Why are email clicks declining despite high open rates?

Key findings

• Inflated opens: High open rates, especially those that are consistently high despite low clicks, can be misleading. They often reflect automated pre-fetching of images by mailbox providers or interaction from bots, rather than genuine human opens.
• Deliverability is likely sound: If emails are consistently achieving high open rates, it suggests they are reaching the inbox successfully. This points away from underlying deliverability issues like being blacklisted or encountering DMARC failures.
• Content and call-to-action (CTA) misalignment: A discrepancy between opens and clicks often indicates that while the subject line (and preheader text) successfully entices opens, the email's content or its primary CTA fails to compel recipients to click. The content might be too self-contained, or the CTA not prominent enough.
• Audience engagement shifts: The audience's interests may be evolving, or the email frequency could be leading to subscriber fatigue, resulting in passive opens without active engagement. This can be particularly true if the audience is primarily B2C/ecommerce.

Key considerations

• Prioritize click-through rate (CTR): As open rates become less reliable, focus on CTR as the primary metric for measuring engagement and campaign success. This metric directly reflects recipient interest and action. For more insights, see our article on why email open rates are high despite low engagement.
• Analyze bot activity: Investigate whether a significant portion of your opens are attributed to non-human interaction (NHI) or bot clicks. Many email service providers (ESPs) offer tools to filter or identify these. Knowing the extent of bot activity can help in interpreting your data more accurately.
• Optimize email content: Review your email body for relevance, clarity, and persuasive messaging. Ensure the content drives recipients toward the intended action, rather than providing all information upfront. A good balance can significantly improve your click rates, especially if you're experiencing poor email performance despite a good open rate.
• Refine calls-to-action (CTAs): Make your CTAs clear, compelling, and easy to find. Consider placement, visual prominence, and the specificity of the call. Sometimes, a simple adjustment can lead to a significant uplift in clicks. VerticalResponse discusses this further in their analysis of what actually matters now in email marketing.
• Segment and personalize: Ensure your content is highly relevant to specific audience segments. Personalization can significantly increase the likelihood of clicks by addressing individual interests and needs.

Key opinions

• Opens are not deliverability indicators: Many marketers agree that high open rates indicate emails are reaching the inbox, not necessarily that they are engaging. Opens alone aren't a reliable sign of active interest.
• Bot clicks can distort data: There's a concern that bot activity or non-human interaction (NHI) can inflate open and even click numbers, making it harder to discern genuine engagement.
• Content relevance is paramount: If opens are high but clicks are low, it often points to content that doesn't align with the recipient's expectations or doesn't provide a strong reason to click.
• CTAs must be clear and compelling: A common sentiment is that weak, unclear, or insufficient calls to action are major culprits behind low click rates. If all information is provided in the email, there's no incentive to click through.

Key considerations

• Assess performance by domain: Marketers should analyze email performance across different domains (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) to identify if the low click rates are widespread or specific to certain providers. This can sometimes highlight unique challenges, such as low Gmail click rates despite high deliverability.
• Rethink content strategy: If subscribers are opening but not clicking, it's crucial to evaluate whether the email provides enough value to warrant an open, but not enough to encourage a click to the website. Consider leading recipients to discover more, rather than giving everything away in the email itself.
• Implement stronger CTAs: Focus on creating clear, concise, and prominent CTAs. Experiment with different wording, button designs, and placement to see what resonates best with your audience. For a detailed guide, refer to our article on how to increase email click-through rate.
• Monitor real engagement: Beyond clicks, track conversions, purchases, or other desired actions on your website. This provides a more holistic view of campaign performance. Cheyamedia further explores this in their piece on fixing high open rates with low click rates.

Key opinions

• Opens don't equal engagement: Experts stress that opens, particularly with Apple's Mail Privacy Protection and similar features, are largely unreliable as a sole indicator of recipient interest. The opens are often automated, masking true engagement.
• Inbox delivery confirmed: A consistent high open rate, even if inflated, indicates that emails are successfully reaching the inbox and are not being blocked or sent to spam folders by mailbox providers (MBPs).
• Focus shifts to clicks and conversions: With the diminishing reliability of open rates, experts recommend focusing on metrics further down the funnel, such as click-through rates and actual conversions, to gauge campaign effectiveness.
• Content is king for clicks: The primary reason for low clicks despite high opens is almost always content related. The email might fulfill the immediate informational need within the message itself, removing the incentive to click a link.

Key considerations

• Redefine 'open': Understand that an 'open' no longer strictly means a human read the email. It often just means the images were loaded. This fundamental shift requires re-evaluating how you measure initial engagement. This is critical for understanding what causes a sudden drop in email open rates.
• Trust alternative metrics: Beyond clicks, consider bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and spam complaint rates as truer indicators of deliverability and audience health. A good reputation typically leads to good inbox placement, preventing your emails from going to spam.
• Audit email content for click incentive: Rethink your email design and copy. If the goal is clicks, ensure the email acts as a teaser, compelling recipients to visit a landing page for the full story, offer, or experience. EmailToolTester.com provides insights on open rate issues.
• Educate stakeholders: Help your team and clients understand the evolving nature of email metrics. Emphasize that low clicks with high opens is typically an engagement issue, not a deliverability one, alleviating unnecessary deliverability concerns.

Key findings

• Open rate evolution: Many technical specifications and guidelines acknowledge that open rate tracking is often dependent on image loading, which can be influenced by pre-fetching, caching, and privacy settings, leading to inflated or inaccurate numbers.
• Emphasis on behavioral metrics: Documentation encourages senders to prioritize active engagement metrics such as clicks, conversions, and replies. These metrics provide a more robust signal of subscriber interest and interaction than passive opens.
• Content-driven engagement: Guidelines suggest that once an email is delivered and opened, the responsibility for driving further action lies primarily with the content's relevance, value, and clarity of its call to action.
• Deliverability indicators: While opens are imperfect, their consistent high level still serves as a broad indicator that email authentication (like SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and sender reputation are generally sufficient for inbox placement.

Key considerations

• Adopt robust tracking: Utilize analytics that go beyond basic open tracking. Implement conversion tracking on landing pages and use tools to analyze user journeys post-click. A free email testing tool can help check deliverability before sending.
• Consult postmaster tools: Leverage tools provided by major mailbox providers, like Google Postmaster Tools. While they may not directly explain low clicks, they offer insights into reputation, spam complaints, and authentication issues, which indirectly impact engagement over time.
• Design for action: Documentation often implies that effective email design guides the user towards a specific action. Ensure your design clearly highlights the CTA and makes it effortless for recipients to click, rather than providing all information within the email itself. Salesforce highlights the importance of email open rates in marketing, but also their limitations.