Click to open rate: Guide to boost email engagement in 2025

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click to open rate (CTOR) in email marketing measures the percentage of recipients who click on a link after opening your email. 

The simple formula for calculating the click to open rate is to divide the number of clicks by the number of unique opens and then multiply by 100. 

CTOR provides insight into how engaging and relevant your email content is to your audience. A high CTOR indicates that the readers resonate with your email, and it has the potential to drive action that contributes to campaign success.

Learning how to measure and track the click to open rate is pretty straightforward, and anyone serious about marketing can grasp the basics in just a few minutes.

Importance of click to open rate in email marketing

Click to open rate is one of the most important email marketing metrics, and it can directly affect the results of your campaigns and boost the sales of your online business. Unlike open rates, which only reflect how compelling your subject lines are, CTOR evaluates the effectiveness of your email content and its ability to engage your audience.

You can discover how recipients interact with your emails by tracking user actions. It can also help you determine the best time to send an email by measuring the highest number of open emails at any given time.

You could also get data on the different lead magnets you’re promoting, see which one has the most downloads, and figure out what offers currently have the highest conversion rate.

Here’s a list of the data points you can discover by tracking the click to open rate of your email marketing:

• Total number of email clicks
• New email downloads
• Number of email purchases
• Best email hooks and CTAs

Leveraging this data allows you to refine your email marketing strategy, driving higher conversions in future marketing campaigns. You can increase engagement and improve campaign performance by delivering value-driven emails.

Click to open rate formula: How to calculate CTOR

You must first understand how to calculate click to open rate to use it as a measure for your email marketing campaigns. Once you know, you can learn how to use it to your advantage. 

Here’s the click to open rate formula for your emails:

This formula works by dividing the number of unique clicks in your email marketing campaign by the number of unique opens and multiplying the result by 100.

For example, if an email campaign brings in 720 unique clicks and 2,000 unique opens, the click to open rate (CTOR) is calculated as:

This means 36% of recipients who opened the email clicked on a link.

However, this metric is different from the click through rate since it focuses on unique clicks, while the CTR includes the total number of clicks divided by the total impressions.

In short, the click through rate offers a simple metric for engagement, and the click to open rate formula provides detailed information on each link inside the email.

This means you can assess the conversion rate much better when using CTOR instead of the CTR.

What is a good click to open rate?

There’s no definite answer to “what is a good click to open rate,” but there’s a standard threshold that people need to meet in order to have great results.

In general, this threshold varies anywhere from 4% to 11% and is considered a decent CTOR, depending on your industry.

However, some factors can affect the results of your click to open rate for your email marketing campaigns. Let’s discuss them in detail:

Click to open rate by industry

The main factors that could change your CTOR are the location of your targeted audience and the industry or niche your business is currently focusing on.

Here are some of the most recent clicks to open rate numbers for email marketing campaigns based on the industry or niche:

Click to open rate by email types

The CTOR can also change depending on the email types you use during your marketing campaign, including triggered, newsletter, and autoresponder emails.

Overall, the autoresponder and triggered emails have the highest click to open rates and email deliverability since they are more relevant to most subscribers.

As per the Omnisend report, automated emails outperformed campaign emails, with open rates soaring from 26.64% to 40.55%, and click rates rising from 4.56% to 12.99%.

Additionally, automated emails generated 37% of all email orders while accounting for only 2% of emails sent.

Audience demographics

The behavior and preferences of your target audience are crucial in determining CTOR. Factors like age, location, interests, and familiarity with your brand can influence how likely recipients are to engage with your content. Building detailed audience segments and tailoring emails to their specific needs and preferences can drive engagement.

For example, an audience familiar with your brand is more likely to engage with your emails compared to cold prospects.

Here are some ways how you can improve your click to open rate: 

• Write engaging subject lines: Improve your email subject lines to boost your rate by using short, personalized, and curiosity-driven phrases
• Use mobile-friendly designs: Ensure your emails are responsive, visually appealing, and easy to navigate on all devices
• Keep content concise: Deliver relevant, value-driven content in a clear and concise format
• Optimize your CTAs: Use actionable language and prominent designs to make your calls to action stand out
• Personalize and segment emails: Tailor your emails based on audience preferences and behaviors for better relevance
• Test the best sending times: Experiment with different days and times to determine when your audience is most active
• Conduct A/B testing: Test subject lines, CTAs, and visuals to find what resonates best with your audience
• Analyze and refine: Regularly monitor performance metrics and adjust your strategies accordingly

Click to open rate vs. click through rate: Key differences

The click to open rate is often mistaken for the click through rate metric or CTR since they have similar connotations, with both providing useful information about your targeted audience.

