Email Click Through Rate: 12 Tips to Improve it

Marketing and communication staff try to get as much profit from their email marketing activities as possible. How can you best increase your email click-through rate (CTR)? In this

article I give an overview of the best practices that will tempt more recipients to click through.

We do not now go into the relevance of your e-mails, because enough articles have been written about their importance. The more relevant your e-mails, the better the content fits your recipients, making them more interested and more inclined to click.

Below are 12 tips for a higher email click-through rate.

Tip 1: Personalize your e-mails

When personalizing e-mails, it is not just about including profile information like the first name, but especially about event-driven e-mails . Event-driven emails are usually sent based on an action by the recipient.

Examples are order confirmations, e-mails following the registration process or the birthday e-mail. You send these e-mails at a relevant time for recipients, because the return is often a lot higher compared to regular newsletters. The click-through rate in this type of e-mails is often twice as high compared to regular newsletters.

Tip 2: Do not put call-to-actions (CTA) in an image

In many e-mail clients, the images are only displayed by default when the recipient activates their download manually. The vast majority of your recipients will view your e-mail in the first instance without any images. If your main message is in an image, your recipients will initially miss this message.

Often buttons are used to clarify the call-to-action. If you place these buttons as an image in your e-mail, the most important text of your e-mail is not immediately visible. Therefore use tables instead of images for these call-to-actions.

Recipients can read the text directly in your call-to-action, even if images are not downloaded. Because the sides of the button are small images, you can neatly round off

the corners. The table then looks like a real button. The most important links in your e-mail campaign should always be immediately visible.

Tip 3: Use responsive design

Optimizing e-mail campaigns for mobile readers is a development that is becoming increasingly important. More and more e-mails are being read on a mobile phone. By applying responsive design , mobile readers immediately see what your e-mail is about. You can drop images or put columns together so that it is not necessary for recipients to zoom

in.

Tip 4: Put links behind images

If your e-mails are not responsive, it is sometimes difficult for mobile recipients to tap the correct link with their fingers. Make it easy for them to go to the landing page by also putting links behind your images. These are also easy to tap on the mobile phone.

Tip 5: Request recipients to share your newsletter

Try to convince your recipients to share your newsletter. Therefore, include social media buttons that allow recipients to share your newsletter (or parts thereof) with their network. If this actually happens, the traffic rises considerably, so that you get more clicks from your newsletter to your landing pages.

Tip 6: Less is more

Texts are getting less and less read. Write short, easy-to-understand texts, which increases the chance that recipients still take the trouble to read them.

When your texts have attracted attention and recipients are reading, it is important to quickly get the message across. The fewer sentences you need to convince recipients to click further, the better.

Tip 7: Be patient

Be patient when you send campaigns aimed at sales. Only when your recipients are so far to actually buy your product will they click through on a call-to-action such as 'order directly' to go to the order page.

You can better attract recipients by leading them to a page with more information with a call-to-action like 'more information'. On the landing page you give information and you try to direct them to the sales page. This not only leads to a higher email click through rate, but also ensures that you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and the landing page separately.

Tip 8: Clarify the benefits for the recipient

Make clear what benefit you offer to recipients. Why should they click through? Do not assume that recipients without additional information see which links are important to

them. Therefore, do not use links like 'click here', because recipients must first read the entire sentence before they know why they should click through. Use words in your

links that tell recipients about the underlying page.

Tip 9: Avoid distractions

Just as you remove all distractions from a landing page, it is important to avoid all distractions in your e-mail. Make sure that images have something to add to your title

and your text.

Test the number of offers or products that you offer per campaign. Resist in any case the temptation to include too many products in the hope that at least something attracts attention. This is not an effective tactic. Go back to your goal and consider what action you want to stimulate with recipients.

Tip 10: Use a striking call-to-action

Make sure that your call-to-action is above 'the fold' (ie in the preview), as a link not to be missed. Recipients have little time for your e-mails and want to know immediately if you have something for them in your e-mail. If they first have to scroll before they find your call-to-action, many recipients will drop out.

Sometimes it is not clear enough that there is a link in the text. A link must therefore be recognizable as such and at least be underlined.

Tip 11: "Seduce" recipients

Seduce your recipients to read further on the 'other side' of the link. Make good introductions in your e-mail, but do not give away everything! For example, start a sentence

and do not finish it. Or ask a question and give an answer with the link.

Tip 12: Use alternative texts

Use alternative text for each image via the alt tag. This text is displayed if the images are not shown. In this way recipients can still judge what your e-mail is about, without having to download the images.

A good alternative text can be a stimulus for recipients to click through.

E-mail marketing software often offers the possibility to easily add alternative text. If you are bound to work with HTML, build the code as follows: <img alt = "title_image"

style = "width: 30px; height: 60px; "src =" / source / source.JPG "/>