CTA’s (Calls to action) are everywhere. They attack (see how I made the headline relevant?) our senses, and play trickery & mind games with our emotions. Which is one of the reasons that most people have a hate/hate relationship with marketing and advertising.

Next time you go for a walk, try to spend a little time in your customers shoes. Really read the messages you are confronted with, and see if you can learn a marketing lesson from that flashing neon sign you’d usually see as a giant pink pain in the a**.
This is exactly what I did. I took my camera and went walkabout on a random mission to find CTA’s in the real world. Trying to find a connection between the clutter we see every day and the work we do as online marketers.
Here’s what I found…
1. The Blatantly Obvious Directional Cue

What it teaches us
Despite the stupidity of wanting to be punched in the head, you can’t argue with the effectiveness of this call to action. Using shaving design, the fighter has used a blatantly obvious directional cue (the arrow) to get what he wants.
Verdict: WIN
2. Guerrilla Chalk Marketing

What it teaches us
Don’t forget the basics of matching supply with demand. In this case, a hot Sunday when liquor stores were closed created the demand. And some free – and very clever – guerrilla marketing, using just a couple of pieces of chalk, created a constant flow of new customers to a new supply of cold beer. To investigate further, I spent a few minutes in the store casually eavesdropping as I heard customer after customer delightedly explain how they “never knew this place even existed”.
The position of the message was equally important. People have been trained to stop and look down at instructions before they cross the street (as shown in the example below), so this chalk message was perfectly placed to garner attention.

Verdict: WIN
3. Sensory Overload

What it teaches us
Too many CTAs is a bad thing. The overwhelming clutter just makes you want walk on by. This is the real-world equivalent of how banner blindness came about.
Verdict: FAIL
4. The Segmentation CTA

What it teaches us
Clear directional cues don’t even need writing. Powerful iconography or imagery is all that’s needed to segment incoming traffic to this area. It’s important to note that segmentation at the point of arrival isn’t enough for a great conversion experience. You still need to design the environment for each segment as shown in the photo below – taken near the same spot as the signs above.

Verdict: WIN
5. Door Handle CTA


What it teaches us
This example highlights the importance of following established design standards, and making interactive devices behave as expected. In the online world, an example would be having text that’s underlined act as a link. It also teaches us that if you happen to make a construction error (like putting the doors on backwards), you should undo that error and start again, rather than just applying a band-aid solution (in this case – the conflicting written instructions).

Verdict: EPIC FAIL
6. The Double-Team Aerosmith Style Graffiti

What it teaches us
People sometimes miss things, through banner blindness or impatience or because they are on a long page and your CTA was “correctly” above the fold. The point to learn here is that you often need to repeat your call to action – especially on a long page – to make sure people see it and know what to do next.
Verdict: WIN
7. Parking Directions


What it teaches us
People can get lost of wander off without proper guidance. An online analogy would be comparing a homepage (which has many different points of interaction – leading to many user paths) to a landing page focused on a single purpose with a single clear call to action. To learn more about this concept, read “Can You Catch 4 Ping Pong Balls? – How Too Many Messages Can Kill Your Conversion Rate“.
Verdict: WIN
8. The Inferred-by-Design CTA

What it teaches us
This example teaches us two key (get it?) lessons. Firstly, design matters. Secondly, if you know who your product or service isn’t for, then making this obvious can help your bottom line by stopping people from clicking your ad (which costs you money). The photo below is an excellent example of this…

Verdict: WIN
9. The Just-In-Time Contextual CTA

What it teaches us
There is usually a very small window within which to capture your visitors’ attention, which makes it critical that you have the right message (and call to action) in the right place at the right time. Online this is analogous to placing ads where people have a need for your product or service (context). Going back to the photo, the just-in-time aspect is very obvious – if you need to pee in a hurry and don’t know where to go, you’ll do one of two things: pee in the alley, or go into the nearest open store to ask if you can use their facilities.
There’s also a trust factor to be explored here. In the context of the location described above, a tourist not knowing the area could feel intimidated to the point where they ignore the sign (and head for the nearest shiny mall). The sign below is a great example of how you can add a trust statement to encourage action.

