Email Click Rate
Email click rate is the percentage of delivered emails in which at least one link was clicked by the recipient, serving as a more reliable measure of email engagement than open rate since it requires deliberate user action.
Also known as: email CTR, email click-through rate, CTOR
Formula
(Emails with Clicks / Emails Delivered) x 100
Why It Matters
Email click rate is the most reliable behavioral signal in email marketing. Unlike open rate, which can be inflated by privacy features or deflated by image blocking, a click requires intentional action from the recipient. It confirms that the email content was not only seen but was compelling enough to drive the user to take the next step.
Click rate has become the primary email engagement metric in the post-Apple MPP era. It is immune to the pixel pre-loading that distorts open rates and provides a direct measure of content relevance and CTA effectiveness. Most importantly, clicks are the mechanism through which email drives website visits, conversions, and revenue.
There are two ways to express email click metrics. Click-to-open rate (CTOR) divides clicks by opens, measuring how effective the email body is at driving action among those who opened it. Click rate divides clicks by total delivered emails, measuring the overall effectiveness of the campaign including subject line appeal. Both are useful but answer different questions.
How to Calculate
Email click rate is calculated by dividing the number of emails with at least one click by the total number of delivered emails, then multiplying by 100. If 1,200 out of 25,000 delivered emails received at least one click, the click rate is 4.8%. Click-to-open rate divides clicks by opens instead of deliveries.
Email Click Rate Calculator
(Emails with Clicks / Emails Delivered) x 100
Industry Applications
A fashion retailer tests personalized product recommendations in their weekly email vs a curated editorial selection. Personalized emails achieve a 5.8% click rate vs 3.2% for editorial, with 2.1x higher revenue per email.
Benchmark: Average ecommerce email click rate: 2-5%
A SaaS company sends feature update emails with embedded GIFs demonstrating new functionality. These achieve a 7.2% click rate vs 4.1% for text-only announcements, making visual demos a standard practice for product updates.
Benchmark: Average SaaS email click rate: 3-6%
How to Track in KISSmetrics
Email platforms report click rates automatically. Use KISSmetrics with UTM-tagged email links to track the complete post-click journey. KISSmetrics connects the email click to the user identity, showing you exactly what recipients do after clicking - whether they browse, convert, or abandon. This lets you measure email revenue attribution with confidence.
Common Mistakes
- -Confusing click rate (clicks/delivered) with click-to-open rate (clicks/opens), which are very different metrics.
- -Counting total clicks instead of unique clicks, inflating the metric when a single user clicks multiple links.
- -Not UTM-tagging email links, making it impossible to attribute post-click conversions to specific email campaigns.
- -Treating all clicks equally when some (like clicking "unsubscribe" or "view in browser") are not engagement signals.
Pro Tips
- +Use click rate as your primary email engagement KPI since it is not affected by Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
- +A/B test CTAs, link placement, and content format to systematically improve click rate over time.
- +Segment click rate by email type (promotional, transactional, newsletter) and set different benchmarks for each.
- +Track click-to-conversion rate in KISSmetrics to identify which email campaigns drive not just clicks but actual revenue.
- +Use heatmap-style click tracking within emails to see which links and sections receive the most clicks.
Related Terms
Email Open Rate
Email open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that were opened by recipients, traditionally measured by the loading of a tracking pixel embedded in the email.
Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on a link, ad, email, or call-to-action out of the total number who viewed it, measuring how effectively a piece of content drives user action.
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients who opt out of future emails after receiving a specific campaign, serving as a critical health metric for email list quality and content relevance.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a desired action out of the total number of users who had the opportunity to do so, serving as the primary measure of how effectively a page, campaign, or experience turns visitors into customers.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is a controlled experiment that compares two versions of a web page, email, ad, or feature by randomly splitting traffic between them and measuring which version performs better on a defined success metric.
See Email Click Rate in action
KISSmetrics tracks every user across sessions and devices so you can measure what matters. Start free - no credit card required.