However, there’s a key difference between click to open rate vs. click through rate. The click to open rate focuses on unique clicks in your emails, while the click through rate concentrates only on the percentage of clicks from all your subscribers.

So, what’s the best metric to focus on?

The answer depends on what you want to measure during your email marketing campaign.

If you want to focus on a general overview of your emails where you track how many clicks you’re getting on average, you should prioritize the click through rate. This metric is perfect for discovering which leads on your email list show interest in your business and finding unresponsive, cold leads for weeks or months.

Conversely, if you’re looking to increase engagement and gain insights into how many recipients are actively clicking on your products or services when they open your email, focusing on the click to open rate is essential. This metric will give you a clearer picture of how well your content is resonating with your audience.

This metric is geared more towards tracking potential buyers who have a higher conversion rate and are more likely to become a customer of your business in the future.

Either way, both metrics have their own benefits, and when used in tandem, they provide a better assessment of your email marketing campaigns.

To make things simpler, here’s a direct comparison of the differences between the click to open rates vs. click through rates:

	Click through rate (CTR)	Click to open rate (CTOR)
Funnel position	Top of the funnel metric	Middle of the funnel metric
Measurement basis	Measures against impressions	Measures against opens
Focus	Focus on clicks to a single link	Focus on clicks to various email links
Type of metric	Measures traffic	Measures engagement

Best practices for improving your click to open rate

To get the maximum benefits out of your email campaigns, implementing some best practices can easily get you a good open rate and ensure better performance without spending a fortune. Here’s what you can do:

Personalize your emails

While connecting to your audience, a little email personalization goes a long way and can be the fastest way to improve your click to open rate. You can do this by using the available data on each subscriber and tailoring each email to their main preferences.

For example, you can showcase products they have previously viewed or highlight unfinished deals in their checkout to boost the chances of them completing a purchase.

Test and optimize email content

The next step you can take is to test and optimize your email content to figure out what works best with your targeted audience and get more people to click on your offers.

You can start by writing multiple eye-catching subject lines and using popular terms in your industry or niche to test them out and use them to get better open rates.

Then, you can optimize the email content by writing user-friendly copy that builds trust with your subscribers and convinces them to know more about your products and services.

Lastly, you must limit the number of email CTAs in your email to one to two per email and ensure you test which message drives more clicks from your audience.

Use data-driven segmentation and targeting

The final step you need to take is to implement data-driven segmentation and targeting for all your email marketing campaigns with the help of metrics like the click to open rate.

You can do this by adding dynamic content to your emails, which helps you segment all your subscribers into groups and target them based on the following information:

• Subscription data
• Purchase history
• Current location
• Last engagement

You can also include additional information if necessary to make your emails more relevant and get a better ROI during your marketing campaigns.

It’s extremely important to analyze your audience’s behavior and adapt to new trends since this can change over time and affect the performance of your emails.

Why choose Omnisend for email marketing success

To guarantee the success of your email marketing campaigns, you can use platforms like Omnisend to help you with email automation for all the tedious tasks, including tracking all the data from your email list.

Omnisend also helps you manage everything and apply the best email marketing practices in just a few clicks.

Additionally, Omnisend can improve your click to open rate with access to these special features:

• Advanced audience segmentation
• A/B testing for subject lines and content
• Analytics tools for tracking CTOR and related metrics

With these benefits and many more, Omnisend is the perfect platform to choose if you’re committed to achieving email marketing success.

Conclusion

We explored the significance of click to open rate (CTOR) as a crucial metric for assessing and improving the effectiveness of your email campaigns. We discussed how analyzing CTOR helps identify areas for enhancement, leading to better engagement and performance.

By optimizing your CTOR, you can refine your email strategy, drive conversions, and strengthen your audience relationships. Implementing the tips shared here will help you get the most out of your email marketing efforts.

And with platforms like Omnisend, you’ll gain valuable insights into CTOR and other key metrics to accelerate your business growth.