CTA Intent - Complete the present task or proceed to future task?

Question

I want to understand the real motive of CTA. Call-to-action, as it abbreviates, is it the action to be performed based on the present context or is it based on the future action that will have to be performed?

For e.g. I am on a product confirmation page and next page is the payment page. What should be the CTA on the confirmation page/Which would be a more appropriate CTA? Confirm or Make Payment

If in case of Make Payment, what should be the CTA on payment page?

Edit: I am in an organization that helps its users to set up "Systematic Investment Plans(SIP)". When they have input their investment amount, investment duration and the fund to invest in, the next step will be payment. In this case, which would be more appropriate CTA, Setup SIP or Proceed to Payment?

Answer 1

A call to action is often used to get a user to commit to a particular path, oftentimes a conversion or sale. (Proceeding to a future task; i.e. a Sales Funnel)

They are often spoken of in the context of marketing & sales.

For instance, on a homepage for a product:

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The example you refer to sounds like it's inside of a process (flow) they've committed to from a previous link or button.

Do you have a step through with descriptive headers showing the steps? In that case the user can see if they are on the last step, with the final button the action to complete (the submission of the form).

'Confirm' can be a confusing term. I'm not sure what your domain is, but you can be more explicit on the final step where once they push the button, their card will be charged: in your case Make Payment or Place Order is an explicit final action.

That final action is crucial, but CTA's are often referred to as the Action (button or link) that set them into this process you're describing.