Good Email Open and Click Through Rate: What is it and How to Improve it
Many marketers are haunted by questions like “Was my email campaign good?” “Why so few people opened my email?” or “How can I improve my Open Rate and CTR?” To set your mind at ease, we have reviewed the concept of a good Open Rate and Click Through Rate (CTR) and prepared some practical tips for improving the engagement of your email campaigns.
First of all — what is Email Open Rate and Click Through Rate?
- Email Open Rate — the average number of opened emails divided by sent emails.
- Email Click Through Rate — percentage of clicks on links in the email against emails that get delivered and opened.
NB! There are two different standards for calculating Email Open Rate. Some companies use Net Open rate or Confirmed open rate counting only delivered/accepted emails (sent emails minus bounced emails). In Mailigen we use Gross Open Rate following standards set by organization Emailexperience.org.
What is a GOOD Open Rate and Click Through Rate?
Now, this is where it gets complicated. When we’re speaking email language, we have to know the basic grammar rules. But as it usually works with most languages, there are hundreds of exceptions and special cases. So when it comes to email open rates, the average stats across industries will not say much about every type of business and every type of email.
For example, transactional emails such as welcome series will show much higher interaction than a regular newsletter. Interestingly, some of the most opened emails are notifications about abandoned carts (40.5% open rate).
If you’re still curious about the average email marketing engagement rates, Smart Insights offers a good overview of average metrics across industries in the UK:
- Average email open rate: 24.79%
- Average email click through rate: 4.19%
The study shows that the highest open rates are in the governmental (44,9%) and legal (36,43%) sectors while the lowest ones — in publishing industry (1,96%). Government sector also shows the highest Click Through Rate (18,07%) while hospitality sector has the lowest average CTR (only 1.08%) together with public relations, recruitment, manufacturing and other industries not reaching 2% CTR.
As you can see, Click Through rates seem very low, and it isn’t surprising that 54% of marketers say increasing engagement rate is their top email marketing priority. Meanwhile, the battle for the customer’s attention is getting more and more relentless and the subscribers are getting pickier in opening emails and clicking links because, well… There are simply too many emails for them to open them all.
Don’t give up just yet. The key to success is personalizing your emails as much as possible — starting from the subject line until the very last detail in the email body. According to Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) National client email report 2015, segmented and targeted emails generate 58% of all revenue, while 42% of marketers still do not send targeted email messages. Don’t stay on the losing side — keep reading and learn to make your email campaigns irresistible!
What impacts Email Open Rates and Email Click Through Rates?
Short answer — a myriad of things. For example, the size of your email list. With smaller databases, you can be more attentive and target your audience better while larger email lists are more likely to have many inactive subscribers. A good strategy is to take advantage of email marketing automation that lets you send tailored messages depending on the behavior of each customer. If you are an eCommerce business, you can synchronize your email automation platform with your CRM and send targeted campaigns to customers who abandoned their shopping carts (and reach that 40,5% open rate!).
How can I get them to open my emails?
Write outstanding email subject lines.
This is like a mantra to any successful email marketer because the subject line can either make it or break it. It’s the first thing the subscriber will see, in fact, 47% of email recipients open email only because of the subject line. Rule of thumb is to make subject lines meaningful, personal and attractive to the addressee.
It’s not advisable to use sensational buzzwords that will only turn off the reader’s wish to open your email. Less complicated and more direct subject lines do better. You can always A/B test to see what works best for subject lines or use a Subject Line Advisor tool. Also you must consider how your subject lines will look in different email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) and on mobile screens.
Never, ever buy or rent email lists.
Subscriber list made of purchased contacts will show terrible performance. There is a high possibility that your emails will end up in spam folders with these kinds of lists anyway. Bounce rates and click through rates will be meager, and your emails can even get reported as spam meaning that you probably will be penalized as a bad sender. You will gain a lot more if you build your email list by using sound marketing strategies and acquiring subscribers who are interested in your emails.
