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Understand click rates
What click rate measures, how it is calculated, and the difference between click-to-send and click-to-open.
Your click rate is the percentage of people who clicked at least one link in your email. Where open rate tells you your subject line worked, click rate tells you your content worked - it's a much stronger signal of genuine interest. Use it alongside your other metrics to see which links pull attention and to guide what you send next.
How click rate is calculated
People who clicked a link / number of unique opens
A typical click rate sits between 3% and 10%.
What influences your click rate
- The email's purpose - a "Happy Holidays" card won't drive clicks the way an offer will, and that's fine.
- Relevance - the more targeted the campaign, the more attention it earns.
- Link placement - a link buried in the footer won't get seen; put your main call to action high up.
- Length - too much information overwhelms. People give an email 15 to 20 seconds, so keep it short and give them a clear next step.
Click-to-send versus click-to-open
There are two ways to express a click rate, and they answer different questions:
- Click-to-send - clicks as a share of everyone you sent to.
- Click-to-open - clicks as a share of the people who opened.
For example, say you sent to 196 contacts. 47 opened (a 24% open rate), and 10 clicked a link. Then:
- Click-to-send = 10 / 196 = 5%
- Click-to-open = 10 / 47 = 21%
Both are valid; just make sure you're comparing like with like across reports.
Troubleshooting
Click rate below ~3% - make your calls to action prominent and above the fold, test button colours and sizes, cut the text down, and check your links are genuinely relevant.
Clicks show 0% despite opens - confirm link tracking is on, and note that some security software strips tracking and that mailto: and tel: links aren't tracked.
Different reports show different click rates - you're probably comparing unique versus total clicks, or click-to-send versus click-to-open. Check the metric and the date range.
To see exactly who clicked which link, see Track click activity by link.
If click tracking looks broken, open a support ticket.