Why It Matters
Click rate tells you whether your email content actually motivated people to act. Opens mean they saw it; clicks mean they cared enough to engage. Average click rates hover between 2-5% across industries, but that varies wildly. A targeted product recommendation email might hit 8-10%, while a general newsletter might sit at 2-3%.
How It Works
Email platforms wrap your links in tracking redirects. When a subscriber clicks, they briefly pass through the tracking server (which logs the click) before landing on your destination URL. The platform counts unique clicks (one per subscriber, regardless of how many times they click) and total clicks (every click event).
Click rate is different from click-through rate (CTR). Click rate uses total delivered emails as the denominator. CTR typically uses opens as the denominator, measuring what percentage of people who opened also clicked. Both are useful, but they answer different questions.
Quick Tips
- If your open rate is fine but click rate is low, the problem is your content or CTA — not your subject line or deliverability.
- Put your most important link above the fold. Mobile readers especially won't scroll for it.
- Use descriptive link text. "Read the full guide" outperforms "Click here" because it sets an expectation.