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All You Need To Know About Click-To-Open Rate: Email Marketing 101

06/02/2023 08:38:51 +0000
Email marketing is absolutely one of the best and most effective ways to drive business both to a brick-and-mortar store and to an online store.
 
This is thanks to how it allows businesses to get into direct contact with potential customers or clients and allows them to stay in contact with prior customers and clients.
 

However, in order to make email marketing truly effective, there are quite a number of things to pay attention to. One of the most crucial of these is the 'Click-To-Open Rate'. But what actually does this concept refer to?

And how can such a concept be used to your advantage?

If you want to learn a little more about email marketing, and how the 'Click-to-open rate' can help you out, then you will definitely want to keep on reading down below, because we have collected together all you could need to know!

What Is The Click-To-Open Rate?
Put simply, the 'Click-To-Open Rate' (CTOR) compares the amount of clicks made on an email, to the amount of 'Opens' made on an email.
 

This gauge helps you to get a sense of how many of your email marketing correspondences have actually been opened, and how many recipients have clicked on links within a given email.

Measuring this can give you a great sense of how effective your email marketing actually is, and whether potential customers are not only opening your emails but following through on reading them and taking action with them.

Why Is The Click-To-Open Rate Useful?
The CTOR is incredibly useful because it can help you to make your email marketing campaigns all the more effective.
 
If you find that your CTOR is incredibly low, then it may be because your emails are not engaging or intuitive to navigate, and thus recipients are not enticed to read through them.
 

If you are a business making use of email marketing, then you need to make sure that a high number of your recipients are actually reading through the emails you send out, because this means that your recipients will be more likely to click links in emails and become first-time customers or returning customers.

What Is Considered To Be A 'Good' CTOR?
If you have only recently begun monitoring the CTOR of your email marketing, then you may wonder what would actually be considered a 'Good' CTOR?
 

This is a difficult question to answer because it largely depends on what your subscriber list looks like, and what your individual goals are.

Some businesses may have a massive CTOR, while others might have a slightly smaller CTOR, yet both may consider these CTOR numbers to be 'good' for the needs of their business.

In order to determine what a 'Good' CTOR is for your business, it is good to set benchmarks.

Take a look through the CTOR of previous email marketing campaigns, and then use this information to determine which campaigns have proven most effective. This will let you know which types of emails perform best.

From here, you can experiment with different types of emails to send out, which can help you to then determine an acceptable CTOR for your business!

How Do You Improve Your CTOR?
If you've determined that the CTOR of your email marketing campaign is too low, then there are a number of different things that you can do to help improve it! Let's take a look at them!
Keep The Content Concise
Much like how they navigate articles across the web, many people browse through their emails by quickly 'scanning' the content within them.
 
Keep in mind that recipients may receive a massive number of emails every single day, so they simply do not have the time to read through numerous long emails.
 

Make sure that you only communicate what matters the most with each email, and ensure that the most important information is contained towards the top of the email so that it is the first thing that recipients see.

If you need to communicate lots of information, ensure that the information is broken down into sizable chunks that can be easily scanned through.

Have A Clear 'Call To Action'
As we mentioned just above, it is important to make sure that your emails are clear and concise, and that they communicate only the most important information.
 
As part of this, it is important to make sure that you give your recipients clear calls to action that can help to drive them to click on links.
 

If you want your recipients to subscribe to something, to purchase a product, or to make use of a discount, then you need to make this incredibly clear.

As part of this, you will also want to make sure that all of your 'Call to action' buttons are clear, and point in the right direction.

If you over-complicate your emails with too many calls to action, then recipients can become overwhelmed, and click away from your email entirely.

Don't Overload Your Emails
As we've mentioned, recipients of your emails will likely be 'scanning' through emails to save time. This means that you want to ensure that your emails are ready to read right away.
 

If you overload your emails with flashy effects and extra elements, then the email will take longer to load on the recipient's device, which may cause them to avoid reading the email entirely.

Make Use Of Visual Hierarchy
Because you know that recipients of your emails will not read every individual part of the email, you will want to help and make it easier for them to read what you want them to read.
 

We mentioned a little earlier that it is best to frontload your emails with the most important information so that if your recipient is 'scanning' emails incredibly quickly, then they will get the most important information.

This can help to 'Hook' recipients in, and influence them to read the rest of the email. At this point, you will want to make use of a visual hierarchy.

Include design elements that help to guide the recipient's eye down the course of the email, and ensure that information that is less pertinent is of a smaller size.

This helps to ensure that the recipient does not become overwhelmed while reading, and then click off of your email. It aids in the 'Scanning' process and makes it easier to gather all of the information you want to communicate.

To Wrap Up
There are countless different ways that you can help to improve the click-to-open rate of your marketing emails, but when it comes down to it, the best thing you can do for your recipients is to make your emails incredibly easy to read.
 
Always be thinking about your recipients, and how they interact with their incoming emails.
 

Keep emails concise and clear, to ensure that people are more likely to click on links that you attach to them!

Frequently Asked Questions
What Does A High Click To Open Rate Mean?
If your click-to-open rate is high, then you can be sure that content you are sending out to subscribers is engaging.
Is 1% Click-Through Rate Good?
In most cases, a click-through rate of over 2% is considered to be above average!
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About the Host
Sophie Howard is the founder of Aspiring Entrepreneurs, a community designed to help people develop the skills and confidence to build a business and a life that serves them. Sophie began online in 2013 with an Amazon firm, which she sold for more than $1 million in 2015.

Sophie has lectured on stages all around the world, encouraging and teaching other ambitious entrepreneurs. She has established instructional programs educating thousands of students how to sell online, in addition to releasing over 1000 products.

Sophie has also written a book titled "Aspiring Entrepreneurs: A Guide to Finding Your Best Path to Financial Freedom."
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