Plugins / Sticky CTA Button / Documentation

Sticky CTA Button

Applies to Free 2.3 and Pro 1.3.0. Updated Sep 8, 2026. 16 min read

This manual covers the free plugin from wordpress.org and the Pro plugin from desk9design.com and CodeCanyon: global settings, CTA profiles with click actions, targeting, audience, schedule and A/B tests, statistics, inline buttons, import and export, licensing and updates. Pro-only parts are marked.

1. Overview

Sticky CTA Button shows floating call-to-action buttons that stay on screen while people read, and turns them into a full-width action bar on phones. The free plugin covers one button pair for the whole site. Pro adds CTA profiles: complete button sets with rules for where, when and to whom they show, eight click actions, click statistics, A/B tests, WooCommerce actions, inline placement and import/export.

Pro replaces Free. When you activate Pro, your free settings become the default profile and keep showing on every page without a matching profile. The Pro plugin is sold on desk9design.com with a license key and updates inside WordPress, and on CodeCanyon with updates through Envato. Sections that differ are marked.

	Free	Pro
Buttons per set	2	up to 5
Click actions	Open a link	8: link, call, WhatsApp, email, scroll, coupon, add to cart, cart
CTA profiles with targeting	no	yes
Display triggers	always, after 100 px	plus scroll depth, delay, element, exit intent, hide at footer
Schedule, audience, A/B test	no	yes
Statistics	no	views, clicks, CTR, 30 days, no cookies
Dismiss button, animations, gradients, badges, tooltips, custom CSS	no	yes
Block and shortcode, import/export	no	yes
Admin	Settings > Sticky CTA	own menu “Sticky CTA Button”

2. Requirements

WordPress	6.0 or newer (tested up to 7.1)
PHP	7.4 or newer
WooCommerce	optional; only the two cart actions need it
Theme	none; works with any theme, block or classic
External services	none: no icon fonts, no jQuery on the front end, no third-party requests

3. Installation and upgrade from Free

Upgrading from the free plugin

Keep the free plugin active while you install Pro, then deactivate it. All your settings are kept and used by Pro automatically; they become your default profile. Nothing to export or import.

Warning: do not run both plugins at the same time. While the free plugin is active, Pro pauses itself and shows a notice. Deactivate Free, then delete it.

4. Quick start

5. Global settings (the default profile)

The Settings page has five tabs. Everything here applies to the default profile and, unless a profile overrides it, to every profile’s layout.

Tab	Options
Buttons	Primary and secondary button: text, icon (icon grid with No Icon, Own Image from the media library, emoji icons, single-color icons), link, target, background and text color, live preview. Back-to-top button with arrow icons.
Position & Layout	Eight positions, Display Behavior (see below), Hide at Footer, vertical or horizontal grouping, button order, offsets.
Mobile Bar	Enable, bar position top or bottom, bar background color (slightly translucent with blur), Bar Style (icon next to label, or icon above label like an app tab bar, best with 4-5 buttons), breakpoint 768, 1024 or 1280 px. The bar respects the iPhone safe area; back-to-top floats above it.
Styling	Rounded corners and radius, Attention Animation (none, pulse, bounce, shake) with repeat interval (off for visitors who prefer reduced motion), Dismiss Button with “Stay Hidden For” in days (localStorage, no cookies), Custom CSS.
Statistics	Collect Statistics on or off. See section 12.

Display Behavior

Always	the buttons are visible from the first pixel
Show after scrolling (100 px)	the classic behavior; on pages too short to scroll they appear immediately
Show at scroll depth (%)	for example after 25 percent of the page
Show after a time delay	for example 5 seconds after the page loads
Show after scrolling past an element	a CSS selector such as .hero; the buttons appear once the visitor scrolled past it
Show on exit intent	when the mouse moves toward the browser bar; touch devices fall back to 50 percent scroll depth

Hide at Footer hides the buttons while the footer is on screen so they never cover footer content. Useful selectors for Custom CSS: .wp-sticky-cluster, .wp-sticky-cta, .wp-sticky-cta-1 to .wp-sticky-cta-5, .wp-sticky-back-to-top, .wp-sticky-badge.

6. CTA profiles (Pro)

A profile is a complete button set of its own: up to five buttons, each with text, icon, colors and click action, plus the rules that decide where the profile appears. Without a rule a profile stays inactive.

7. Click actions (Pro)

Action	What it does
Open a link (URL)	A classic link, same or new window. The only action in the free plugin.
Call a phone number	Starts a call via tel:, ideal on phones.
Start a WhatsApp chat	Opens WhatsApp with your number and an optional prefilled message. Number in international format without + or spaces, for example 49123456789.
Write an email	Opens the visitor’s mail app with your address and an optional subject.
Scroll to a section (anchor)	Smoothly scrolls to an element ID on the page, for example #pricing.
Copy a coupon code	Copies the code to the clipboard and shows “Copied!” for a moment.
WooCommerce: add product to cart	Adds the current product page’s product, or a fixed product ID, to the cart and opens the cart. Shown only while WooCommerce is active.
WooCommerce: go to cart (with count badge)	Links to the cart; the badge shows the live item count.

8. Targeting and priority (Pro)

A profile shows when any of its rules matches the current page:

Entire website	everywhere, for a site-wide campaign profile
Special pages	front page, blog page, archives, search results, 404
Post types	all pages, all posts, all products, and so on
Specific posts/pages	comma-separated IDs
URL patterns (one per line, * as wildcard)	for example /shop/*

When several profiles match, the most specific one wins: page IDs beat URL patterns, which beat post types, which beat special pages, which beat “entire website”. If two profiles are equally specific, the lower Priority number wins.

