If you’re sending email to your clients, prospects or newsletter subscribers, you want to know that what you’re offering is valuable to them. You want your subscribers to be engaged. One of the most sought-after measures of engagement is the click through rate. But how can you build that level of interaction with your audience? What are the secrets the professionals use to build double-digit CTRs? 

Start with the Open

The first thing to realize about improving your CTR is that you won’t get clicks if you don't have opens. You need to make sure that people are opening your email so that they can click through. 

Open rates are highly dependent on many factors, including:

1. Who the email is coming from, or the “from” name and email address

2. The subject line (and in some cases the preview text that you're using to entice the reader to open the email, but that’s also changing with Apple’s 2024 updates)

3. Timing of the campaign, both the and time of your campaign, as well as 

4. Frequency of sending

All of those factors weigh into the open rate, and using these levers to improve your opens are the first step to improving those click through rates. 

We Have The Opens, Now What? 

As professionals, we know that the biggest factor affecting the CTR is subscriber interest. What they are interested in, and how interested they are starts with the source of their sign up. Some subscribers might be added to your email list because they signed up on your website, some might have interacted with sales or customer service, some are existing costumes while others found you through referral sources. 

How the subscriber landed on your list is an important part of determining their interest areas and what might motivate them to engage with your emails. Use that data to create list segments so that you can offer content that truly appeals to your target audience. 

Your content can easily be adjusted to accommodate these different interest types. For example, new prospects probably don’t care about improvements to your warranties or customer service plans, whereas existing customers are not motivated by coupon codes for “first time purchase” that they can’t use. 

Give Them A Reason To Click

Once you’ve segmented your list to customize you content or offer, think about why your subscriber would want to click through to your website. What is in it for them? 

Typically content links are a popular option, e.g. “click here to read more”. For some audience segments that could be a great reason to click, but more often than not today, people read email on their mobile devices, and they are less inclined to click to a website just to read more info. There’s plenty more to read in their inbox without clicking. So what can you offer that might be more enticing?

You can offer great engagement opportunities with things beyond the “click here to read our blog” such as:

1. A valuable download (remember, if they are on their phone, you’ll want to follow up with another email to download it later on their desktop)

2. Participation in a poll or survey

3. Entrance to a contest or giveaway

4. Signup for a limited time offer

5. Registration for a live event

6. A video link

Try to think outside the “click to read the blog” box and offer something that’s really enticing. 

How To Keep Them Clicking

Once you’re seeing results, you want to ensure that you’re not a one-hit-wonder. Build consistency in your CTR by providing your subscribers with what they want (and what you promised) in that click. 

If you’re offering a valuable download, make sure it IS actually valuable to them. If you provide live event registration, make sure that you follow up with an event that they’ll be happy to attend. The clicks will keep coming if you continually provide offerings that fulfill the promises you make in your email.

Ready to get more from your email program? We’re Mailchimp Pro Partners and email experts with more than two decades of email experience. Contact us to find out how we can help.