Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing strategy, these actionable email marketing tips will help your emails perform better in today’s competitive environment.
Understanding Email Engagement Metrics
Before diving into improvement strategies, let’s clarify what we’re measuring:
Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open your email. Industry benchmarks vary, but rates between 15-25% are generally considered healthy across most sectors.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of email recipients who click on one or more links in your email. Average CTRs typically range from 2-5%, with variations by industry.
Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): This measures the percentage of people who clicked after opening your email—a more accurate measure of how compelling your email content is once someone opens it.
Understanding these distinctions helps you identify whether you need to focus on getting more emails opened or improving the content that drives clicks once they’re opened.
Strategies to Improve Open Rates
1. Craft Compelling Subject Lines
Your subject line is the gatekeeper of your email campaign—no matter how valuable your content, it won’t be seen without an effective subject line.
Keep it concise: 41-50 characters typically perform best as they display fully on most devices.
Create urgency: Phrases like “Limited time” or “Ending soon” can increase open rates by creating FOMO (fear of missing out).
Ask questions: Questions engage the reader’s curiosity and prompt them to open for the answer.
Use numbers: Specific numbers (e.g., “7 Ways to…” or “Increase Conversions by, up to 27%”) signal clear, actionable content.
A/B test consistently: Active Campaign offers robust A/B testing tools that allow you to test different subject lines with sample segments before sending to your entire list.
2. Perfect Your Preview Text
The preview text (or preheader) acts as your subject line’s wingman. This 35-140 character snippet appears after or below the subject line in most email clients.
Don’t waste this space: Avoid default text like “View in browser” or “Having trouble viewing this email?”
Complement, don’t repeat: Your preview text should add value to your subject line, not merely repeat it.
Include a call to action: Encourage opens with phrases like “Discover how…” or “See what we found…”
Aweber provides excellent preview text optimization tools and templates that make it easy to craft compelling preheaders.
3. Optimize Send Time and Frequency
When you send emails significantly impacts open rates:
Analyze your audience: Moosend offers AI-powered send time optimization that analyzes when your specific subscribers are most likely to engage.
Consider time zones: If your audience spans multiple regions, segment and schedule accordingly.
Test different days: While Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday traditionally show higher engagement, your audience might differ.
Respect frequency expectations: Send too often, and you’ll see unsubscribes; too rarely, and subscribers forget you. Finding the right cadence is crucial.
4. Segment Your Audience
Relevant content drives higher open rates. Segmentation ensures you’re sending the right message to the right people:
Demographic segmentation: Group subscribers by age, location, gender, or job title.
Behavioral segmentation: Separate subscribers based on past purchases, website behavior, or email engagement history.
Engagement-based segmentation: Create segments for highly engaged subscribers versus those who rarely open.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) excels at creator-focused segmentation, allowing you to automatically tag and categorize subscribers based on their interactions with your content.
5. Maintain List Hygiene
Clean lists deliver better open rates and improved deliverability:
Remove inactive subscribers: After appropriate re-engagement attempts, purge subscribers who haven’t opened emails in 6-12 months.
Use double opt-in: This verification method ensures only genuinely interested subscribers join your list.
Monitor bounce rates: Address hard bounces immediately and investigate patterns in soft bounces.
Implement sunset policies: Automatically remove or segment subscribers who haven’t engaged after a predetermined period.
Strategies to Improve Click-Through Rates
1. Clarify Your Call-to-Action (CTA)
Your CTA directly influences click-through rates:
Use action-oriented language: “Get Started,” “Claim Your Discount,” or “See Results” perform better than generic phrases like “Click Here.”
Create visual hierarchy: Your primary CTA should stand out through size, color, and positioning.
Limit options: Too many CTAs create decision fatigue. Focus on 1-2 primary actions you want readers to take.
Test button vs. text links: While buttons typically perform better, some audiences respond better to text links—test both with your specific subscribers.
2. Personalize Beyond the Name
Sophisticated personalization drives significant engagement improvements:
Recommend based on behavior: Suggest products or content based on previous interactions.
Reference past purchases: Acknowledge and build upon customers’ purchase history.
Personalize by segment: Tailor entire email content to different subscriber segments.
Active Campaign offers advanced personalization features that allow you to dynamically change email content based on subscriber data and behaviors.
