Learn 10 ways to increase click-through rate on internal emails and help readers get more value out of your employee communications.
Your internal newsletter real estate is valuable. To keep things clear, clean, and concise, you need to use internal links generously. Readers can access the necessary resources without your newsletter looking cluttered and overwhelming.
That being said, if employees aren’t clicking on your embedded URLs, they’re missing out on key information. In this post, we’ll explain how to increase click-through rates (CTR) on internal newsletters and keep it up.
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What is Click-Through Rate?
Click-through rate refers to the percentage of recipients who clicked on links within an email message. When it comes to internal communications, click-through rate is a good indicator of employee interest in your content.
In fact, according to our 2022 Global State of Internal Communications Report, 26% of internal communicators rely on click-through rates (CTR) to determine the success of their internal comms efforts.
By calculating your click-through rate on a continuous basis, you can see which links and content pique employee interest. This makes it easier to implement data-based improvements.
How to Calculate Click-through Rate
You can calculate the click-through rate on your internal communications using an email tracking tool. This type of software monitors email engagement with your internal emails and breaks down the metrics.
With ContactMonkey’s internal email analytics you can track click-through rate alongside email open rate, most popular clicks, survey results, best email sending times, and more.
You can even set individual or overall campaign tracking to compare your most engaged employees, departments, and office locations.
What is a Reasonable Click-Through Rate for Internal Email Newsletters?
If you’re using click-through rate to understand the success of your internal communications, knowing the average internal email open rate is a good place to start.
According to our 2022 Internal Email Benchmark Report, the average click rate for internal communications across a variety of industries was just 7%. That being said, the numbers vary widely from business to business. Ultimately, your click-through rate will depend on various factors, like the number of emails you send on a regular basis and how your internal communicators manage things like Outlook and Gmail email limits.
Exemplis, for instance, was able to reach a click-through rate as high as 30% with the help of ContactMonkey’s internal email tracking software.
By providing the Exemplis team with in-depth analytics — from CTR and open rates to read times and most popular links — ContactMonkey helped the team tap into audience interests. In turn, Exemplis could tailor its email content to employee preferences and boost engagement.
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Benchmark Click-Through Rates by Industry
Before you can start learning how to increase click-through rates on internal emails, you need to identify industry standards.
Your industry plays a big role in determining the average CTR for your internal emails.
Take for instance the average internal email click rate across retail businesses. According to our Email Benchmark Report, the number currently stands at 12%. Meanwhile, internal email click-through rates among companies in the automotive industry add up to just 4%.
In addition, small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) communications tend to generate higher internal email CTR than companies with more employees.
To get the most relevant insights, and keep pace with the leading employee engagement companies in your field, it’s important to examine data for your specific industry.
We break down a few key figures below:
10 Ways to Improve Your Click-Through Rate
Now that you know how to measure click-through rate, and understand its value, you’re probably eager to know how to actually increase click-through rates on internal emails.
Here are 10 techniques that have helped our clients improve their internal email click-through rates and offer greater value to their employees.
1. Setting baseline click-through rate
Learning your baseline click-through rate will help you see when and where you’re making improvements. Use an email tracking tool like ContactMonkey to determine your baseline CTR and work from there.
Begin tweaking the content of your emails and see how your engagement rates move from your baseline. Take note of any specific changes you make, such as new layouts and promotional features to see what makes an impact.
2. Email Design
A clean, easy-to-navigate, and mobile-friendly email design underscores key elements of your email content, including links. This makes it easy for employees to know where to click and why.
To see which designs perform best, you can use the campaign comparison feature within ContactMonkey. It lets you track differences in engagement over time and between specific email campaigns so you can make informed adjustments.
3. Clear and compelling copy
Contextualizing your links helps employees understand why they should be clicking. So does your anchor text—i.e, that little snippet of text onto which you add your link.
When you use lengthy anchors for your links, it makes it difficult for employees to understand where the URL is actually taking them. In turn, it’s less likely that they’ll click on the link at all.
Choose 1-2 key anchor words to keep things straightforward.
Here’s an example of improper and proper use of anchor text respectively:
4. Concise links
Make sure that the URL you’re using is short and relevant. If employees hover over a link only to see endless letters and symbols, they may think it’s spam, a phishing email, or a broken link.
Avoid using lengthy links, or opt for a URL-shortener, such as Bitly, to help. With ContactMonkey’s custom link tracker you even have the option to create customized links right from your email builder.
5. Engaging content
Prominent Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons and recognizable social media icons encourage employees to click on and share email content. This sort of engaging content takes your links and the resources they’re promoting, further. Combined with stellar email design like embedding GIFs in your Outlook emails and featuring videos for internal communications, you can almost guarantee higher engagement on your emails.
Mobile-friendly and responsive design is also a big part of creating engaging content.
With 19% of employees accessing emails on their phones, mobile-friendly content is more likely to garner engagement. So keep this in mind when developing your email content.
And if you need help generating engaging content, our new OpenAI Chat-GPT3 integration makes it easy. With a simple prompt, you can generate engaging content and suggestions to use in your emails.
6. Relevant to audience needs
Your employees are busy. If you want them to invest their time in interacting with your links, they have to be relevant to their needs.
If employees don’t find the content they receive to be tailored to their needs time and time again, they’ll stop clicking or even opening your emails. Have this in mind when sending leadership communications, or other niche internal communications campaigns, and keep your content focused.
With ContactMonkey, you can simplify things by using different distribution lists for different types of communications. Check out our blog on creating distribution lists in Outlook to learn how it’s done.
7. Pay attention to the location of links
Your links should be placed in highly visible and relevant spots across your email. For instance, if the key goal of your internal communications email is to get employees to register for a team-building event, make sure to include the link in the first paragraph of text. Use bright colors, larger fonts, and most importantly, buttons, to differentiate the link from the rest of your copy.
8. Give a clear reason to click
Like any great marketer, you want to give employees a reason to click using captivating headlines and call-to-action buttons. With ContactMonkey’s email builder, you can dress up your newsletter with clickable icons, dynamic CTA buttons, and even embedded employee surveys.
These elements give readers a clear reason to click and boost the interactive capabilities of your emails for optimal engagement.
9. Personalize emails
Personalized emails include the recipients’ names in the subject line and/or body text of the email.
According to the latest data, adding a personalized subject line to an email increases its chances of being opened by 26%.
In other words, employees are more likely to engage with and click through an email with personalized copy. With ContactMonkey’s merge tags, you can easily add personalized elements to any section of your email. Learn how to personalize your emails with our free guide.
10. Ensure that emails are mobile-responsive
With remote work becoming the new normal, it’s important for employees to be able to click on links and access documents, employee coaching plans, and other resources on the go.
Above all, this means ensuring that internal emails are optimized for mobile and display correctly across all cellular devices.
ContactMonkey’s responsive email templates guarantee that all of your employee emails (and links) display smoothly across any device. So you can say goodbye to the days of distorted code and messages from confused coworkers.
Not to mention, you can use ContactMonkey’s pre-set internal communications message templates to accelerate your email workflow and streamline employee engagement.
How to Increase Internal Email Click-Through Rates With ContactMonkey
Employees who are clicking on your internal email links are engaged with your communications and interested in what you have to say. For this reason, internal email click rates are a good indicator of employee engagement and are essential in helping to drive your internal communications strategy forward. And with the right tools and innovative internal communications tactics, boosting your click-through rate is not as difficult as you may think.
By supplying your team with precision analytics, ContactMonkey makes it easy to measure and increase click rates. You’ll be able to see what content employees enjoy the most and make data-based decisions when planning new content. Book your free demo today to see ContactMonkey in action!
