined. This helps subscribers recognize it as a clickable element, which helps them take action.
Compare the two blocks of text below: By stylizing it with a bold font weight and color, the Foundations of Email Design-style text link stands out more as a clickable element.
To make your link stand out more, you can also add a rollover effect, which we'll cover next.
Rollover effect
A rollover effect is a visual effect that helps highlight when an element is clickable. These can be applied to text links, buttons and images.
For text links, a color change or stylization of the text can be used as rollover effects. In the example below, the underline disappears upon rollover.
See the full email in action
Buttons change colors when rolled over. In this example from our newsletter you can see that a more muted color combination is used as a rollover effect.
See the full email in action
Want to see more rollover effects in action? Check out our newsletter in action and hover over the buttons, links and images.
Bulletproof buttons
Bulletproof buttons are CTA buttons that are created with code instead of images. Using code alone will cause the button to appear in all email clients even if images are disabled, making it “bulletproof.”
Source: Guide to Bulletproof Email Buttons from Litmus
Bulletproof buttons consist of live text designed to look like image-based buttons. They are the best way for designers to use button CTAs in their emails. However, not everyone is able (or willing) to dive into VML code. That's why we've created our step-by-step guide to bulletproof buttons in email, which covers everything you need to know – including code.
How many CTAs are too many?
A strong point of contention among designers is how many calls to action should be included in an email. Retailers generally offer dozens of CTAs, the theory being that at least one of them will be of interest to a subscriber. However, many marketers like to focus on one or two CTAs to make them more meaningful to subscribers.
Which of the following call-to-action email examples works best?
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