The most impactful messages on the web influence people to act. Whether you are inviting people to submit prayer requests or attend a service, call to action messages trigger website visitors to act with a specific response. Using calls to action or CTAs is vitally important to lead people to engage with your church.
There are many examples of CTAs, so we created a website to demonstrate the impact calls to action have on web conversion rates.
What is a Church Call to Action and Why is it Important?
Calls to action are words or phrases used in marketing that influence website viewers to respond in specific ways. Almost every website you visit uses CTAs. For example, the phrases “Buy Now!” and “Sign Up Today!” function as common calls to action that invite users to respond.
Websites without CTAs lack clarity, but implementing a CTA can help focus your content, provide direction, and encourage a specific response. When the purpose of your webpage is to increase enrollment, solicit emails, gain members, and more, calls to action are one of the most effective ways to drive the results you desire. CTAs are important for your church website, because they help define and support the mission of your church as they eliminate confusion and help you reach your conversion goals.
Church Conversion Goals
Google Analytics is how You Measure Progress
Calls to action are words or phrases used in marketing that influence website viewers to respond in specific ways. Almost every website you visit uses CTAs. For example, the phrases “Buy Now!” and “Sign Up Today!” function as common calls to action that invite users to respond.
For more complex “event driven” goals (such as a button click or form submission), Google Analytics needs to be provided notice that the interaction has occurred on your website. Google Tag Manager (GTM) can help you define events and their triggers without requiring you to write any code - though a moderate level of technical understanding is necessary. Alternatively, if you have a web development skill set, adding Javascript to your church website directly will also allow you to send events to Google Analytics.
Google Tag Manager for Tracking User Interactions
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free service that makes managing small snippets of website code easy. While GTM can be leveraged for many different purposes, one popular use case is to create tags that send data to Google Analytics about specific actions a user has taken on a website.
Engagement Benchmarks
for Churches
Basic Engagement
Benchmarks to Consider
Homepage “above the fold” CTA conversion rate for new users
Your church homepage probably has one or more well-defined calls to action present in its above the fold content intended for new users, such as “Plan a Visit”, “Watch a Message” or others. (If you don’t, you should!)
The “above the fold” content on your church homepage is the most valuable real estate on your entire website. Thus, it’s critical to ensure that whatever calls to action are located here represent your most desired user actions and serve as your highest converting CTAs.
When filtering Google Analytics traffic for new users who have visited your homepage (thus ignoring repeat visitors to your website who likely already belong to your church), you should expect conversion rates of roughly ten to fifteen percent for these “above the fold” calls to action combined.
New users who reach your “Plan a Visit” page
One of the simplest goals you can establish in Google Analytics is to track users who are looking for a church. Whether this page is titled “Plan a Visit”, “I’m New”, or something else entirely, you might expect five to fifteen percent of new users reaching your website to end up at this destination.
If your conversion rate is below five percent, perhaps you need a more prominent call to action to point users in this direction!
Church homepage bounce rate
The bounce rate metric reported by Google Analytics is the highest level metric regarding user engagement on your website, but is also easily misunderstood. First and foremost, we’d recommend always assessing bounce rate on a “page by page” basis. Looking at the “site wide” bounce rate reported for your church website on the Google Analytics main dashboard can frequently be extremely misleading.
A bounce rate of 40 to 70 percent for users landing on your church homepage should be considered reasonable depending on your traffic sources. If your bounce rate is higher than 70 percent, it’s likely that there is significant room for improvement with respect to the calls to action on your homepage, and perhaps your user experience as a whole.
If your homepage bounce rate is reported at lower than 30 percent or higher than 90 percent, this is an indicator that there may be a problem with your Google Analytics integration, resulting in invalid data.
Call to Action Research
In addition to the call to action examples we created, we also researched how the 100 fastest growing churches use calls-to-action. By investigating the 100 fastest growing churches, we were able to compile useful information regarding:
- Ideas for strong calls to action
- Links to examples of strong calls to action
- Screenshots of strong forms
The call to action examples we compiled vary greatly, and can be used to promote online church streams, small group sign-ups, giving, volunteering, and more.
| Contact a Pastor | View Page |
| Find Support | View Page |
| Follow Jesus | View Page |
| Get Emotional Support | View Page |
| Request a Prayer | View Page |
| Request a Funeral Service | View Page |
| Learn More About Children's Ministries | View Page |
| Learn More About Adult Ministries | View Page |
| Learn More About Small Groups | View Page |
| Pre-Register Children | View Page |
| Give | View Page |
| Volunteer/Serve | View Page |
| Attend Classes | View Page |
| Get Baptized | View Page |
| Next Steps | View Page |
| Attend Christmas | View Page |
| Attend Easter | View Page |
| Attend Events | View Page |
| Visit | View Page |
| Watch | View Page |