What Can a Facebook Call-to-Action Button Do for Your Business?

According to a recent report issued by the social media management firm Shareaholic, nearly 25 percent of all referral traffic on the Web is driven by Facebook; this has staggering implications for businesses in terms of increasing ROI using the world’s largest social network. Performing simple website revisions such as adding a Facebook “Like” button to product pages or requiring users to log in via Facebook has enabled companies such as American Eagle, Levi’s and Tea Collection to realize double-digit increases in sales and referral traffic. In a move that has added even more fuel to the fire, Facebook just recently introduced call-to-action buttons for online advertisers. So how can this new tool benefit your business?

According to Facebook’s own literature, the call-to-action button was designed to “link to any destination on or off Facebook that aligns with a business’s goals.” By adding a call-to-action button to your Facebook page and advertisements, you can dramatically increase the number of leads coming to your website, and create a highly effective channel by which to measure ROI. Below are some of the basic benefits of this new feature:

• The Facebook call-to-action button helps you specify what type of action you want your audience to take. Facebook provides you with five button text options to choose from: Shop Now, Sign Up, Download, Book Now or Learn More. This offers your audience a precise course of suggested action, so that there will be no mystery as to what they’ll be doing once they visit your site. This targeted approach will decrease your website’s bounce rate and increase conversions. 

• Facebook gives you plenty of clickable space for your website link. When you place a call-to-action button on your Facebook Page or advertisement, the image, text box and call-to-action button are all clickable, which adds greater convenience to the user experience, and secures more opportunities for you to get the click.

• You can add a call-to-action button to your company’s Facebook Page, or on your advertisements that will be displayed in Facebook’s News Feed. Keep in mind that you’ll have slightly more button text options for Facebook Pages than for News Feed ads; the additional button text options for Pages also include Contact Us, Use App, Play Game , and Watch Video.

• A call-to-action button will super-charge your click-through rates. Numerous user behavior tests have shown that people are more likely to click through to a website when they’ve been prompted to do so. You can also experiment with different button text options and landing pages to determine which ones garner the most clicks.

• This new feature allows marketers to reserve valuable space in their thumbnail image for something other than call-to-action text. In the past, many businesses would find their ads being rejected by Facebook’s review team because of a perceived violation of the “20 percent text rule,” which basically states that an image in a News Feed ad cannot be comprised of more than 20 percent text. The call-to-action button takes the pressure off marketers in this area, allowing them to utilize that valuable real estate to display other messages.

• Facebook can detect which destination URL will be the best for the particular call-to-action button text you choose, but you also have the option of manually editing your destination URLs to fit your specifications. 

The “Sign Up” button text alone can be a gold mine in terms of new lead acquisition. Using this particular call-to-action, your prospects will already be aware that they’re to provide their contact information on your landing page, which means fewer contact form abandonment rates.

As with any other new feature that Facebook rolls out, it’s a good idea to approach the call-to-action button with a cautious optimism, because the social network is still somewhat in the beginning stages of making this feature available. If history is any indication, Facebook may engage in more testing and tweaking before we see the final iteration of this new tool. For the time being, however, it is entirely worth it to develop specific marketing strategies for your business that involve the use of the call-to-action button. As scores of other companies have experienced, you may encounter surprising results.