A key element of a thriving email campaign is customer engagement. So, if your click-through rate (CTR) is declining, it’s time to re-strategise.
The first step is to think about what might be causing the decrease in engagement by monitoring and testing your campaigns. Frequent testing allows you to keep track of deliverability metrics, and to compare what works with what doesn’t.
You can run A/B tests or conduct market research, but you need to know what to look for.
Here are the most common reasons your engagement rates are declining:
1. Lacking Relevance⚡ #
It gets boring for your customers if your emails just re-use and repeat the same old, untailored content. Emails you send out during Christmas should not be the same as those you sent on Valentine’s Day. Messages you send to people over the age of 60 should not match those for subscribers in their 20s.
Segmenting your audiences and personalising your content will improve CTRs.
Make your emails stand out in a busy inbox. Keep content fresh, and match your emails to your readers to incentivise them to read more.
2. Poor Deliverability ⚡ #
Most email marketers face this challenge. It can be disheartening to see your well-crafted emails hurled so thoughtlessly into the spam folder.
Spam filters cause problems when they are negatively alerted to your email content. They can be triggered by frequent spam complaints, or if you bombard customers with too many emails. Filters also look out for specific, ‘spammy’, words and content.
Phrases such as ‘URGENT’, or ‘ACT NOW’, increase the chances of your email being flagged as spam. While they are a Call-to-Action, they are a little aggressive and prone to irritate, rather than captivate email-readers. They are better suited to certain types of SMS Marketing.
OVERCAPITALISATION also triggers spam filters, along with excessive use of exclamation marks!!!!! Images, while exciting and dynamic, can raise alarm bells, too, if they’re over-used.
3. Ineffective Subject Line⚡ #
An impactful subject line will grab your readers’ attention. But did you know that it can also determine whether the message makes it to their inbox at all?
Spam filters use the subject line to analyse and flag content. Trigger words like those mentioned above, are likely to cause issues.
So what can you include?
A subject line should provide an (unaggressive) Call-to-Action. Personalise it , and be concise and clear.
Your email must be eye-catching. Pique curiosity in your subject line, with Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Some good examples are:
- ‘[NAME], have you seen these offers?’
- ‘Don’t miss out, [Name].’
4. Excessive CTAs⚡ #
A Call-to-Action (CTA) is a necessity for sparking engagement, but don’t overdo it. For example, if one email includes multiple CTAs, you will confuse the reader, or give them option-paralysis. This decreases Click-Through-Rates and Conversions.
Best practice recommends one CTA per email, which is delivered clearly, and prompts a single, obvious action from a reader:
- ‘Want to know more?’
- ‘[NAME], have you seen this?’
5. Mobile Optimisation Troubles ⚡ #
41% of emails are opened on a phone, so emails need to be both openable and actionable on a small screen, or people will quickly click off.
Optimising your emails for a mobile inbox is therefore important, so that important information does not get lost on a smaller screen, and viewers do not get frustrated.
6. Inconsistency⚡ #
Which times of day are your customers opening their inbox? Do you know what sort of Calls-to-Action receive the most engagement?
Run an A/B test and, where possible, make sure you do your market research. This will help you to automate your emails, improving the reliability of your campaign.
7. You need to do a clear-out ⚡ #
Your customer base will change. People unsubscribe, or stop engaging; that’s natural. It’s always good to have an obvious unsubscribe button, and to remove those people who no longer want to be involved.
If an email bounces, filter the address out, or add it to your suppression list, to avoid spending time and money sending emails that will never arrive. You can automate the process of moving subscribers to your suppression list by defining the criteria that will trigger this action.
As you can see, there are several reasons why your email engagement rate might be declining. Luckily, that means there are several things you can do to fix it.
⚡Is it all clicking into place? #
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We are always on hand to discuss your email campaigns. Drop us a message today, and see what we can do to help.
