“Monica, my sales emails have a 40% open rate and a 0.6% click rate, what does that mean?”
I hear this almost every week.
There’s more than one thing, but at a minimum it means your audience likes something about your brand or subject line to open your emails, and the disconnect happens inside the body of the email.
Here are the seven things I look at first when a client brings me this problem.
1. It could be a mismatch between the subject line and the body of the email.
The subject line promised something, but the body of the email didn’t deliver. That’s often the case with curiosity based content, they get the open, but if the email doesn’t pay off the promise, the reader feels misled and moves on without clicking.
2. The other thing is lack of segmentation.
When everybody on your email list gets the same offer and the same email, there’s a big chance that only a small percentage of that audience will engage and relate to what you’ve got say. Hence the small CTR.
3. The other issue I see pretty often are emails that aren’t really saying much.
It’s vague, low-value content that speaks to everyone and nobody at the same time. Like those emails that keep talking about an expiring discount and nothing else. There’s no reason to click because there’s no reason to care.
4. CTA copy is a huge thing here.
Flash sale emails use transactional copy: Enroll now. Get access here. Join today. It’s functional copy that works in a specific context (usually the announcement and last day emails). But what I teach my clients is shifting from action-based CTAs to benefit-based ones. Instead of telling someone what to do, you tell them what they get by doing it. Instead of “enroll now” try “start saving time on your next project.” Instead of “get access” try “see exactly how this works.”
5. And of course there’s always the issue of making that email do too much.
The email is there to bridge a gap. You want your sales page to actually do the selling and the checkout to seal the deal.
6. The email isn’t relevant to what’s happening for your reader right now.
This links back to segmentation and vague content, but it goes a layer deeper. Relevance isn’t just about sending the right offer to the right person, it’s about timing. If your email lands in someone’s inbox and speaks directly to a problem they’re actively sitting with right now, they will click because it felt like it was written for them in that moment. The more you know about where your audience is in their journey, the more you can write emails that feel less like broadcasts and more like well-timed conversations.
7. There’s no real reason to act now.
An expiring discount creates urgency, scarcity creates urgency, but neither of those answers the question your reader is quietly asking: what am I actually missing out on if I don’t click today? I’m not talking about the deal, but the outcome. The result that becomes harder to reach, the problem that stays unsolved, the time that keeps getting wasted, that’s what’s really at stake.
If your emails are getting opened but not clicked, and you’re not sure what’s actually breaking down, let’s figure it out together. Book a discovery call and let’s take a look at what your numbers are really telling you.