Links or Buttons? What Really Gets Sales

Should you use buttons or text links in your emails? That question has been debated in marketing circles for years, and I’ve tested both more times than I can count. In this episode, I’ll share what I discovered after sending thousands of email campaigns, you’ll learn why one tiny detail can make or break your conversions, and why the best-performing emails often look the simplest.

[0:27]
I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world, and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best-selling book, The List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire, at www.igorsbook.com. Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Visit www.igorsbook.com for details. And now it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle.

[1:14]
Tested this several times on several different occasions, and I’ve tested not only the use of Link versus a button.

But I’ve also tested the uses of links and buttons, like up top, at the bottom, in the middle. As well as testing, like, how many of these do you use throughout the email?

As in, like, at one point I was putting a link at the very top, I was putting one in the middle, I was putting one at the very end of the email as well.

What I found out is that my best results in terms of sales, specifically for sales, I didn’t try to measure clicks, because I’m not trying to optimize for clicks. I’ll share with you in a moment why.

What I’ve seen is that the most sales I make are when I use multiple calls to action throughout my email, and for these calls to action to be contextual hyperlinks.

So; what I mean by that is, you know how you when you read an article on the internet, some words appear highlighted like that, right? And you can click on them, and it opens a different like article or something, right? Well, that’s the best approach that I found as far as my emails go.

So, most calls to action will be contextual, where people will be reading the email, and for them to even see like or to understand what the call to action is about, they have to actually read the email, or at least read the paragraph where the link is included, right?

And then at the end, I will also have a link with the direct call to action, saying, “go visit this page to find out”. Or I’ll say something like, “sign up for the webinar here”. “Go watch this video”, or “go read this page”, or “go claim your discount”, and so on and so forth.

So I’ll have several contextual links in my email, and then I will have a direct call to action at the very end.

[3:16]
Now, I’ll tell you, there’s no like ideal and the most correct school of thought when it comes to calls to action, different people do it differently.

For example, my friend Perry Marshall, he kind of puts a little like a mini ad at the very top of the email before the email actually begins. I’m assuming it’s because he understands that people are busy, and oftentimes they’ll open the email without actually reading the email, that happens as well.

But for me, I’ll launch into the email, I’ll tell a story or whatever, and I’ll just have contextual calls to action, and I’ll have a direct call to action at the very end, I always finish the email with the call to action.

I will also, if I do decide to have a PS in my email, that PS will also have a call to action. So the last thing that I want them to do when they’re done with the email is to click that link.

But I did not see an increase in click-through rates just because I replaced my links with my buttons. That did not happen, okay?

[4:23]

Now, why do I not optimize my stuff for clicks, but I optimize for sales? Well, because for many years, I actually did optimize my emails for clicks, and that meant that I was looking for all kinds of different ways to get people to click.

And what happened was, I ended up kind of pushing the envelope a lot, and to a point where the click became almost like a metric for success. And that resulted in me trying different tricks to get them to click on that link.

But when you trick people to click into something, they don’t have the same intent when it comes to perhaps wanting to buy your product. So what happens is you kind of end up having lots of clicks, but less earning per click, the metric I mentioned earlier today.

So instead, I decided to optimize for sales, and that meant that my email content is there to pre-qualify people, to overcome objections, to express different angles and ideas that make people take a different look at something they might have seen before.

And to really re-engage them with a fresh, new, controversial, sometimes contrarian, even perspective about the thing that they thought that they knew very well.

[5:20]
And so, sometimes emails are just reminders too, like if I’m launching something, or if I’m promoting something, about 30% of those emails are not there to do anything other than remind them that there’s still time to buy . . very, very simple.

And that came as a result of us realizing that most people kind of drag their feet, and they keep procrastinating and procrastinating and procrastinating until they finally pull the trigger.

And so, sometimes you have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and reminding and reminding and reminding until finally they get along with the program.

So yeah, don’t optimize for clicks, for one, don’t optimize for clicks, optimize for sales, so shift your focus from getting the most clicks I can possibly get from this list to actually getting those sales.

[6:53]
Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle. Get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, remember to claim your free copy of my best-selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list buildings starting from scratch, plus I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files, and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com now to claim your free package!