This is called click-through rate (CTR). How challenging is it? According to Ascend2, 53% of email marketers struggle with low click-through rates. In this article, you will learn the techniques to optimize the click-through rate, helping you improve email effectiveness and increase conversion rates & ROI!
Here we go -
1. What is click-through rate?
Email CTR is calculated based on the number of clicks on at least one link in your email marketing campaign.
Calculation method: Number of clicked emails/Number of successfully delivered emails*100
According to the survey by Ascend2, email CTR is one of the most important email marketing metrics. 73% of marketers use click-through rates to measure the achievement of their email marketing campaigns.
2. What is the "good" click-through rate?
Curious, huh? The click-through rate has many variables, and the rate varies in different product categories, countries, and campaigns. Here are some data worth our reference.
First, let's look at the global average data: By 2021, the good average click-through rate for email marketing campaigns is 2.6%.
If we break down the click-through rate average by industries (according to the statistics of Campaign Monitor in 2022)
Based on the data average above, can you find the level of your email marketing? If your CTR is lower than 2.6%, check out the tips below to help you perform better! (You can get better if your stats are above average.)
3. Way to increase CTR effectively?
i. Make sure your links work
You may think keeping links effective is a basic common sense among email marketers. However, in the actual operation process, many senders still forget to check whether the links in the email exist and their validity. This will hinder recipients from jumping to the store webpage when they want to know more about the info they are interested in, leading to a waste of a conversion opportunity.
However, SmartPush users can save time checking URLs. Without additional setups, the store links will be auto-filled into non-linked blocks like Images or Buttons.
ii. Redesign email templates
If the CTR does not satisfy your expectation after excluding invalid links, you have to work on the email content.
An email is a form of text and visual communication. Good-looking banners, gimmicky promotional copywriting, eye-catching product displays, and brand tonality, all contribute to the CTR. Try the aspects below to make your email appeal visually attractive.
Provide compelling call-to-action (CTA)
CTA refers to optimizing the wording to attract recipients to click. For example, “SHOP NOW,” “Get Now,” etc.
You can consider these when setting up CTA:
- Location: In email marketing, the CTA should always be on the first page. The first page is where the recipient can find the CTA at first sight once they click the email, regardless of any device or screen size. In contrast, it will be difficult for recipients to find and click if the CTA is placed within the content or at the email bottom.
- Keep the CTA text precise and concise. Common marketing emails CTA includes straightforward action texts: SHOP NOW, GET NOW, DON'T MISS OUT, etc., and benefit attractions: UP TO 50 OFF! BUY 1 GET 2, Shop Black Friday, etc.
- Bright colors: In most cases, the color of the CTA should be determined by the email's overall color and the brand's color. Usually, email marketers will set the color of the CTA to match the brand color. Data also shows higher success rates with brighter colors like orange or red.
- Just place 2-3 CTAs: Experiments have shown that it's prone to cause a paradox of choice if we insert too many CTAs in emails. In other words - too many options lead us to do nothing.
Change email subject and content
Marketers send emails to generate higher sales, so most senders introduce marketing activities and promote products directly in the actual sending process. Recipients might feel fatigued seeing over-dense or too many similar marketing emails. When the click-through rate is weak, we can check whether the subject and content of recent emails are too similar. Meanwhile, we can get more inspiration from SmartPush's massive template library.
Set incentives
Discounts will definitely attract more clicks and conversions. The SmartPush editor provides a promotional Discount block that syncs with the discount codes you set up in the SHOPLINE Admin. Customers will jump to the pop-up window of the store and can place orders seamlessly.
Social sharing icons
Research from GetResponse found that emails with social sharing buttons have a higher click-through rate than emails that don't. Emails without social sharing icons had an average click-through rate of 2.4%. After including social sharing icons, the average CTR becomes 6.2%, which is a 158% increase! Learning from this experiment, remember to add your social media icons using the SmartPush Social Media block.
Data feedback from email heatmaps
Each email task of SmartPush provides an "email heatmap" data report. You can instantly learn where the customer clicked on the email with the heatmap. This means that the particular location of the email draws customers’ strong interest. Pay more attention to the spots they click the most to optimize the email content in the long run.
iii. Pay attention to the open rate indicator of the previous step
In addition to optimizing the email and visual content, the open rate also affects the click-through rate.
If you see a high open rate ⬆️ but a low click-through rate ⬇️, it means your email title and sending strategy is fine, but there are rooms to brush up on the email content.
If you see that the open rate is lower than the normal level ⬇️ while the click-through rate is high⬆️, it infers that you are delivering high-quality content to your recipients yet need to improve your open rate.
4. Adjust sending time and email audience (segments)
The sending time and the sending audience will affect both the open rate and the click-through rate, while the click-through rate is deeper funnel behavior. However, the factors of sending time and sending audience are often ignored when troubleshooting the reasons for the dissatisfactory click-through rate. To increase the click-through rate, you might as well analyze these two aspects - Did you select the prime time to send? Is the email content unsuitable for the segment, resulting in a poor click-through rate? Wanna analyze and optimize the email from these two dimensions? Check out this article for more details.
Are you ready to learn the skills above and make a breakthrough in your CTR?
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