What does email click rate mean?
The term ‘email click rate’ refers to the percentage of the recipients of an email who proceeded to click on a link it contains.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: How do I calculate it?
As we have seen in the previous section, it represents the percentage of the people who received an email you sent out and also clicked on a link in it. This means that you can calculate it using the following formula:
Total number of recipients who clicked on a link / Total number of recipients x 100 = ECR
So, if 10,000 people received an email you sent out and 3,000 of them proceeded to click on a link it contained, using the formula above, your rate would be 30%:
3,000 / 10,000 x 100 = 30%
Question #2: What is the ideal email click rate?
Based on available data across various industries, the ideal one would be anywhere between 10 and 22%. In reality, though, your target number would ultimately depend on your specific industry, the type of email you are sending out, and the type of link it contains.
But if you just want a number to gauge how well you are doing, you can take a look at the stats of your top competitors. If their average email rate is 7%, for example, then all you have to do is get yours up to at least 8% first and then just keep working on bumping it up over time.
Here’s an article from Campaign Monitor that shows data for the email marketing benchmark of 2022.
Question #3: How do I improve it?
There are many things you can do to improve your rate, including:
- Implementing personalisation
- Improving your targeting
- Improving your offers
- Improving your call to action
Let us take a look at each one in more detail:
First, personalisation, as the name suggests, involves making your emails sound more as if they are addressed to a single person than a group of recipients. You can do this in a variety of ways, including:
- Using the recipient’s actual name
- Personalising the content of the email (e.g., talking about a past interaction)
- Providing offers based on the recipient’s personal preferences and/or purchase history
Second, improving your targeting simply means crafting your emails with a clear target audience in mind and sending said emails to that exact audience instead of sending out generic, irrelevant emails to everyone on your list.
Third, you can also try simply improving your offers to give your recipients a more compelling reason to click. Find out what your recipients actually want and craft offers around it.
For example, instead of blindly offering 15% off on all your products, offering 10% off on a product that the recipient is already considering buying may give you significantly better results.
Of course, it is also possible that your recipients are not even looking for discounts in the first place and want a completely different incentive.
Fourth, you can also try changing your call to action. After all, a generic, vague, and/or confusing call to action is a great way to discourage people from clicking a link.
So, instead of:
- Click here
- Visit our website today
- Get more information
You can try:
- Claim your freebie
- Secure your spot
- Get exclusive access
Question #4: What is the difference between email click rate and email click-through rate?
The main difference between email click rate and email click-through rate is what they measure.
As we have seen earlier, it measures the total number of people who clicked on a link in an email against the total number of people who received said email.
In contrast, the email click-through rate measures the total number of people who clicked on a link in an email only against the total number of people who actually opened it.
So, if 10,000 people received an email you sent out, 5,000 opened it, and 2,000 clicked on a link it contained, your rate would be 20% while your email click-through rate would be 40%. You get these numbers using the following formulas:
Click Rate: 2,000 (people who clicked on a link) / 10,000 (people who received the email) x 100 = 20%
Click-Through Rate: 2,000 (people who clicked on a link) / 5,000 (people who opened the email) x 100 = 40%