Click to open rate
What is Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)?
Click-to-open rate, or CTOR, is an email marketing metric that measures how effective your email content is once it’s been opened. It shows the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within an email out of those who actually opened it, rather than out of the total emails sent. This provides a clearer picture of how engaging and relevant your content is to the people who chose to view it.
A high CTOR usually indicates that the email’s message, design, and calls to action are resonating with your audience. It’s a helpful way for UK marketers to evaluate whether their email content is doing its job, not just getting attention, but prompting meaningful action. CTOR is especially useful for understanding engagement among your most interested subscribers, giving more focused insight than broader metrics alone.
CTOR vs CTR – What’s the Difference?
While both CTOR and click-through rate (CTR) measure link clicks, they reflect different parts of the funnel. CTR looks at how many people clicked on a link compared to the total number of emails sent, regardless of whether the email was opened. CTOR, on the other hand, only considers clicks from those who opened the email. This makes CTOR more precise when it comes to analysing the performance of your content, design, and call to action among those who were already engaged enough to open the message.
How to Improve Your CTOR
To increase your click-to-open rate, it’s important to focus on the quality and clarity of your content. Your call to action should be compelling, relevant to the subject line, and placed prominently within the email. The content itself should be concise, easy to scan, and visually engaging, readers should quickly understand the purpose of the message and feel encouraged to take the next step. Including eye-catching visuals, making links stand out, and ensuring your layout works well on mobile can all contribute to better results. Ultimately, CTOR gives marketers a more focused lens on how well their content performs with subscribers who are already paying attention, making it a key indicator of email campaign health.