Hiding buttons: tick Hide all buttons where this profile matches to use a profile as a “no buttons here” rule, for example on a checkout or landing page.

9. Audience and A/B tests (Pro)

Audience	Options
Login status	everyone, logged-in users only (optionally specific roles), or logged-out visitors only
Device	all devices, mobile devices only, desktop only. Decided on the server; see the caching note.
Languages	comma-separated language codes, empty means all. Works with WPML, Polylang or the site language.

A/B Test: pick a partner profile under “Show this variant to 50% of views instead”. Half of the views get the partner instead of this profile; the partner’s own rules are ignored. Compare views, clicks and CTR of both under Statistics, then keep the winner.

Note: full-page caching plugins cache one rendered page. Device targeting and the A/B split are decided on the server, so a cached page can pin one variant until the cache expires.

10. Schedule (Pro)

Date range	for example a sale week; outside the range the profile is skipped
Weekdays	tick the days; no weekday checked means every day
Daily time window	for example 09:00 to 18:00 for a “Call now” button during business hours; windows across midnight such as 20:00 to 06:00 work too

All times use your WordPress timezone from Settings > General. Outside the schedule, the next matching profile or the default profile shows instead. A caching plugin can delay a scheduled change until its cache expires.

11. Per-page override (Pro)

Every page and post has a small Sticky CTA Button box in the editor sidebar with three choices: Automatic (targeting rules), Hide buttons on this page, or a specific profile that shows on this page regardless of any rules.

12. Statistics and privacy (Pro)

Sticky CTA Button > Statistics shows the last 30 days per profile: views, clicks per button (1 to 5), back-to-top clicks, total clicks and the click-through rate (CTR). Inline buttons from the block or shortcode count the same way.

What is stored	aggregated daily totals per profile and metric in a table on your own site: date, profile, metric, count. No IP addresses, no user agents, no visitor IDs.
Cookies	none. No consent-banner entry is needed for the statistics.
Administrators	logged-in administrators are never counted, so your own testing does not distort the numbers.
Switching off	Settings > Statistics > Collect Statistics. When off, the browser sends no events and the server rejects any. Existing data stays visible.
Third parties	nothing is sent anywhere. There is no Google Analytics or other integration.

13. Inline buttons: block and shortcode (Pro)

Place a profile’s buttons inside your content, with the same look and the same statistics: add the CTA Buttons block and pick a profile, or use the shortcode with the profile ID from the profile list.

[scb_buttons profile="123"]

14. Import and export (Pro)

Sticky CTA Button > Import/Export downloads all profiles and the global settings as one JSON file with Download Export File. Use it as a backup or to copy a setup to another site.

Importing always creates new profiles and never touches existing ones. Tick Also overwrite the global settings with the imported ones if you want the global settings replaced too. A/B partner links are dropped on import; set them again on the new site.

15. License and updates (desk9design.com edition)

The Pro plugin from desk9design.com receives updates inside WordPress through your license key. Without an active license the plugin keeps working with every feature; only automatic updates in the WordPress dashboard are unavailable. The CodeCanyon edition has no License page and updates through Envato.

Deactivate on this site frees the slot so you can use the key on another site. Update checks run every 12 hours and when you activate or deactivate; a just-published release can take up to that long to appear, and “Check again” on the Updates screen forces it.

Note: an update check sends the product slug, your license key, this site’s address and the installed version to desk9design.com. No visitor data is transmitted. An expired key stops updates, never the plugin; renew from your account to receive updates again.

16. Staging and moving sites

Development environments never count against your site limit. Anything on localhost, a .test, .local or .dev domain, or a subdomain starting with staging. or dev. activates as a free slot: same key, full functionality.

Licenses are not locked to a domain forever. Click Deactivate on this site on the old site, or deactivate it next to the subscription in your account, then activate the key on the new site. This takes under a minute and never requires a support ticket. Site swaps do not change your renewal date.

Profiles, settings and statistics live in the database and move with a normal site migration. To copy only the buttons to another site, use Import/Export.

17. Troubleshooting and FAQ

18. Uninstall

Before uninstalling the desk9design.com edition, click Deactivate on this site under Sticky CTA Button > License so the site slot frees up for another site.

Deleting the Pro plugin removes its settings unless the free plugin is still installed; then the settings stay for the free plugin to use. Profiles are stored as their own content type and stay in the database until you delete them under CTA Profiles. Export first if you might come back.

Changelog

1.3.0	Statistics can be switched on and off in the settings (new Statistics tab). Enforced in the browser and on the server; existing data is kept.
1.2.0	The profile editor uses the same visual icon picker as the settings page.
1.1.1	Own top-level admin menu with Settings, CTA Profiles, Statistics, Import/Export and License. Fix: admin styles did not load on the settings screen.
1.1.0	Display triggers (scroll depth, delay, element, exit intent), hide at footer, dismiss button, attention animations, gradients, badges, tooltips, custom CSS, five buttons, mobile bar icon style, audience targeting, WooCommerce actions, A/B testing, block and shortcode, import/export.
1.0.0	Initial Pro release: CTA profiles with targeting, scheduling, click statistics, per-page override and all features of the free version.