Email Marketing Tip – Maximizing Click-Throughs Using Split Testing

In this post & video I want to share with you a technique I use to maximize click throughs -(not opens) with each email.

I know every email marketer always talks about the importance of split testing and open rates – but in this video I want to share with you a little technique I use to maximize click-through rates with each email I send.

There are two types of emails or goals typically when sending an email:

1. Opens – Good for branding or getting a message out.
2. Clicks – Getting people to take action on an offer or promotion.

Open rates are very important, but if I have a link in my email and I want people to take action and click it, I am more concerned with clicks. This example can also be used to figure out which headline to use to get maximum open rates, but again – in this example I am looking for the best headline that gets people to take action and click.

In this video I split tested 3 headlines and the results were pretty impressive. Watch the video and learn – One of the results which did NOT have the highest open rate, yet had an astonishingly higher 33% click-through rate.  Thats a huge difference and potentially could result in much higher sales.

Watch the video 2:53 (opens in a new window)

In all 3 emails I essentially used the same message. In the third email I added a few paragraphs so the subject line was relevant with the message being sent.

Here are the results

Email #1 Subject – “Did you See this?” Click here to see actual email

Opens – 191

Clicks – 46

Email #2 Subject “Huge webinar this week with Brian Tracy” Click here to see actual email

Opens – 231

Clicks – 30

Email #3 Subject “Staring at a frog today?” Click here to see actual email

Opens – 209

Clicks –  39

As you can see – Message #1 had the best subject line to maximize clicks. If you clicked on the links and looked at the actual emails, you noticed the message in the email used  for #1 & #2 were identical. For whatever reason #1 had a 33% higher click through rate. Something in the first email’s subject line inspired the action takers.  So that’s the reason I used it to mail to the rest of the list.

To explain further – I’ll use real numbers.

That email ended up going out to approximately 25,000 people between different lists. It ended up averaging around an 8% click rate – resulting in approximately 2000 people viewing the registration page. If I had been solely focused on “open rates” and not paying attention to the “click-through” rates I would have used email # 2. Had I done that It would have resulted in approximately 1300 people clicking through.  Thats a huge difference.

Another way of looking at it, in a recent launch Ryan Deiss did of a facebook product – his affiliates were  earning an average of $3.55 per click COMMISSION.

If that offer were mailed to 40,000 people with an 8% click through rate – that would have netted approximately $11,360 in earnings. A 33% lower click-through rate would have netted approximately $7500 in earnings.

I didn’t promote Ryan’s offer – but if I had – you can bet I would have split tested the emails and subject lines.

How I use this method – I segmented a portion of my list.  I emailed the 3 messages to approx 1150 for each message. Then waited a half hour and looked at the results. I find that typically after 100 people have opened each email – that is a good enough sample to gauge results.

At that point a winner was pretty obvious in email #1. Ironically the results for #1 improved throughout the day. At the time I declared it the winner – it was converting clicks at a 28% higher rate.

I’ll do a follow up to this post and show you some more examples in the coming weeks. Until then, leave a comment , tweet this or click one of the 38 sharing sites below. Muchas Gracias.