When should you use Call to action visible and clickable?
email-cta-button-visible · visual · recommended
When should you use this check?
Run this on any send with money attached to a click: an offer, a webinar registration, a cart recovery, a demo request. Buttons break per client and per width, which is exactly where a proof sent to one inbox does not look — so the value is in rendering the same message across the clients your list actually uses. Include it whenever a template's button style has changed, since button construction in email is fragile and a small CSS edit can collapse it in one client while looking perfect in the others.
When should you not?
Skip it on sends with no meaningful call to action — a plain-text-styled outreach message, a service notice, a receipt whose only links are functional. It is also not a judgement of whether the CTA is *persuasive* or well placed above the fold; it answers whether the button rendered and is visibly clickable. If the question is whether the destination works, that belongs to the link check rather than this one.
What does it inspect?
At least one call-to-action button must be visible and fully rendered at each selected viewport.
What does a failure mean?
A failure means the primary call to action was clipped, unrendered or not visibly clickable in the client and width captured. Read plainly: the campaign spent its budget reaching people who could not act on it, and the affected group is whichever slice of your audience uses that client at that width. Because the defect is client-specific, a failure alongside passes elsewhere is the normal shape of this finding and tells you where to look rather than casting doubt on the whole send.
What are the Standard defaults — and why?
This check has no tunable thresholds. It is a rendered visibility judgement about the call to action in the captured message — there is no number, list or pattern to configure, and the only levers are which clients and widths the job renders. Nothing about the standard varies by brand, so the check is entirely zero-configuration.
How does an agent call it?
{
"type": "email",
"validations": [
"email-cta-button-visible"
]
}
Who governs the Standard?
Schemafirst.org publishes community-governed standards for digital QA. ArbiterQA is a sponsor and commercial licensee of those standards; citation does not mean Schemafirst operates ArbiterQA.
Author ArbiterQA · Reviewed by ArbiterQA · 2026-08-14