Email Performance Guide
People are opening your emails but not clicking. Why?
You've fixed your deliverability. Your open rates are solid. But when you check click rates, they're sitting at 0.5-1%. People are seeing your emails and... doing nothing.
The gap between opens and clicks is where most eCommerce brands lose the plot. An open means your subject line worked. A click means your content worked. If people open but don't click, the email itself is the problem — the layout, the CTA placement, the offer clarity, or the relevance.
We've optimized thousands of emails across 150+ Klaviyo accounts. The patterns that drive 3-5% click rates are consistent and repeatable. Most of them have nothing to do with fancy design and everything to do with structure and clarity.
3-5%
Target Click Rate (eCommerce)
1 CTA
Per Email (Not 5)
47%
Emails Read on Mobile
150+
Brands Optimized
How to fix this — step by step
One email, one goal, one primary CTA
The number one click-rate killer is too many links. When you give someone 8 things to click, they click nothing. Every email should have one primary action — "Shop the sale," "Complete your order," "Read the guide." One button, one link, one clear instruction. You can have secondary links (product grids, footer links), but the primary CTA should be visually dominant and appear at least twice — once above the fold and once at the bottom.
Put your CTA above the fold on mobile
Over 60% of eCommerce emails are opened on phones. If your CTA button doesn't appear within the first screen scroll, you've already lost most of your potential clicks. On mobile, "above the fold" means the first 400-500 pixels of the email. Your structure should be: brand header (small), hero image, 1-2 lines of copy, CTA button. That's it for the first screen. Everything else goes below.
Use button CTAs, not text links
Buttons get 28% more clicks than text links. Make your CTA button large enough to tap easily on mobile (minimum 44x44 pixels), use a contrasting color against your email background, and write specific button text. "Shop the Summer Collection" beats "Click Here." "Get Your 10% Off" beats "Learn More." The button text should tell people exactly what happens when they click.
Shorten your emails dramatically
Most eCommerce emails are too long. The perfect promotional email is 50-125 words plus product images. That's it. A strong headline, one benefit-driven sentence, a product image, and a CTA. Save the long-form content for your blog. Emails should drive a click, not tell the whole story. We've tested short vs. long across dozens of brands and shorter emails win on click rates almost every time.
Use dynamic product blocks tailored to the recipient
Klaviyo's dynamic product blocks show products based on each subscriber's browsing and purchase history. Instead of showing everyone the same 4 products, each person sees items they've actually looked at or items similar to what they've bought. Dynamic recommendations increase click rates by 15-25% compared to static product grids because the content is genuinely relevant — not a guess.
Want us to handle this?
These five changes will lift your click rates noticeably — probably within the next 2-3 campaigns. The structural changes (single CTA, above-the-fold placement, shorter emails) are things you can implement today.
Dynamic content, segment-specific email variations, and continuous A/B testing at scale — that's where you need systems and expertise. We build and optimize email programs for 150+ eCommerce brands, and click rate optimization is a big part of what we do month over month. If you want us to audit your email performance and show you where clicks are leaking, that's free.
Questions our best clients asked first
Want us to find out why people open but don't click?
We'll audit your last 30 email campaigns, analyze your click-to-open ratio, and give you a specific optimization plan with projected lift. Free, no commitment.
Pick a Time15 minutes. No pitch deck. Just your data and our honest take.
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