{"id":118107,"date":"2018-10-30T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.constantcontact.com\/blog\/?p=118107"},"modified":"2025-06-20T19:28:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T23:28:59","slug":"average-click-through-rate-for-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constantcontact.com\/blog\/average-click-through-rate-for-email\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Average Click-Through-Rate for Email?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whether you geek out on statistics or despise them,  they are the key to revealing if our marketing plans are really working (or aren’t).<\/p>\n

We measure, record and analyze even the simplest things in life, so how can something as valuable as our email marketing<\/a> campaign efforts be left behind?<\/p>\n

Imagine this: you see a beautiful scarf online and decide to buy it for your friend who’s turning 30 next week. You are sure this is it but the many color options confuse you.<\/p>\n

You then decide to send the link to the scarf to another friend with the message, ‘Hey Jane! I want to buy this scarf for Sarah’s birthday, help me pick a color.’ <\/em><\/p>\n

Now tell me something. What do you want Jane to do? Do you want her to just open your message, open and read it, or open, read and click on the link to help you decide the color?<\/p>\n

I’m guessing it’s the last option that you are looking forward to. After all, just opening and reading the message is not enough for you to get the desired answer\/reaction.<\/p>\n

This is an everyday situation to understand what click-through rate looks like in email marketing.<\/p>\n

What is click-through rate (CTR)?<\/h2>\n

When it comes to measuring email marketing metrics<\/a>, one of the first things we measure is the email open rate, i.e, how many email recipients went ahead and opened the email. Open rates helps us know if we are making an impact in their inbox, if our subject lines are resonating with our subscribers, as well as how many good contacts we have on our list.<\/p>\n

But that’s not all we want, right?<\/p>\n

The click-through-rate (CTR) comes next. It’s a metric that tells us how many people not just opened the email and stopped there, but actually went ahead and clicked on the links within the email content. This could be a link that redirects them to your website, takes them to an abandoned cart, or whatever the call-to-action is.<\/p>\n

Thus, a click-through-rate email marketing<\/a> metric is the rate at which subscribers took the desired action or were compelled enough to go on and get some more information from us.<\/p>\n

Why is the click-through-rate an important metric?<\/h2>\n

Every email you send should have a specific email marketing goal.<\/p>\n

Whether you are asking them to buy something, follow you on social media, subscribe for a newsletter, donate for a cause, or volunteer for your next event- it’s all an ‘action’ that you are driving your readers towards.<\/p>\n

Click-through-rate<\/a> helps us measure how well we achieve this goal in our marketing emails. Are we able to convince our subscribers to take an action? Was the email message or content compelling enough? Did subscribers understand what you want them to do?<\/p>\n

The click-through-rate is also important to know what works and what doesn’t with your email contacts.<\/p>\n

When you interpret your email marketing results<\/a> and see the click-through-rate rising or falling, you will be able to further analyze the main reason behind it. Did you try a new call-to-action or was the ask confusing or misleading? Did the content or design overshadow the main goal of the email?<\/p>\n

Still not using an Email Tracking Software<\/a>? With Constant Contact<\/a>, you get easy-to-read reports that make tracking your email marketing success easy and effective.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Industry Average CTR<\/h2>\n

A lot of people ask, ‘What is a good click-through-rate?’. And while that’s a good question, there is actually no one single answer.<\/p>\n

The thing is, a good or bad click-through-rate depends on the industry you are a part of. The click-through-rate industry average<\/a> differs, and before you get excited or feel poorly about your results, make sure you are checking the email marketing benchmarks<\/a> within your own specific industry.<\/p>\n

For example, as of 2018, overall average click-through-rate for Animal Services was 8.71%, however, the overall industries average click-through-rate was at 7.77%.<\/p>\n

So, if you start measuring your email metrics, which you should if you aren’t already, an understanding of the overall industry measuring rates will help keep you on track and go further from there.<\/p>\n

Let’s take this up with an example.<\/h3>\n

You run a nonprofit organization that is a shelter for animals. You regularly host adoption events, fundraising camps, and are in constant need of volunteers to keep the shelter clean and successful. <\/span><\/p>\n

You <\/span>start running email marketing <\/span>campaigns<\/span><\/a> to reach out to your many donors, volunteers, leads, and people who have shown interest in your cause. <\/span><\/p>\n

While the contacts start increasing, the response is not as you expected. You start measuring your marketing metrics and the email CTR stands at 5%. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, when you check for click-through-rate average industry rates (2018) you notice that the industry average shows that Animal Services stand at 8.71% and Nonprofits as a whole stands at 8.03%. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now if you were a Real Estate or Technology based company this 5% is not so bad, but for the industry you are in, you need to pull up the numbers. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, email marketing efforts and results take time and build over time, but always keep the industry average <\/span>on unique clicks <\/span>as your benchmark and start building from there. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once you <\/span>ace email measurement<\/span><\/a> and get the hold of the many big and small things that you can do to make your emails more compelling and impactful, your numbers will start climbing. <\/span><\/p>\n

What impacts the click-through-rate?<\/h2>\n

Now that we’ve spoken about what a click-through-rate is, why it’s important and the click-through-rate industry average, we come to the next important point: what elements and points impact email CTR?<\/p>\n

Whether you are looking to improve the CTR on your email marketing campaigns or just getting started, making a note of these key elements will help you get better results:<\/p>\n

1. Number of links<\/h3>\n

You want to make sure that the links you are adding within the email campaign are easy to see and also relevant. But, how many links should you add? There are two things to consider here:<\/p>\n