Click-Thru Rate (CTR) is the rate at which your Audience Members click inside the News Digests they open. CTR is calculated using this formula: CTR = # of Unique Clicks inside your News Digest / # of Unique News Digest Opens.
If your Click-Thru Rate is low, there is no need to panic! The national average Click-Thru Rate is usually between 5-15% - That means a small percent of your Subscribers who open their News Digests are expected to click on the articles or links inside the email. The tips below are going to help you reach the higher- end of this range and above!
1. Have Relevant Stories in Your Content Hub
Take an audit of the types of Content inside of your Content Hub:
Is your Content diverse or repetitive?
Is there Content that will cater to many Subscribers’ interests?
Ask yourself the questions above because Subscribers will not engage with Content they are not interested in. If you have a lot of Content on the same subject or a lot of Content tagged with the same Categories, then that could be alienating part of your Audience by not catering to their interests.
We recommend looking at your Content Sources. Think about what types of Content are not being pulled in through your current sources, then add a few to fill that void. Once you're done adding sources, you can experiment over a 30 or 60 day period to see if the new pieces being brought in have an impact on your Click-Thru Rate.
2. Use Categories That Are Opportunities
Inside of Insights > Categories, you will see the Opportunities page. On this page, you will see your most popular Categories that have been tagged to your pieces of Content. Any Category with a blue plus sign next to it indicates that the specific Category is not one of your Organizational Categories set inside Content > Controls.
Non-Organizational Categories are a great opportunity to capitalize on. By going into your Content Controls, you can add some of the Categories that are most popular among your Audience Members. Adding these will do two things:
Make those Categories available for future Subscribers to indicate explicit interest in when going through the personalization process.
Make those Categories available for easy tagging during Story creation in the future. Categories listed inside your Content Controls are available at the bottom of the Story Editor for easy use. This means you will be able to see the Category when creating/editing a Story, then you can click on it to tag your Story.
3. Choose the Best News Digest Format for Your Audience
There are Subscribers in your Instance who have not gone through the personalization process to personalize their experience. These Subscribers will receive their News Digest based on the delivery day, time, frequency, and format set inside your News Digest Settings.
We recommend going into Settings > News Digest and selecting defaults (frequency, day, time, and format) that are Audience friendly.
Below are our recommendations for these defaults:
Delivery Frequency: Weekly.
Delivery Day: If the Content you are sending is informative, Monday is the best day. If the Content is meant to catch your Subscribers up on things that have happened, Friday is the best day.
Delivery Time: 9 am or 12 pm.
Delivery Format: Either Headlines Plus or Headlines Only. That said, Headlines Only format makes it easier for a Subscriber to see what interests them most inside their News Digest.
4. Create Engaging Story Titles, Summaries, and Images
When inside of a News Digest, there will be three things that drive a Subscriber to click on a Story:
Title
Summary
Story Image
It is important to make these three pieces of your News Digest eye-catching and engaging because your Subscribers will have different News Digest formats:
Some Subscribers may have the Traditional format, where they can see all three of these elements (Title, Summary, and Story Image).
Other Subscribers might have the Headlines Only format, where they will only see the Title and Story Image.
If these three elements that are set inside the Story Editor are not interesting for your Subscribers, the percentage chance of a Subscriber clicking on the Story inside their News Digest will drop dramatically.
If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@cerkl.com or use the support Chat toward the bottom right-hand corner of any cerkl.com page.