How Service Providers Can Increase Their  Email Click Through Rate

Your click through rate, or CTR, is one of the top metrics to measure in your email marketing data. It tells you how many people click on a link in your email out of the total number of people who open it. 

Be careful though—different email platforms may have slightly different ways of measuring CTR, so be sure to check how CTR is calculated for your platform. Some email platforms might measure the click rate instead, which isn’t quite the same thing. The click rate will likely be a much smaller percentage because it’s calculated by the number of clicks divided by your email send list. 

Learning how to entice your subscribers to start clicking on your links is worth a little up-front effort. Below, you’ll find newsletter best practices that will help you boost your email click through rate so you can get more eyes on your offers.

Write Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines

First things first: In order for people to click on links in your email, they’re going to have to actually open your emails. 

That means your open rate is going to have to go up before your click through rate does—and the best way to increase your open rate is through enticing subject lines. 

Winning subject lines will snag your readers’ attention, give them a glimpse of what the email is about, and make them eager to read more. The perfect subject line will say just enough to engage them without giving away the content of the email. They’ll have to click to get the full story!

Stuck trying to brainstorm subject lines to capture your audience’s attention? Grab a copy of our Subject Line Guide here—you’ll find more than 100 subject line ideas for any occasion.

Provide Value

It is SO important to provide valuable and relevant content for your audience. Once a subscriber clicks on your email, you need to deliver the promise of a great newsletter.  

Give your audience content they actually want. Stay on brand—your audience subscribed because they wanted to hear more from your business, so don’t talk about unrelated content! Stick to catering to your ideal clients, and provide plenty of content and resources that will genuinely benefit them. 

Basically, you need to convince them to click before you even offer them the opportunity to!

Make It Easy to Read

Newsletters should be concise and skimmable. Draw them in with storytelling and engaging copy, but be sure to break up the text to make it easy for subscribers to get the gist without reading every single word. 

A few tips:

• Use headers to call out main sections of the email

• Include bullet points to list out your content

• Bold or italicize anything that deserves extra attention

• Use images or GIFs to break up the text and provide visual interest

Newsletters don’t have to be pages and pages of text; in fact, they shouldn’t be! Keep your emails short and sweet for best results. 

Include Clear Calls to Action

It sounds obvious, but…no one is going to click on your email if they don’t have anything to click on. 

Giving your audience clear opportunities to click on your email is a must if you’re trying to improve your CTR. Throughout your email, you should include multiple prominent calls to action. These can be links embedded in the text, or even better, buttons with a short message. Think about including a few buttons that say, “SIGN UP HERE” or “GET THE DETAILS” to prompt subscribers to take the next step.

Test Different Strategies

Every business is different, and email marketing is definitely playing the long game. After you’ve tried out a few of these techniques, it’s time to see what works best for your business. 

Test out a few different strategies and analyze the results. A great way to do this is by setting up A/B tests to pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t. Which subject lines are encouraging subscribers to open? Which messaging and images are most effective in increasing CTR? Is there a time of day that gets the most clicks? A/B testing will give you the answers.

While there’s no magic method that guarantees an increase in your CTR, consistently following these tips will help you send high-quality emails your subscribers will look forward to reading. There’s no better way to increase your CTR than having an engaged audience, so if you’re following these guidelines to a T, you’re on the right track. 

Our Comprehensive Email Marketing Retainer Package will give you hands-on support optimizing your newsletters and sequences. If you’re looking to create a strategy to boost your open rate and CTR, we can help you out! Explore our services page for more details.