Understanding and enhancing the CTOR (Click on-to-Open-Charge)
Email marketing is one of the most important strategic channels in a marketer's toolkit. According to the UK's DMA, 91 percent of marketers rate email as their most important channel, followed by social media at 83 percent.
The success rate of email marketing is based on its high ROI, which, according to the DMA, is around $ 58 for every US dollar spent.
Other than that, your email campaigns mean nothing if you don't take advantage of your click-to-open (CTOR) rate. Tracking and optimizing this metric can help you understand how effectively your email content is engaging your customers. It can also help you develop strategies to improve your content over the long term.
This post explains why your click-to-open rate matters, how to improve it, and how to create effective marketing emails that your customers will want to read.
What is the click-to-open rate and why is it important?
A click-to-open rate is an equation that focuses on the number of unique clicks and unique opens your email receives. This can show you how effective your email is in terms of content and design, and how it drives your customers' actions.
Click-to-open rates are important as they show you whether a customer found the information in your email relevant, valuable, and engaging.
For example, having a high CTOR could indicate that your customers are enjoying the copy, images, links, and layout in your email.
Basically, the longer someone stays in your email, browses and clicks through your content, the higher your click rate.
Knowing what types of content will grab your audience into action can help you improve your A / B testing and grow your email subscribers.
CTOR vs. CTR vs. Open Rate
Unlike your click-to-open rate, your email open rate shows how many people have opened your email campaign.
For example, if you sent your campaign to 2,000 people, you might have noticed that 850 recipients opened your email. That would be an open rate of 42 percent, which is a strong metric in email marketing.
On the other hand, click rates focus on the number of clicks and opening an email it receives. This can show you how many people viewed your email, but often misses the more direct actions you want to measure, such as: B. who clicked on your call to action or navigated through the links in your email.
While open rates and click-through rates are important in assessing whether or not your subject lines and headings sparked interest with your audience, your CTOR can show you whether the content of your email is getting the desired customer actions.
Ultimately, all of these metrics can be important in understanding the success of your email marketing campaigns. However, it's important that you don't overlook your click-to-open rates.
How to calculate your click-to-open rate
To calculate your click-to-open rate, simply divide your unique clicks by your unique openings and multiply the answer by 100.
A unique click is the number of email clicks the recipient made divided by the number of emails sent in the campaign. A unique open rate is the number of email recipients opened divided by the number of emails sent in the campaign.
Here is the CTOR equation:
(unique clicks / unique openings) x 100
In general, a good click-through rate is between 20 and 30 percent, depending on your industry and audience.
According to Campaign Monitor, agricultural, education, government, media, and real estate companies tend to have above-average click-through rates.
In contrast, the retail, grocery, and travel industries all tend to have a below average CTOR.
The cross-industry average is 18 percent.
8 ways to improve the CTOR
By leveraging your click-to-open rate, you can create more customer-centric content. It also gives you another metric that you can use to measure the success of your email marketing campaigns.
Here are some easy ways to improve your click-to-open rate and involve your customers in your email campaigns.
1. Make the content easy to scan
A recent study by the Technical University of Denmark found that attention spans around the world are decreasing due to the amount of information available to us. With so much information, it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on a brand, product, or content.
For marketers, this statistic reminds us of the importance of making our content stand out. In email marketing, the competition for customer attention has never been so fierce, with more than 300 billion emails a day.
Make your email content scannable to counteract this and improve your click-through rate.
Get key points right away and use headings to get the user's attention quickly.
Break up your copy into short pieces and make sure your sections flow logically.
Here's an example from Target with their special offer shown at the top, a simple, neat copy with items they want to advertise and sections breaking up the content.
2. Add a CTA
A clear call to action is a great way to lead your reader towards an end goal.
When choosing where to include your CTA, consider exactly what you are asking of your email openers.
Would you like them to:
- Make a purchase.
- Make an appointment.
- Call your store.
- Search your content.
Whatever your goal, make your CTA clear, concise, and compelling.
CTAs can be added at the end of each section or at the very end of the email after you have submitted your pitch.
Using buttons is a great way to make your CTA stand out, but clickable links can work too if that fits your design better.
Check out our 16 hacks that will help you get your call-to-action buttons. For more ways to create powerful CTAs, click here.
3. Use Clear and Engaging Copy
A good copy is important when making connections with customers.
