Using Click-Through Data in Your Email Marketing Campaign

One of the more practical and valuable features of using e-mail to market your business is using e-mail tracking reports to find out what your audience is doing with your e-mails after you send them. Every time someone clicks a link in your marketing e-mail, you have the opportunity to track the click back to the individual, use the information to accomplish more meaningful objectives, and increase the value of your e-mail list.

Click through data is a way of measuring the success of your email campaign using the number of unique individuals clicks (only one click per person is counted) who clicked on one or more links in an email expressed as a percentage of total tracked opens.

CALCULATED AS:

Total number of unique individuals who click a link in the email

-DIVIDED BY- the total number of tracked opens

OR CLICKS / OPENS = CLICK THROUGH RATE

So if there were 3 unique clicks and 30 opened emails:

3 clicks/30 opens = .1 clicks per open (multiplied by 100 to get CTR ) = 10% CTR

Average click-through rates vary widely by industry. Below are some ranges for average email click through rates for permission-based house lists.

• B2B (business to business) email newsletters typically range from 5% to 15%. If your CTRs are consistently below that level then among other things, you are probably providing content of little value to your email subscribers. Or you may have most of the content within your email, not giving subscribers a reason or means to click-through to your Web site.


• B2C (business to consumer) promotional email marketing campaign often range from about 2% to 12%. Email campaigns with less than a 2% CTR may be a result of over mailing and questionable email opt-in processes.


• Highly segmented and personalized email lists (B2B and B2C) are often in the 10% to 20% CTR range. Also, email messages with very strong content but sent to unsegmented lists, like many news or trend-type e-newsletters, are often in the 10%-15% range.


• Trigger or behavior-based email campaigns (emails that are sent to recipients based on some behavior they showed, such as clicking on a product link, visiting a specific Web page, etc.) are often in the 15% to 50% range.

Author: Rebecca Allas
Editor: Yasifur Rahman

Increasing Click-Through Rates Using Strong Call to Action

“As a command, “click here” is beautiful in its simplicity, but falls far short as a call to action – the trigger to launch the customer on the complicated path to conversion – because it doesn’t tell your email readers what you really want them to do.”

Millions of people use search engines daily and every one of those individuals are inundated with organic search listings and the same boring display ads. How do you set your emails apart from the rest for an increased click through rate and conversion?

An effective call to action in your email subject lines and ad text can bring substantial gains in CTR. To get the best results, you have to make clear exactly what you want your readers to do, giving a direct order with direct instructions. Using clear and obvious action words will help the recipient to understand not just where to click through, but why they should and what they can expect in the email.

BASIC SAMPLES OF CALL TO ACTIONS:

• Request more information!


• Sign up now!


• Discover the best deal of 2011!

Take your ad-writing skills to the next level! It is so important to master the skill of utilizing strong calls to action in your ads.

Author: Rebecca Allas
Editor: Yasifur Rahman

Autoresponders – What You Need to Know

Here at KobeMail, we know a thing or two about autoresponder mailings. For email marketers, the following information should be just a review. However, for those not in-the-know, autoresponders are the most widely used online marketing tool. Autoresponders have many names – mailbots, email responders, and autosenders – but regardless of what you call them, their importance is undeniable.

Once an autoresponder is successfully in place, your business can save time and money. Some autoresponder “systems” lead to abuse, which is why you should look to a full service email provider – such as KobeMail – to handle the sending of your autoresponders for you.

The term autoresponder comes from the idea of an email being sent to a subscriber after an action is taken on their end. The autoresponder should only be used for emails to customers who have signed up at your website to receive communications. Otherwise, you will likely face a lot of issues along the way.

An autoresponder should not be chosen solely based on its cost. Instead, you should look at the included features of the service, the reputation of the provider, and other elements to determine which system is the best for your needs. An autoresponder service is elemental in business success today. The online world is full of missed opportunities and you can't let communication with your customers be one of those issues.

Happy Mailing!