How to Improve Email Open & Clickthrough Rates
Email marketing can be one of the best ways to engage with your audience, build rapport, and promote your business’ product and service offerings. It’s also an essential part of communicating important updates, like special offers or limited time promotions, or a sharing a new product launch.
But, many a lovely email marketing campaign has found its way into the dreaded Spam folder (or Gmail “Promotions” folder)—basically, where emails go to die.
Emails in the Spam or Promotions folder have very, very low rates of being seen, being opened, and being clicked on. Which means: they’re not very useful to your business. 😥
Effective email marketing for your business
Just like search engine optimization, where we as business owners try to understand what Google’s algorithm would like from us so we can create our content in a way that makes the search engine gods happy and gets us ranking well, there are also some important things to understand about email optimization.
In other words, we need to know what gets email marketing flagged as “spam,” so we can avoid those practices and get our emails safely delivered to the inboxes of their intended recipients.
Now, one caveat here:
Just like good website SEO, which is predicated on creating quality content specifically for your target audience, “good” email marketing is also based on quality content that is relevant and helpful to your specific audience.
So, we’ll chat through some tips and best practices for avoiding the spam and promotions filters and improving email open and clickthrough rates below, but know that all of these tips are based on a solid foundation of sending quality emails to the right people.
(For more tips on how to be sure you’re sending to the “right” people, here’s how to properly tag and segment your email list!)
Quick note before we get started: My favorite email marketing tool is Flodesk, which I use in my own businesses. Here’s more about why we switched from Mailchimp to Flodesk. If you’re interested in trying Flodesk for your own email marketing, here’s a link for 50% off!
This post contains affiliate links through which I may earn a commission if you choose to purchase, at no additional cost to you. As always, these are products or services I personally use & love!
Though I’ll give a few examples from Flodesk, the tips below are applicable to any email marketing tool you prefer!
How to improve email open rates
In email marketing, there are two parts to improving your email open rates:
Avoid spam filters, and get your email into your recipient’s inbox, so they actually see it.
Ensure your email is compelling to open.
Avoiding spam filters
The very first step to better email open rates is setting up your email in a way that improves its deliverability (the likelihood it ends up in your recipient’s primary inbox, rather than the dreaded Promotions folder).
Spam filters aren’t an evil thing—they have an important and helpful purpose! They’re designed to keep our inboxes manageable, so we can focus on the emails we actually care about. With the increasingly saturated world of email marketing, the number of promotional emails the average person receives daily is pretty crazy. We’d all be drowning in them if there wasn’t a back-end algorithm flagging and sending them over to the Promotions tab.
But, as business owners, it can be a challenge to work around this otherwise helpful filter, because, let’s face it—almost nobody reads emails in the Promotions folder.
So, here are some best practices for avoiding the spam filter and Gmail Promotions folder:
1. Keep email design as simple as possible
There are certain things that Gmail’s algorithm recognizes as being more likely to be from a promotional marketing email rather than an email from, say, your mom:
images
buttons
links
Yes, all of the pretty things that make your email marketing look nice. 😅
There is some balance to be had here, as promotional emails are inherently different than the plain-text email from mom. You may actually need some imagery to communicate your message, and links are generally the sole purpose of sending the email in the first place.
So, this isn’t to say you should have no images or links in your email—but the more you can limit them, the better it will be for your email deliverability.
Pretty or plain emails: which is better?
Some email marketing tools, like Mailchimp and Flodesk, are more geared toward design-heavy messaging with multiple buttons and images. This is not inherently a bad thing, if it makes sense that your emails contain those elements (more on that in a moment).
Other email marketing tools, like ConvertKit, are known for a more stripped-down approach that’s primarily text, with perhaps one link in the entire email. These emails are also likely to include several merge tags throughout the message, which populate with the recipient’s name, personalizing each individual message.
The ConvertKit approach typically does have better deliverability, as the emails get past the “promotions” filter and end up in the recipient’s primary inbox. But, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily better for all purposes.
The end goal of email marketing is to:
→ grow and retain subscribers
→ and have those subscribers click through to the links you’re sharing with them (aka, purchase your products and services!)
There are plenty of emails that end up in the primary inbox, but aren’t compelling enough for readers to open and click through to read more or purchase.
So, deliverability is only part of the success of any email campaign. It’s certainly an important part to consider… but there are image-heavy promotional emails ending up in the Promotions folder that do get better engagement than plain-text emails in the primary inbox. It just depends on your audience, what they prefer, and how well you implement that.
