All About Open Rates and Click-through Rates

As an email marketer, you must know how your subscribers are engaging with your email campaigns. You can do this by tracking these two email metrics - email open rates and click-through rate (CTR).

This guide will discuss how to calculate open rates and CTR and interpret them to improve email marketing performance.

Table of contents

• What is the email open rate?
• What is the click-through rate?
• Why is it important to monitor open rate and CTR?
• Benchmarks for open rate and CTR
• Benefits of tracking open rates and CTR
• How to improve open rates and CTR
• Takeaways

What is the email open rate?

Email open rate is the proportion of emails opens out of total emails delivered. It shows the effectiveness of your subject line and engagement. You can calculate the open rate using the below formula:

Open rate formula = ( Number of people who have opened your email/ Number of emails delivered) X 100

What is the click-through rate?

Click-through rate is the proportion of people or subscribers who click on a particular link out of the total emails delivered. You can track CTR using the below formula:

Click-through rate formula = ( Number of people who have clicked on a link/ Number of emails delivered) X 100**

For example, if you had ten clicks on the link and it has reached 100 people, the click-through rate would be 10%.

Why is it important to monitor open rate and CTR?

Both open and click-through rates help understand an audience base and reach maximum people. However, many factors can impact these rates, like content presentation, images, relevant information, and many others.

These factors can explain why your email conversions are the way they are. If ignored, these can lead to the loss of prospective customers.

Benchmarks for open rate and CTR

As per Mailchimp, the average email open rate is 21.33%, although it varies from industry to industry too. It acts as a standard measure to know that the company is succeeding or failing in its email marketing efforts. You can work on the email content and strategy and improve the rates.

The email open rate that is considered good is between 15-20%. Therefore, the preferable percentage of click-through rate is approximately 2.5%.

Note: These rates may differ depending on the purpose of different companies or individuals.

Benefits of tracking open rates and CTR

There are many benefits to measuring and tracking these rates. The most important are as follows:

1. Reaching maximum users

Email open rate and click-through rate help the marketer reach the maximum number of people. They get a fair idea about what content people like to see. If the rate is low, they can improve by using creative ideas in the emails.

2. Improving performance

These rates help improve the marketers' overall performance as they get to know what people are likely to read more, and thus they focus more on the relevant content.

3. Saving time

These rates save a lot of time for the marketers by targeting the right audience as they get the percentage of people who click the links and thus focus more on them.

4. High conversion rate

These rates can help in converting sales as a higher percentage of people opening the email means a higher possibility of sales.

Related guide: 6 Effective Tips To Boost Your Email Conversion Rate in 2022

5. Saving cost

Emails are the cheapest way to build relationships with customers and attract them to buy the product. These rates will let the marketers plan and devote their time towards their valuable customers for better ROI.

How to improve open rates and CTR

Improving open rates and CTRs might be essential to improve your business's marketing and sales performance. Here are a few important things that can help you build a solid open rate and CTR.

✅ Make the subject line personalized

The subject line directly impacts your open rate as it's the first thing that influences a user's decision to open or not open your emails. By using your first name, you can improve open rates and stand out in the user's inbox.

✅ Whitelist your email address

You can write instructions to whitelist your email address within your email so that people don't miss out on your email.

✅ Create engaging email content

The content should be unique and attract more and more customers, and by using creative content within your email, you can turn your emails into sales.

✅ Use a clear and friendly tone

The language of the text within your email should be easy to understand and informal so that people can relate to it.

✅ Use personalization to engage with users

Making subject line and email copy personalized can help you connect deeply with your users and target them with the most relevant content. Using the first name in the subject line can help you stand out in the inbox and thus increasing the open rate.

Related guide: An Ultimate Guide to Creating Personalized Emails

✅ Send re-engagement emails

You can send your email again to the customers who haven't seen your email or missed it. It will help you reach the customers and gain the chance for sales.

Realted guide: Re-engagement Email Series for E-commerce and D2C Brands

✅ Use impactful and relevant images

It is essential to use relevant photos as they can directly have a significant impact on the customers. Similarly, the right keywords are critical for the content to trigger a customer's mind.

Takeaways

Get a good open rate and CTR to establish a good email marketing strategy. This requires planning and executing email marketing campaigns according to industry best practices.

If you want to learn more about increasing these rates, feel free to contact the Mailmodo team. Moreover, with Mailmodo, you can send interactive AMP email campaigns that send the post-CTR actions and content directly into the emails.