Your copy of the email should be clear, engaging, and create an emotional bond with your target audience, both in your headlines and in the body of your email.
Take the following example from Boulder coffee company Jot.
The first heading promises readers improvements and changes. While the product is not outlined directly, it will work in conjunction with a clear product photo above.
Jot follows the heading with a clear description of who they are and what they offer. They also add questions that make the copy more talkative.
A final CTA seals the deal.
The feeling after reading the email is clear: they want what they are selling.
4. Use high quality images
All of your email marketing campaigns should be designed for conversions.
An easy way to do this is to use high quality images in your email.
Pictures can evoke emotions in the reader, be it envy in a sparkling beach resort, longing for a delicious burger or laughing at a funny animal.
When using images in your email marketing campaigns, make sure that you are using images that are sized appropriately for your content to avoid distortion.
Make each image contextually relevant to the rest of the email body as well.
Take the following example of outdoor furniture showing a woman relaxing on a comfortable couch while her family enjoys an outdoor pool. This high quality image takes up most of the layout and gives the feeling of summer fun and relaxation.
Below, Outer makes his message clear with his copy: Live Better. Outside.
With this image, Outer creates a scene for his audience and shows them how they want to live.
5. Optimize the subject line
Email subject lines can go a long way in improving your click-through rate.
According to Invespcro, 47 percent of email recipients open email based on the subject line. Also, 69 percent of this pool send email to their spam folder based on the subject line.
The more people open your email, the more likely you will associate them with the content in it. It all starts in the inbox!
Good headlines should be descriptive and attention-grabbing while also providing the most important information your customers should know.
Good subject lines should:
- Generate curiosity
- Communicate urgency
- Highlight offers
- Validate social evidence
- be personalized
The most important thing to remember is to give people a reason to open your email.
Below is a sample UFC marketing email offering free combat streaming to subscribers.
Adding an emoji gets noticed and the offer gives you a reason to read more. From there, users can navigate UFC's images, links, CTAs, and more to improve the company's CTR.
6. Design the best link layout
The way you use links in your email can have an impact on the user experience and, ultimately, your click through rate.
Regardless of whether the links are internal or external, all links should be in logical places that flow with the main copy of your email.
Make it easy for yourself to click!
Links should be:
- highlighted in a new, bold color
- clear and concise
- refer to direct actions
- be placed logically
Take this example in my head that delivers its product information, thought leader content, and customer-focused content like FAQ through clear, clickable links (although unfortunately there are some issues with the character text).
7. Personalize your email
Personalization is key to content marketing, especially when it comes to email marketing.
There are many ways to personalize your email campaigns, from adding the recipient name in the subject line to segmenting your audiences into new, old, and returning customers.
According to Campaign Monitor, emails with personalized subject lines have a 26 percent better open rate.
Similarly, marketers who used segmented campaigns to increase personalization saw email sales increase 760 percent.
Another great tactic in the ecommerce marketplace is to automatically add products that your customer is most likely to purchase right on your email layout. This can be done using tools like Klayvio or other AI driven email marketing tools.
When personalizing your email content, use whatever data you have, such as: B. Featured products displayed, pages viewed, and more to provide content that suits your tastes.
Personalization can also improve your click-to-open rate by building brand trust and integrity with your audience. The more your customers trust you, the more likely they are to spend time browsing your content.
8. Analyze the results
Analytics are essential to creating email marketing campaigns that are producing results.
You can never improve your campaigns if you don't understand what worked and what didn't.
If you find that your click-to-open rate is going down, don't be afraid to switch your content or split up your campaigns, even if your existing content worked well for you before.
If you see high open rates but low CTR, it might be a sign that your subject line is working, but the content of your email could be improved.
A good marketer always strives to improve. So, pay close attention to your email marketing analytics and test new content, structure, and CTAs to see what works best.
Conclusion
Improving your click-to-open rate is a great way to improve customer relationships, strengthen brand integrity, and increase interactivity in your email marketing campaigns.
Remember, your click-to-open rate will help you understand how attractive the content of your email is to your customers. Calculating your CTOR is an effective way to optimize your content and achieve better overall email flows.
Other metrics like your open rates and click rates should also be tracked to make sure that your email campaigns are getting the best results for your business.
What other ways can you think of to improve your click-to-open rate?
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