If you do choose to go the pretty, well-designed email route, just be sure you’re limiting the imagery and links to just what you truly need for your messaging and branding.
2. Collect & use recipient names
In your email marketing, you can personalize the “To” field of each email with the recipient’s name, so instead of the email coming through as “To: bob@example.com” it would be seen as “To: Bob Smith,” which helps the email seem more personal to the ever-watchful spam and promotions filter.
This practice requires that you collect names from your email subscribers—something you can do via your Squarespace newsletter block settings (just check Require Name Field).
Many business owners choose to collect just an email address, no name, on their opt-in forms because it can lead to more sign-ups (people are more likely to sign up the quicker it is, and the less information they’re required to provide).
So, that might still be a preferred option for some. But it’s worth considering if you’re getting more benefit from those additional sign-ups from not requiring names, or more benefit from better open rates down the road (if you do require names).
To collect first name only or last name too?
Now, a happy medium between collecting no name at all or a full first name/last name is to ask for just the subscriber’s first name.
One of the reasons we switched our email marketing from Mailchimp to Flodesk is that the Squarespace/Mailchimp integration I’ve shared and recommend before (because it’s sooo easy to set up from your Squarespace website) doesn’t allow you to collect subscribers’ first name only. Your options with the Mailchimp integration in the Squarespace newsletter block are to collect either a full first name/last name, or no name at all (just email address). If you do choose to collect a name, both the first and last name get sent into the same “Name” field in Mailchimp.
Which means that if you’d like to use those merge tags in your email (“Hi, Bob!”), it will come out as “Hi, Bob Last Name!”… which is a little awkward if the merge tag is added to help personalize the email.
However, with the Flodesk opt-in forms (which can be nicely stylized in the same branding as your Squarespace website), you have the option to collect no name, first name only, or first name/last name.
3. Enable double opt-in
Double opt-in can be kind of a pain—it requires that new email subscribers confirm they intended to opt-in to your list by clicking a link in a confirmation email they’re sent, before they’re actually added to your mailing list or receive your custom welcome automation you’ve intended for them.
You can certainly lose some email subscribers who don’t complete this process, so are never added to your list (even though they perhaps thought they were).
But, double opt-in can be helpful because it gets new subscribers to open and click the first email from you… which helps their email algorithm “learn” that they like emails from you. (And, that means your emails are more likely to appear in their primary inbox moving forward!)
4. Send opt-in gifts via email
Another way to improve email deliverability similar to enabling double opt-in is to send opt-in gifts (like a freebie download) via email, so a new subscriber must open their email and click a link to download or access the item they requested.
Again, this tells their email client (such as Gmail) that they like your emails, they’re willing to open and click them, and that makes future emails from you more likely to be displayed in the primary inbox.
5. Include a special request
It can also be helpful, in your initial email to a new subscriber (like your welcome automation!) that you include instructions on how to drag your email from their promotions folder to their primary inbox, which tells Gmail to put future emails from that sender (you!) in the primary inbox too.
6. Improve your sender reputation
There are a few ways to help Gmail and other email clients feel better about you as a sender:
Authenticate your email address via your email marketing tool to show that you’re a legitimate sender from a legitimate company/organization. (Here’s how to authenticate your domain in Flodesk.)
Send quality emails that are actually useful and relevant to your email subscribers! This is one of the best things you can do for your email marketing engagement.
Be sure you’re properly tagging and segmenting your email list, which helps improve open rates, engagement and reduce unsubscribes—all things can help improve your sender rating.
Make your email compelling to open
Now, after you’ve done your best to get your email seen by your subscribers (aka, not hidden in the Promotions tab), the next step is to ensure that the email looks interesting enough your subscribers will want to open it.
Email subject line best practices
Your email subject line is an incredibly important part of your overall email. It’s what tells recipients what your email is all about—yet leaves them wanting more.
Email subject lines should be specific to the content of your email, give clues to what will be found inside, but not give away all your juicy details.
For example, “5 ways to improve your email marketing” would be a more compelling subject line than “spam filters stop your emails from being seen.”
The first example describes what’s inside the email, and it sounds helpful—we’d like to know what those five ways are! Whereas the second example just makes a statement and gives no further reason to open the email for more—it’s sort of a dead end.
As you explore different types of email subject lines that work for your particular audience, most email marketing tools allow you to A/B test your subject lines to determine which has a better open rate.
