8 Tips For Improving CTR In Your Email Marketing Campaigns

by David Godot

Email marketing is a great way to build relationships with your client base. It is also a great way to build up action momentum. Each small action that your clients take with you makes it easier for them to take larger actions. This is why an improved clickthrough rate on your email marketing campaigns will ultimately lead to better conversions. Each clickthrough represents the subscriber's affirmation that what you offer them is valuable and worth acting on.

The eight tips that follow will help you to set this process in motion by making it easier for your email list subscribers to click through your links.

1. Keep your layout simple

Complicated, cluttered layouts distract subscribers from the central purpose of your newsletter. On top of this, differences in the way that popular email clients render HTML mean that a large percentage of your recipients will see the message differently than you intended. You'll have better results by keeping your template design streamlined and simple.

2. Link to full versions on your web site

Many newsletters offer a wealth of information that goes unnoticed due to the way that people read email. Your readers will have an easier time scanning through your messages for the content that interests them if you include only a teaser for each article followed by a link to the full version on your web site.

3. Add links to videos

Web videos are more popular than ever, and the "play" buttons on embedded videos are emminently clickable. To take advantage of this, include links to videos in your email messages that look like embedded videos. Simply take a still image of the video as it appears when embedded on your web page — complete with the video controls — and include that in your message as the link.

4. Place your primary call to action at the top

Most people overestimate the percentage of subscribers who will actually open their messages. More often than not, your message will be viewed inside of a preview pane and for just a couple of seconds. So, for maximum response, make sure that your most compelling call to action is visible when viewed in that manner.

5. Call to action again at the end

If you've sent out a really useful and interesting newsletter, then many readers will forget about your primary call to action by the time they reach the end. You can easily get them back on track by including a quick reminder as a "P.S." after your signature.

6. Restrict your offers

People are automatically attracted to things that are in short supply. You can utilize that in your email campaigns by limiting your offers to a specified length of time, or by including special offers to the first handful of people to respond.

7. Break your lists into smaller segments

The more targeted your message, the better response rate you'll get. You can really boost your clickthrough rates by breaking your lists up into smaller groups based on location, demographic, or even the <em>actions they have taken</em> in response to your previous messages.

8.Split test multiple versions of your message

The plain truth is that sometimes people respond to messages for reasons that are not easy to predict. Clickthrough rate can be significantly affected by minor changes in your message content or layout. To get the best response every time, create a few different versions of each message. Change up the subject line, call to action, visual design, and layout, and then test those different versions against one another to see which garners the best clickthrough rate.

David works for ActiveCampaign, makers of the industry-leading Email Marketing software package. Their software allows you to automatically test multiple versions of your mailings based on the actions you want readers to take. Once it has determined which version of your message is the most effective, the software will automatically send that version to the rest of your list. Also check out ActiveCampaign’s premier Survey Software package.