When it comes to email marketing reports, we all enjoy a high open rate. However, your click-through rate (CTR) is, for the most part, where the sales lie. After all, it’s only once subscribers have visited your site that they can make a booking or a purchase.
Just to clarify – your click-through rate, or CTR, indicates the number of clicks there were on the links in your newsletter.
So what is a good click-through rate?
When it comes to click-through rates, there are no real industry benchmarks – simply because your CTR will be largely determined by what type of industry you’re in, the content of your newsletter, how often you send, when you send and how well you manage to engage your subscribers.
Not very helpful, am I?
There are a few things you can keep in mind when looking at your click-through rate. Consider what kind of email marketing you’re doing – are you marketing a service or product to consumers (B2C) or to other businesses (B2B)?
When marketing to other businesses, you’re dealing with an informed, interested and targeted audience, which of course, should mean higher click-through rates.
Generally speaking, B2B click-through rates average between 5%-15%, and B2C averages between 2%-12%. That’s still a bit broad, but like I said, there are many influencing factors here. Generally, emails across the board average click-through rates of between 2.8% - 5.9%. So if your CTR is dropping below about 3%, you’re not doing well.
What to do if my click-through rates are too low?
Take a second look at your mailing list. How did you come by these email contacts? Are they all valid opt-ins? As I’ve said before, your most successful sends will be those sent to a relevant audience. This means not only writing engaging, relevant copy for your newsletters, but also segmenting your mailing lists for more targeted sends. (You can find out exactly how to do that here.)
It also helps to have a very clear call to action in your email. Subscribers want to know, immediately upon seeing an email, what it’s about, what’s in it for them, and what they should do next. So make sure that your call to action stands out – it has to be a very clear “Click here!” or “Register now”. You can make it stand out through the design of your email – more tips on that here.
I hope this answers all your questions on click-through rates! If not, please leave me a comment below.
Image courtesy of Francesco Marino.