Customize your email preview text
The email preview text appears in recipients’ inbox, after your subject line. Though it’s not required that you update this before sending an email, its default settings will pull in the first 150 characters of your email content. So, if that’s not what you want your preview text to say, you’d want to update it.
If your email includes an image at the top with alt-text, that alt-text will show up in your default preview text, which is typically not something you’d want either. (So, I always recommend adding your own custom preview text for each email!)
Most email marketing software will prompt you to do this as you’re designing a new email. Here’s how it looks in Flodesk, the email software I personally use and recommend:
Strategically choose your email sender name
This seems like a small detail, but the sender name you choose for your emails can also impact how recipients perceive them, and how interested they are in opening the email.
There are typically a few options for your sender name:
your business name
your personal name
a combination, like Melissa from Five Design Co.
The best fit will vary depending on your business and branding, but it should definitely be something that your recipients will recognize and understand who is sending them an email and why.
Optimize your send time
Most email marketing software includes some capacity to optimize the timing of your scheduled emails to maximize open rates and engagement.
For example, in Flodesk (my email marketing tool of choice), this send time optimization is offered in the scheduling step for your email.
Flodesk uses data from their service and your email list subscribers to suggest the best time for scheduling your email in the morning, afternoon or evening.
How to improve email marketing clickthrough rates
Now that your subscriber has received, seen and opened your email, you’ll want to do your best to ensure they’re inspired to click through to your website (presumably, your desired end-goal of the email!).
Here are some tips for improving email clickthrough rates:
Craft quality, relevant & helpful content
Good email marketing must be all of these things: quality, relevant to your target audience, and helpful to them in some way.
There is no other way around great content! That’s an absolute “must-have” as you work to improve your email marketing clickthrough rates.
Structure long emails with scannable headings
Just like we do with blogging, we need to think through email copywriting from the reader’s point of view. And that means helping them scan the content, if they so choose, before diving in.
Make your emails mobile-friendly
Just like your website in general (which you should always design for and test on mobile devices!), make sure that each of your emails is designed to be viewed on either desktop or mobile, whichever your subscribers happen to read your email on.
Most email marketing software provides the option to preview your email on both desktop and mobile screen sizes, so you can be sure it looks great on both.
Design your emails for dark mode
The new dark mode rendering on mobile devices is a little challenging when designing email marketing. If a subscriber has dark mode settings on their device, the colors of your email will automatically invert (black text becomes white on a dark background).
This is a challenge when incorporating colored font in your emails, as some colors that look great on a white background can get translated into something that does not look great on a dark background.
Images can also be affected—if you have a transparent background image with dark text or design elements, that will become near impossible to see against the dark background on mobile devices with “dark mode” settings.
One of the ways to help retain readers’ interest and promote clickthroughs is ensuring your emails are designed with both standard and dark mode in mind. (If the email is illegible to a reader, they’re not likely to make it very far…)
Have one primary call-to-action
In general, it’s best to keep each email super clear with one primary call-to-action.
That means if you’re sending an email announcing a new blog post, simply link to that blog post, rather than giving all sorts of other links unrelated to the purpose of announcing and promoting that new post.
Note: In some cases, you may want to link to additional recent or relevant content, and that can work too if your emails are sent irregularly enough that they’re more of a compilation of recent content rather than a specific message regarding one particular blog post.
Re-send to subscribers who didn’t open
It can also be a good practice to re-send email campaigns to subscribers who didn’t open the email the first time around. We all get busy and miss things here and there, so that gives interested subscribers a second chance to see your email and click through it to receive your content or offer.
It’s generally recommended to update your email subject line and choose a different time of day for re-sending campaigns.
Good SEO attracts the “right” people to your list
Email marketing actually starts at your website—having great SEO that attracts your target audience to your site, and strategic opt-in gift offers that get those new visitors signed up for your email list.
Grab my free SEO Checklist for tips on boosting SEO and growing an email list of your target audience:
Improve SEO on your Squarespace website!
Grab my free checklist for boosting search engine visibility +ranking:
Need more email marketing tips & resources?
Flodesk University is a free online campus for email marketing strategy, including best practices for improving email open and clickthrough rates!
And, if you choose to use Flodesk for your email marketing, don’t forget to grab 50% off your first year of Flodesk! And, you still get a free 30-day trial to see if Flodesk is a good fit for you.