Try not to get caught in spam filters.
There are many criteria how spam filters sort emails. It can be a spammy subject line with phrases like “100% FREE” and “ACT NOW,” broken template, or suspicious image to text ratio. It is possible to scan your email before it gets sent and predict if it will end up in spam folder with tools like Postmark and ISnotSPAM. Find out more on how to avoid spam filters in this article.
Use accepted opt-in method.
Whichever opt-in method you have chosen to use, the recipient must be informed about how you will use his email and what he will receive. You can thank your subscribers and once again remind them what they subscribed to with a “Thank you” email. Be honest and don’t try to trick your subscribers by later sending them something different. You will only see your open rates plummet.
A good practice is to use a double opt-in method where you ask subscribers to confirm that they are willing to receive emails from you. This gives you a trail of proof that the recipient has willingly subscribed to receive news from you. It is important if you want to increase the rating that email provider has given you. If this score is too low, your emails are likely to fall into the spam folder.
Set a schedule for emailing your subscribers and stick to it.
It’s important to maintain consistent communication with your audience. If a subscriber signs up for a newsletter in January only to receive an email in July, you probably won’t see high open rates. Consider using email automation and sending pre-made email series. Even simple “Thank you” and “Here’s what to expect” emails will make a difference.
How to Improve My Email CTR (Click Through Rate)?
Send only relevant and interesting content to your subscribers.
You should see emails as a way to bond with your clients. If you send unwanted content to your email recipients, it will only damage your brand’s reputation and turn away potential customers. Instead, work hard on producing meaningful content and again try to step in your customer’s shoes. The same applies to the frequency you contact your subscribers. Send them too many emails, and they will unsubscribe or worse — report your emails as spam. The optimal frequency differs profoundly across businesses, and you will probably need to go through trial and error to find what’s best for you.
Create beautiful and responsive emails.
One way to do this is to make sure your images in emails don’t get blocked. Mailigen has an Inline Images feature that helps to deal with this. Also, make sure that your emails have a responsive design across all devices because nowadays the majority of email opens occur on mobile phones and tablets. If your subscribers aren’t able to read your email, they will probably delete it.
Segment your email lists even more.
You will be able to tailor more personalized emails and get on the same page with your subscribers thus increasing interactions with your email. For example, you can send more emails to more active readers, or you can try to re-engage the less active subscribers with a special campaign. When it comes to segmenting your list, the choices are endless, but everyone agrees that it makes a huge difference when you look at statistics.
It’s all in the CTA buttons!
Craft your call to action buttons, so that the subscriber will be enticed to click on them. When making CTA try to step in your subscriber’s shoes. Is the design appealing? Is this relevant or benefits him in any way? Call to action should be presented without any distractions and highlighted — you might even want to add a sense of urgency to encourage the subscriber to click.
Think mobile first.
Another important thing about buttons — make sure you make them at least 44px square. They should be easy to tap for those 48% subscribers who open your emails on a smartphone. Some resources even claim that two-thirds of emails are opened on smartphones or tablets, so it’s about time to start thinking mobile first (if you aren’t doing that already).
Litmus State of Email Report 2017 recommends creating single-column design email and using at least 14px for body copy and 22px for headlines. Use Mailigen email preview feature to make sure your emails look great on all devices.
Test to become the best.
There are few things more useful to email marketers than A/B Split tests. This feature lets you see what works best with your customers by sending different email versions to each half of your list. You can test various subject lines, CTA buttons, designs, and colors and can see how different email variations affect your open and CTR rates. Even the tiniest detail can impact your email campaign’s success.
Last Note…
Keep the records of all marketing campaigns you run. This way you will be able to monitor the tendencies over time and see what works and what needs to be changed. As anti-spam legislation is getting more and more strict, it is important to save the proof of subscription for each of your subscribers. If you are using Mailigen platform, you already have integrated statistics, and your subscriber’s permissions will be saved automatically.
