Commentary

What Makes Consumers Click Through From Emails?

Gmail-icon-A2If Google acquired Sparrow, the creator of the e-mail client for Mac and iPhone, the media must still hold promise for marketing. Email click-through rates averaged 5.4% in 2011 and year-to-date in 2012, up from 4.5% in 2009, according to a recent study from Silverpop.

The 2012 Silverpop Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study suggests that more consumers use multiple devices to read and access email. It has become common for users to scan emails on a mobile device and then view and act on the messages later via desktop or laptop computers. If images were enabled or links clicked with images blocked or disabled across devices, then an open rate would be captured at each access point.

The study looks at metrics in 12 verticals for open rates, message size, list churn, unsubscribe and complaint rates, but for the purpose of this article the focus turns to click-through rates.

Computer Software, Media & Publishing and Consumer Services performed best. For example, the Computer Software segment had the best unique open rates, averaging nearly 25%. The study attributes the higher click-through rates to lighter sales content and related messages, as well as heavier emphasis on news, information and educational materials.

These verticals also performed well with click-to-open rates -- more than double the average and six times higher than bottom performers. Splits among industry verticals were similar to those in the click-through category.

Clicks per clicker measures how often the recipient of the email clicks links in the same message. It captures clicks of a specific link multiple times or clicks to more than one link in the email message.

The Silverpop study suggests that the difference between high and low performers were less pronounced compared with other categories, but the top quartile still tallied 17% more clicks per clicker than average. The Computer Hardware and Computer Software industries performed best, with the latter the only one to top three clicks per clicker.

1 comment about "What Makes Consumers Click Through From Emails?".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Liz Cohen from ActivePath, July 31, 2012 at 7:10 a.m.

    Another way to tackle the click-through problem: eradicate it. By taking a web page's content and basically showing it inside an email - as rich and navigable as the web page is itself - recipients don't need to click through at all to get the full message.

    That's what ActiveMail enables marketers and consumers to do. It's a new way to look at email - the message is a deeper inbox experience rather than a means to an end. Consumption begins and ends inside the email.

    We're betting it's going to be THE way to look at email as the medium continues to evolve.

Next story loading loading..