'Make Money Flipping Websites' vs 'Join Us': +33.1% CTA clicks
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsEmpire Flippers changed its sidebar button text from "Join Us" to "Make Money Flipping Websites" and click-through rate rose from 2.88% to 3.84%, a 33.1% lift.
Empire Flippers, a marketplace for buying and selling websites, ran the test across several pages of its site.
It was published as a VWO case study.
- CTA click-through rate: 2.88% to 3.84%, a 33.1% relative lift.
- Reported confidence: 96%.
- This measures button clicks, not completed accounts, so the effect on sign-ups is unknown.
The change
The sidebar button changes from 'Join Us' to a benefit-led line.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
A sidebar on the right collected leads and pointed visitors to account creation. Its green button read "Join Us".
Variant
The same button read "Make Money Flipping Websites". Nothing else changed.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- "Join Us" says what to do but not why. The new copy names the payoff, which answers what the visitor gets.
- Visitors to a website marketplace are often there to make money. Copy that names that goal matches their intent.
- A specific button stands out more than a generic one that visitors see everywhere.
Caveats: The metric is clicks, not completed accounts. No sample size or duration was shared, the case study is vendor-published, and it dates from around 2019.
Who ran it
Empire Flippers ran this test for marketplace broker for buying and selling websites and published the results (VWO case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on Empire Flippers →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we change a generic CTA like "Join Us" to copy that names the outcome visitors want, then more will click because the benefit of clicking is clear.
- Primary metric
- CTA click-through rate
- Guardrails
- Completed sign-ups or accounts
- Lead quality
- Bounce rate on the next page
- Who should test it
- Marketplaces, SaaS and lead-gen sites using generic CTAs like "Join", "Sign up" or "Submit" where visitors share a clear goal. It matters less if your CTA already states the benefit.
Questions
Does button text really change click-through rate?
It can. Here, swapping "Join Us" for "Make Money Flipping Websites" lifted clicks by 33.1% at 96% confidence.
Should CTA copy describe the action or the benefit?
Benefit-led copy often works when the action alone doesn't say what the visitor gets.
Test it, and track completed sign-ups, not just clicks.