Email click through rates

Hi Hazel

It is really hard to give you a benchmark without getting a bit more of an idea about your campaign. For instance:

Factors influencing open rates

Send from address: Did you send from a person or from a company name? You mention customers, but how 'involved' are your customers in your brand? I ask the question as an email from your friend or a trusted relevant brand is much more likely to be opened that one from a random person. Some suggestions about send from addresses our on our site at:

http://www.adestra.co.uk/send_from_names

Subject line: Was the subject compelling, interesting and relevant to the audience?

Factors influencing click through rates

Apart from the usual strength of offer, layout of the email (ensuring links are not hidden), how well written the copy is etc, the main thing I find that influence click through rates is whether or not you are intending to drive people to click through or whether you are trying to sell 'off the page'- in effect, is the main call to action to click through?

I'll give you a B2B example from our client base. One publisher conducts direct promotion to drive sales of reports. These email campaigns are self-contained with all information needed to decide whether to buy. The click through call to action is to “buy now” and begin their online commerce system. Typically, their click through rates are >2% and their open rates vary significantly based upon how 'hot' the topic of the report is.

They also send email newsletters through us, which contain headlines, a short amount of text and then a link. These experience significantly higher click through rates of over 5% as to read more info you need to click through. 

I'm more than happy to talk through what I'd expect from your campaign if you want to send me over an example of the campaign. We'll then talk it over. My email address is paul.crabtree@adestra.com 

This goes for anyone else pondering on the same issues

Sources of actual empirical benchmark data
Alternatively, Marketing Sherpa have a study which may be of use:

http://www.sherpastore.com/store/page.cfm/1976

Also, the DMA's email benchmark council have provided some stats in their recent National Email Marketing Benchmark study:

http://www.dma.org.uk/content/Rsr-Introduction.asp

If you're a DMA member you can download the whole report, otherwise you can get the Exec Summary

Hope this helps

Best regards

Paul
Paul.Crabtree@adestra.com

PS.
On our web site we provide a best practice newsletter with practical hints and tips for email marketers. Subscriptions are free.
http://www.adestra.co.uk

Paul Crabtree
Marketing Director
Adestra Ltd

Holywell House
Osney Mead
Oxford
OX2 0EA
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 255 244
Fax: +44 (0) 1865 255 241

Http://www.adestra.com
... a unique online digital marketing agency that specialise in inbound and outbound email, fax and SMS broadcast solutions