Survey: Low CTR is Primary Email Marketing Challenge for Majority of Marketers

According to the “Email Marketing Trends” survey published by Ascend2 in May 2015, more than half (53 percent) of marketers consider low click-through rates to be the biggest email marketing challenge. Forty-one percent said that a lack of an effective strategy was the largest obstacle, while 32 percent cited a deficit of quality content.

However, marketers were able to identify some of the most effective ways to increase click-through rates in the survey. Sixty-five percent said that a meaningful call-to-action was the best way to overcome this obstacle. About 47 percent said list segmentation for targeting was most helpful, and 42 percent noted message personalization.

Overall, the data showed that email marketing progression is relatively stagnant. Thirty-four percent of marketers said that email click-through rates are not changing. Thirty-nine percent said they are increasing to some degree, while 27 percent said they were decreasing.

The Power of Images in Email Marketing

A study published by Constant Contact in March 2015 showed that images may have a negative impact on email click-through rates. Specifically, CTR dramatically drops when more than three images are used in an email.

“Just remember that with a growing number of people reading emails on mobile, you need to be clear and concise when designing your campaign and avoid overcrowding your emails,” stated Constant Contact.

However, text appears to have the opposite effect when it comes to email. The study found that emails with at least 20 lines of text have the highest click-through rate. This typically translates into about two or three paragraphs.