Red quote button beat blue, gray and green
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsA red quote button was a clear winner over blue, gray and green on Open Mile's freight lead page, though no figures were shared.
Open Mile, a freight brokerage startup, ran this A/B test, and it was published briefly as part of a VWO case study.
The red button was then kept in a later redesign.
- Leads: the red button was described as a clear winner over the other three colors. No lift figure was shared.
- Sample size, duration and confidence were not shared.
- The red button later appeared on a blue background in a redesign that lifted the lead rate from 3.95% to 13.11%.
The change
Only the quote button color changes, to red.
Simplified mockup drawn by LiftArchive from the shared screenshots.
Control
The quote CTA button was shown in blue, gray or green.
Variant
The same quote CTA button was shown in red.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- color matters mostly through contrast. A button that stands out from the page gets seen and clicked more.
- Red is not magic. On another page with a different palette, a different color may stand out more.
- A separate test on the same page found 'Get a Quote' beat 'Get Rates' and 'Get a Truckload Quote' as button copy.
Caveats: This earlier test is only mentioned briefly in the source, with no numbers, sample size or duration. The data is old.
Who ran it
Open Mile ran this test 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 Open Mile →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we change our main CTA button to the color with the most contrast against the page, then more visitors will request a quote because the button will be easier to spot.
- Primary metric
- Quote or lead form submissions
- Guardrails
- Clicks on other page links
- Lead quality
- Bounce rate
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen pages where the main button blends into the design. If your CTA already has strong contrast, a color change is unlikely to move much.
Questions
What is the best CTA button color?
There is no single best color. Open Mile's red won on its page, likely because it stood out, so test for contrast against your own design.
Is button color worth A/B testing?
It is cheap to test, but gains are usually small unless the button is hard to see. Headline and offer tests often matter more.
Seer Interactive