increase email click through

3 Tips for Increasing Email Click-Through Rate

Here are our best tips on increasing your email click-through rate.

There’s no question that email marketing is essential to the success of any business. In today’s marketing world, an effective email marketing strategy isn’t optional: it’s a must-have.

Maybe you started out as a lot of beginning digital marketers do. You did a little bit of research about how to effectively market via email, and some of the major do’s and don’ts involved. From there, you set up your first email campaign, and blasted it out to your list of recipients.

Getting some kind of strategy in place is an important first step. From there, though, you have to refine what you’re doing if you’re going to compete effectively with other businesses in your industry or niche.

email marketing tips

Upping your email click-through rate: short guide

You may already be familiar with how to increase the likelihood of landing emails in your customers’ inboxes, and how to increase the open rate of your emails.

However, once your customers have opened your emails, you want them to actually click through to whatever link you’ve included, right?

So, while increasing your open rate is important, upping your email click-through rate is just as essential to the success of your marketing efforts.

We’ve put together this list of our top 3 tips for increasing your email click-through rate. Ready to learn more? Read on.

woman sending email campaign

Understand what a good email click-through rate looks like

We get it: you’d love for your click-through rate to be 100%. Wouldn’t we all? Unfortunately, that’s not exactly practical.

Knowing what an average rate actually looks like, though, is important to increasing whatever your current rate is. Why? Well, if you don’t know what “normal” is, it’s hard to set realistic goals. Once you have a benchmark to work with, you can begin working on increasing your current rate.

Click-through rates can vary somewhat by industry, ranging anywhere from 1.25% to 5.13% in a recent MailChimp survey. It’s best to compare yourself to other emails in your particular industry, using the link above.

However, as a rule of thumb, something around 3% is a good baseline. If you’re already seeing click-throughs hovering at that level, you’re likely performing similarly to others in your sector.

Now, let’s up that number!

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Make good use of preview text

According to a recent study by the Radicati group, the average email user receives as many as 88 emails per day. Just think about that: nearly a hundred emails in your customers’ inboxes, and you’re competing for that real estate. Unfortunately, that number is set to increase significantly in the coming years.

A good subject line can help increase your open rate. However, if prospects can’t immediately discern what the email is about, they’re unlikely to click-through via whatever link you happened to include.

Why?

Because they’ll likely lose interest before they ever arrive at that link, and click the “back” button instead.

A powerful tactic for encouraging a user to scroll down and click your link involves customizing your email’s preview text. This is the bit of text displayed after (or sometimes below) the subject line in your inbox, before you click on a message. Most email marketing platforms allow you to customize it.

By giving your customers a sneak preview of the offer contained in the email, they’ll know what to look for when they open it. And, they’ll be more likely to click on that offer once they find it.

boost click-through rates

Stick to a single call to action

Have you ever gotten an email that’s a bit… well… jumbled?

You start reading, and you think you’re following the email’s topic. There’s a link for you to click, and you hover over it for a moment. But then, below that, you see that there are other links, and they’re completely unrelated. In fact, the content of the email shifts just below the initial link you were about to click on.

You continue reading, and next thing you know, you’ve forgotten about the original call to action. After another minute, you decide the email is a bit overwhelming, and you close it altogether.

A lot of beginning email marketers make this mistake: they offer too many different calls to action in a single email. This confuses your prospects, and often results in the scenario above.

People are already faced with dozens (or even hundreds) of other emails each day. Don’t add to the noise: instead, cut through it by being clear and to the point. Write compelling sales copy that leads your customers to a single, clear call to action. 

Additionally, be sure to include a link to the same destination page more than once in the email: that way, the customer is given multiple opportunities to participate in the same offer, rather than being barraged with a variety of competing offers.

By having a benchmark rate in mind, using email preview text, and focusing on a single call to action, your click-through rates will increase in no time flat!

increasing email click rate

Ensure your email list is clean

Of course, no matter how effectively you manage to employ these techniques, it’s still important to ensure that your email list is clean and up to date.

An outdated list with undeliverable addresses is a recipe for disaster. In addition to working to increase your click-through rate, be sure to regularly clean your email list with a reputable email validation company. In combination with the above strategies, you’ll be well on your way to email marketing success.

This article was updated in September 2019.