How to increase the CTR of your email marketing strategy

Email marketing is one of the most important strategies of a Digital Marketing plan. 

According to a survey made by MarketingSherpa, more than 70% of consumers prefer to communicate through this channel with companies and brands.

Therefore, it is crucial to create effective actions to increase your email marketing CTR (click-through rate). 

After all, one of the great benefits of Digital Marketing is the possibility of monitoring the performance of your campaigns in real-time.

And with so many metrics to monitor in your strategic planning, the CTR of your email marketing actions is one of the most relevant to understand the efficiency of the content you are sending to your contacts.

That’s why we’ll show you in this article what you need to do to increase your email marketing CTR. 

The following topics will be addressed to help you understand this concept:

• What is the email click-through rate?
• Why is it essential to look after a high CTR?
• How to increase your email marketing CTR?

Want to know more? Then keep on reading and clear up all your questions!

 

What is the email click-through rate?

Before you understand how to increase your email marketing CTR, it is essential to know the meaning of this metric and how it works.

Among the messages sent to your contact base, how many of them have been clicked on by users? 

This is a very relevant indicator to understand the real interest of your audience in your campaigns.

It’s very simple to calculate: if you sent 1,000 emails to your base and received a total of 50 clicks, your CTR was 5%. 

In other words, it’s a rate that indicates the percentage of clicks received in your campaign.

When it comes to performance, this metric provides essential insights to improve your actions. The formula is simple:

CTR = (Number of clicks / Number of delivered emails) x 100

It is fundamental to monitor this metric to understand the effectiveness of your strategies better. 

For instance, a low CTR may indicate that your approach doesn’t generate the expected effect on your target audience.

The big challenge to increase your email marketing CTR is to understand what factors may influence this indicator.

After all, it’s not enough to have a flashy subject or the right call to action, since factors such as the size of the content, the positioning of the message, and even the time at which the email was sent can influence your CTR.

The good news is that it is possible to put some actions into practice and thus improve this significant indicator.

 

Why is it essential to look after a high CTR?

A survey conducted by Pew Research shows that 92% of online users have an email account, and 62% access their inboxes daily.

This shows the relevance of an email marketing strategy, but you need to know how to impact that contact. 

And how to do that? By creating more engaging content in formats that suit what the user expects.

But you’ll only be able to understand what works to spark your audience’s interest if you monitor your CTR closely.

The higher this metric is, the better your work is being done to capture the attention of your contact base. 

In other words, more people are being impacted and, consequently, have a better chance of being converted.

Therefore, it is essential to find ways to increase your email marketing CTR, by making your campaigns more attractive, taking better advantage of your resources, and, thus, generating increasingly better results for your company.

One of the greatest needs among marketers is the search for engagement, and, no doubt, CTR is your primary indicator of this.

But remember: it will not always be possible to register significant increases in this metric, which reinforces the importance of not just following the CTR.

One suggestion is to keep an eye on the email marketing CTOR (click-to-open rate), which may indicate more precisely what are the real causes of a low CTR.

 

How to increase your email marketing CTR?

Now that you know what click-through rate is and how important it is to follow this metric how about getting to know how to increase your email marketing CTR?

We’ve separated some practices that you should put into action to improve the performance of your campaigns. 

Check them out!

1. Think about scannability

According to a study by Movable Ink, the average time to read an email is only three seconds. 

You don’t have much space for unnecessary content, so you need to go straight to the point and make it easier for the user to read.

How to do that? If you employ scannability techniques, the reader can more easily identify what you want them to do.

In other words, they understand what the call to action is and, thus, the chances of getting a click becomes much higher.

A tip is to start the email with the most relevant information right at the beginning, increasing the chances of getting the reader’s attention. 

Another way to make your message more scannable is by using interactive content, images, videos, and infographics.

2. Don’t overdo in the CTAs

When trying to increase your email marketing CTR, you should think very carefully about which call to action to use.

More important, however, is not to offer the reader too many options because it could make him not know exactly what to do. 

Therefore, our tip is to limit the number of CTAs in your email marketing campaign.

The goal is to direct consumer attention to what really matters to your strategy. 

To support this concept, Ellie Mirman, VP of Marketing at Toast, states that messages with only one call to action have a 371% chance of receiving the click.

Thus, it is essential to create content that is clear in its purposes.

3. Add interactive content

When you are planning the content of an email to be sent to your base, you have a clear goal to achieve: engagement to get the reader’s attention and thus increase your chances of getting a click.

One very efficient way to enhance this work is by adding interactive content to your emails.

By offering, for example, an interactive calculator that allows the user to discover their Digital Marketing ROI, the tendency is that they stay longer in your message and, as a consequence, they become more willing to click on your call to action.

Besides, you also strengthen your relationship with your audience, showing that you really care about their pains and goals.

4. Don’t forget the mobile version

The use of smartphones is increasing, so you should not forget the large audience that uses this tool to check their inboxes.

Thus, if you want to increase your email marketing CTR, you must consider the version the mobile users will receive.

After all, if you create the ideal email for your persona, but, in practice, they end up not clicking because the call to action is not displayed correctly in the mobile version, your efforts will not bring results.

So, even when thinking about the scannability of your message, you need to do tests to see how the content will be displayed for those using smartphones.

5. Perform tests

Another benefit of Digital Marketing is the possibility of testing. One technique widely used for this purpose is the A/B test, which allows the customization of content sent with the same objective.

One part of your customer base will receive the email with the call to action displayed in a red button, for example, while the other can receive it with a blue button. 

In another test, you could also test what happens when you change the email’s subject.

The possibility that has a higher click is the one that you’ll send to the whole base or the one you’ll start using in your communications. 

The possibilities of customization and testing are diverse, especially using Digital Marketing tools that automate this process. This way, it is also easier to evaluate the best possible content to increase your CTR email marketing.

6. Monitor your campaign performance

After all these actions have been put into practice, your work isn’t finished yet: you need to monitor your campaign performance. 

After all, the possibility of a real-time evaluation helps you to always offer the best option to the user you want to impact.

So, always keep an eye on the CTR of your email marketing campaigns and find ways to improve it. Observe the actions that worked better and try to improve the content that did not work so well.

Keeping track of metrics such as email marketing CTR will allow you to improve your communication actions continually.

With this monitoring, you will understand which strategies work best, which ones need to be reformulated, and which content can captivate your persona’s attention, making the most of your financial resources.

Another important factor in increasing email marketing CTR is the organization and planning of your content. 

Without this preparation, your actions tend to become less and less effective and, as a consequence, not achieving the expected results.

What about finding out how to plan an email marketing calendar for your 2020 campaigns?