What is an email click through rate and how can you increase it? Read on, and this blog will give you the answers you need to help you maximise the effectiveness of your email campaigns for marketing success!
Naturally, whenever you create and send an email campaign, your objective is to encourage as many recipients as possible to open your email and for them to interact with the content by clicking on the links it contains.
The email click through rate (often shortened simply to CTR) that's reported by your email marketing system tells you the level of recipient engagement with your email campaign and it is measured as a percentage of recipients who clicked on at least one of the links in your email.
What is a good click through rate? It varies between different sectors, but a good click through rate for email is generally considered to be between 2% and 5%. This level of engagement means that between 2% and 5% of the total email recipients clicked on a link, or links, within the email.
There are several simple things you can do to increase the number of people who click on the links in your email to view your services, offers and products. With professional email marketing software behind you, it’s really straightforward to do. The advantage of email marketing is that real-time campaign reporting allows you to instantly see what’s working and what to improve by checking the email click through rate across your campaigns.
Here are our tips to get you started:
1. Include a picture
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and a well-chosen image or graphic is far more eye-catching than a long piece of text. A picture can grab someone’s attention instantly, and convey so much more information (so much more swiftly), than text alone.
Make sure that it’s in focus, makes good use of the frame and correctly portrays what you have in mind. And, of course, don't forget to add your hyperlink so it takes the reader to the desired destination when they click on it!
2. Send at the best time
Make sure your email is more likely to be opened and acted upon by your subscribers by ensuring it lands in their inbox at the optimum time. The start of the work day, at around 9 or 9.15 am can be a good place to start, but you could try sending emails at different times of the day. Check your email marketing reporting feature to see what works best for your subscribers, including when they are most likely to engage with your campaigns by clicking on the content.
Smart Messenger allows you to schedule each email to be sent at the optimum time of day for the location of each recipient.
3. Create tailored offers
People won’t click on something that is of no interest to them, no matter how good the product or service is. You wouldn't advertise dog food to cat owners and the same applies to your email campaigns. Ensure you know your audience and segment your contact list according to their industry sector, geographical location or product interest - whatever criteria are most relevant to your campaign. Then tailor-make campaigns for each segment, creating content that's interesting and relevant, so they're more likely to engage with it by clicking on your links.
Smart Messenger allows you to have multiple contact lists and gives you access to powerful segmentation tools, so you can manage your different audiences easily and improve your all-important click through rate.
4. Include a ‘call to action’
A call to action (or CTA) is something within your email that prompts the recipient to take action. It's often an eye-catching graphic or button, but it could also be hyperlinked text. You may have a limited-time offer for customers, or be promoting tickets to an event. Whatever your proposition, ensure you follow the Four Cs, so that your call to action is Concise, Clear, Compelling and Clickable!
5. Make it relevant
Send the emails that your subscribers want to receive. Including information that doesn’t add to your brand or service will become irritating, even to loyal customers. People may become bored and delete your message, unsubscribe or even report your email as spam, which could damage your sender reputation. None of those options will improve your campaigns' click through rates!
6. Add a video
Video content is easy for recipients to engage with and including video can dramatically increase click-through rates. Why not give it a try to see if it works for you too? All Smartphones can shoot videos, and you don’t need to be an editing whizz to make something engaging and entertaining.
Video ideas could include a tour of your business, a demonstration of how to use a product or service, or a personal introduction to your account manager. Some people prefer reading instruction manuals but others find a video more helpful, so why not give them the choice and create both?
7. Make it personal
Smart Messenger’s email templates allow you to add your subscriber’s name and other personalised information to your campaigns. Tailoring your message to each person has been proven time and again to increase open rates and subsequent click-throughs.
Even though your campaign is being sent to many people, recipients will appreciate the personal touches you can add to your emails.
8. Include relevant testimonials
An unbiased testimonial can be priceless in establishing credibility and trust. Make sure to include specific benefits that are relevant to your recipient and use testimonials that your potential customers are likely to relate to. Get them thinking ‘hey, if it worked for them, it will probably work for me!’.
People are naturally more likely to trust a company if they have seen positive reviews that they recognise as genuine. Here's a link to one of our customer testimonials - from TaxAssist - as an example.
9. Use an attention-grabbing subject line
No matter how wonderful your email is, recipients won't click through if they never open it! People want to know that your email contains something of worth to them, so make your subject lines specific and enticing. Few people feel motivated to open an email that's entitled ‘Take a look at our company newsletter’.
Be direct, make sure you are reaching the people who are interested in the content of your email and aim to evoke curiosity or emotion.
12. Make absolutely sure your links work
Using an incorrect or broken link is an easy mistake to make and happens to the best of us. But even the most painstakingly written and well-designed email can look unprofessional if a link isn’t working. If you’re using a template to build your campaign, remember to check that each of your links is current. Good email marketing software will allow you to send a test email first (to yourself and colleagues) so you can spot and eliminate mistakes before you send the campaign.
And don’t be afraid to send more than one test message either!
11. Don’t forget your mobile users
Your carefully designed email can look vastly different depending on the device that's used to view it. If you are not optimising your emails for mobile, an email that looks perfect on a desktop or laptop could be a struggle for mobile users to navigate.
View your test emails on different devices to make sure your mobile recipients don't have to squint to read your email or struggle to click on links. You can also use the mobile device preview function on your email marketing software to get an idea of how your email will look.
12. Check your email click through rate
Smart Messenger has a full suite of email marketing reporting tools that allow you to check your click through rate per campaign and compare campaigns side by side. Keeping an eye on your reports gives you a valuable insight into what is effective for your audience and what isn’t. You can use this data to improve your email campaigns and enhance your click through rate.
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