3. Design Mobile-First Emails
With over 60% of emails now opened on mobile devices, mobile optimization is non-negotiable:
Use responsive design: Ensure your emails adapt to any screen size automatically.
Enlarge CTAs for touch: Make buttons at least 44×44 pixels (Apple’s recommendation) for easy tapping.
Limit image size: Large images that slow loading will decrease engagement.
Keep layouts simple: Single-column designs typically work best on mobile.
Aweber provides a wide range of mobile-responsive templates that automatically adjust to look great on any device.
4. Create Compelling Content
The core of your email must deliver value to drive clicks:
Focus on benefits, not features: Explain how your offering improves subscribers’ lives.
Tell stories: Narrative-driven emails typically outperform purely promotional content.
Use social proof: Customer testimonials, reviews, and usage statistics build credibility.
Break up text: Use short paragraphs, bullets, and subheadings to enhance readability.
5. Optimize Email Design
Strategic design choices can significantly impact click rates:
Use white space effectively: Give content room to breathe rather than cramming elements together.
Implement strategic imagery: Use relevant, high-quality images that enhance rather than distract from your message.
Create text-to-image balance: Aim for approximately 80% text to 20% images to avoid spam filters.
Maintain brand consistency: Use consistent colors, fonts, and design elements to build recognition.
Moosend offers an intuitive drag-and-drop editor with templates specifically designed to maximize engagement metrics.
Advanced Tactics for 2025
1. Implement Interactive Elements
Interactive components can increase click rates by 200-300%:
Add polls and surveys: Direct engagement through voting increases interaction.
Use GIFs strategically: Animated elements catch attention when used sparingly.
Embed videos: Including video thumbnails with play buttons can increase CTR by 50%.
Try accordion menus: These expand/collapse elements save space while providing additional information.
2. Leverage AI-Powered Personalization
AI has transformed what’s possible with email personalization:
Predictive content selection: Tools now automatically select the most relevant content for each subscriber.
Send-time optimization: AI determines the optimal send time for individual subscribers, not just segments.
Subject line generation and optimization: AI can now suggest and test subject lines optimized for your specific audience.
Active Campaign and Moosend both offer AI-powered tools that optimize content and send times for individual recipients.
3. Implement Behavioral Triggers
Behavior-triggered emails consistently outperform batch campaigns:
Browse abandonment: Send emails when subscribers view products but don’t purchase.
Re-engagement campaigns: Automatically target subscribers before they become inactive.
Milestone celebrations: Trigger congratulatory emails for anniversaries or achievements.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) excels at creating behavior-based automations that deliver the right message exactly when subscribers are most likely to engage.
Testing and Optimization Framework
Continuous testing is the key to sustained improvement:
1. Establish Clear Baselines
Document current metrics: Record open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates as benchmarks.
Set realistic goals: Aim for incremental improvements rather than dramatic overnight changes.
2. Implement A/B Testing Systematically
Test one element at a time: Change only one variable per test for clear results.
Ensure statistical significance: Use large enough sample sizes and appropriate duration.
Prioritize high-impact elements: Focus first on subject lines, CTAs, and send times before testing minor design elements.
3. Analyze and Iterate
Look beyond the obvious metrics: Consider downstream impacts like conversion rates and revenue.
Document learnings: Build a knowledge base of what works specifically for your audience.
Apply insights across channels: Use email insights to improve other marketing channels.
Improving email open and click-through rates isn’t about tricks or hacks—it’s about delivering relevant, valuable content to the right people at the right time. 🎯
By implementing these strategies systematically and committing to ongoing testing and optimization, you can significantly improve your email performance metrics and drive better results from your campaigns.
Start by choosing one area to focus on—perhaps subject line optimization or mobile responsiveness—and use the appropriate tools to implement and test improvements. Platforms like Aweber, Active Campaign, Kit, and Moosend offer the features needed to execute these strategies effectively.
Remember that email marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Consistent application of these principles, combined with regular analysis and adjustment, will yield compounding improvements over time. Your subscribers’ needs and preferences will evolve—and your email strategy should evolve with them.
Tuts and Reviews is a digital marketing, tech and creative resource blog. Make sure to browse through the categories and check our Freebies section! Become a part of the community on Facebook , Instagram and YouTube.