Verdict: HALF-WIN
10. The Wasted CTA

What it teaches us
Never waste your ad space with a useless CTA. Online, you have the opportunity to test and refine your ads until they perform – don’t just set it and forget it.
Verdict: FAIL
Share Your CTA
Add a comment below with a call to action to your website, your business, or your idea… I dare you. (You’ll get free public hug on Twitter!)
Comments:
Rich Norton
I love the segmentation analogy of the walking and cycling sides of the path and the smooth/bumpy surface. What example would you give to use this principle within online marketing?
Oli Gardner
I’d draw an analogy to segmenting your inbound traffic – either by demographics for an email marketing campaign, or by inbound traffic channel (email, social, ppc etc.).
Then you would craft an experience unique to each segment or channel. So for instance, your PPC landing page would be very closely tied to the ad in order to get a high quality score (creating a matched experience for that segment) – whereas, you might take a completely different visual and communication angle for the target page of a social media campaign (with relevant social sharing tools and imagery).
Oli Gardner
Here’s a post that deals with this type of subject:
http://unbounce.com/landing-pages/how-to-use-traffic-segmentation-and-landing-pages-to-lift-your-conversion-rate/
Naomi Niles
Ha, this is awesome! It’s funny what you can find when you start looking for it. The door handle one reminds me of Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, one of my most favorite books ever.
Oli Gardner
That’s exactly what the guys in the office were talking about yesterday afternoon! Such a funny example – and yeah great book.
Bob
Excellent article. I think it’s easy to get caught up in trying to sell everything to everyone or show everything to everyone hoping something “sticks”. It causes overload and usually causes the person to click away from your site or tune out your message. I personally have run into the backwards door handle situation and it’s amazing how we are trained to act without thinking sometimes.
Angie Schottmuller
Awesome collection! The push/pull controversial directions drive me crazy. Whenever I encounter one of those it makes me think of the Prince song, “She walked in through the ‘out’ door, baby… She wore a raspberry beret!”
Oli Gardner
Yup, the fire hazard door jam example is a pure design #FAIL. Love your Prince (#symbol) reference – gold.
cafeトキワ荘 – カフェ看板を作る際に気をつけていること | カフェ開業ブログ
[…] 中目黒でも代官山でも、看板は頻繁に作り変えていきました。代官山カフェ「cafeトキワ荘」での看板の移り変わり その中でどういう意識を持って作っていたかというと、「いかに行動喚起されるような伝え方をするか」ということです。 もっというと、「入りたくなるような看板」を作ること。 英語では「行動喚起」のことを「Call To Action」、略してCTAというみたいですが、海外のブログとか見ていると結構CTAに関する記事があったりします。When CTA’s Attack! – 10 Real World Call To Action Examples | Unbounce この記事では世の中にあるCTAの例を沢山写真であげています。普段何気なく見ているものでも、参考になるものは沢山ありますね。 […]
Seymore Masters
Simple messages work the best. Its apparent that a single message works best and causes less confusion to the consumer. A cluttered website or ad is ineffective. A confused mind doesn’t buy, sales 101.
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[…] possibly my favorite. post. ever. When CTAs Attack – 10 Real World Call to Action Examples (That’s CTA for call-to-action, I didn’t misspell cat). Mix a bit of LOLcats meets FAIL […]
Liz
This is a great post and very true! I wish I had some clients that would benefit from the chalk on the pavement technique :) Far and away the most common CTA mistake I see is too many CTAs and no clear path to conversion- help your customer out!
Jennifer
I find #7 to be both a WIN and a semi-FAIL. Take a look at the number and direction of the yellow arrows on the sign, then take a look at the arrows on the ground. If I was a very linear thinker, the variation in the directions for the three arrows (sign and ground) might confuse the heck outta me and, as a result, cause a few near misses. #eeeeek
Oli Gardner
haha – yeah. It’s a bit of an optical illusion (from my camera angle) – when you stand right in front of it the arrows all align properly, but good point on the number of arrows – matching those up might be a good idea.
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Gary Taylor
Like the analogy, great post and nice examples
My favourite was the “No Public Washrooms or Telephones”
Cheers
Gary
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Xeoma Software
My favorite is #5. Door Handle CTA. Guerilla marketing teaches us to create something ‘out-of-the-box’, to break rules & be creative whereas there are some principles going against which may be a total failure. Risky but when it shoots, it shoots well
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[…] Эффективный СТА крайне важен, так как вы хотите, чтобы после прочтения вашей статьи читатели предприняли действие (и затем продолжили свой путь к намеченной вами цели конверсии). […]
Adam Beaumont
Excellent images here, love the reinforce ‘this way’ one in particular. Great way of explaining to customers what CTA means with images like this.
interior design choice
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