Throughout my 6+ years as Solo Ads Vendor, the questions most ask is "How to improve your open and click through rate?"
Well, it's simple...
Spam the hell out of it! (No wonder I got banned by all the ARs which exist)
Yup I got more than 30% open and 4% - 5% Click through rate
The side effect:
1 - Your list become unresponsive after some time, CTR will slowly drop to 1% then it will never hit 1% unless you keep your list fresh everyday
2 - Your client's optin rate is super low (For Solo Ads Vendor)
3 - You have to keep refreshing your list
4 - Unsubscribe rate extra high
5 - You get ban faster than the Nigerian Scam by all the available AR Company in the market
6 - Your mailing server will die faster compare to Ebola infection
Why I don't put high complain rate?
With all honesty, when I spam and send deceiving swipes, my complain rate is "0" most of the time but when I send proper swipes my complain rate shot up - Weird but it's true
So what is the solution?
For those who are used to spamming or sending deceiving swipes, you've got no solution except to keep doing what you are doing in order to maintain your Open and CTR.
But, if you are not into spamming or want to turn your business around, then copywriting is for you.
Let's begin...
What is the reasonable Open and CTR?
First, let's take a look at the stat taken from Far Reach
As you can see from the statistic above, if your Open Rate is more than 13% and Click Through Rate is more than 1.5%, you are on the right track.
Keep in mind that there are many factors that impact your open and click-through rates aside from industry. (For eg: List size and age, frequency of sending, transaction emails, welcome email etc...)
Now that we have a better understanding on what our targeted goals should be, let’s proceed to some tips on how to increase your open & click through rates.
1 - Timing
If you take a look at the research done by Yesware, 39% of email open within the first hour after delivery so it is crucial to land your email in your subscribers inbox when they are online.
eg: If you schedule to send your swipe at 2pm EST time, it's 5am in Australia, depending on the location.
So you might want to know your subscribers well by segmenting them into 3 time zone - USA/Canada | Europe | Asia - Then test the best time to send your emails according to their time zone
2 - Healthy Email List
Most people I know, are obsessed with "List Size" and this is the biggest mistake most email marketers made.
You should be more concern about the "Activeness" or engagement of your list.
The advantage of having an active list which engage is:
a - You inbox better
b - IP & Domain reputation is all time high
c - Higher Open Rate & CTR
Just compare:
100k list, 1% open 0.1% clicks
10k list, 13% open 1.5% clicks
Take the number above and go to Aweber and check the price for 100k Vs 10k - How much you save and if you are using your own mailing server, imagine how much faster you server will run and bandwidth it will save?
Don't get me wrong, list size matters IF they are active and engage.
You should be able to automate your "Mailwizz" to delete all "non-engage" subscribers so DO IT!
3 - Crafting Winning Subject Lines
Now, you've got your timing right and list cleaned but you still got low open rate; this means, your subject lines need to be improved.
You and I know that subject line is one of the most import part of email marketing. If nobody open your email, no matter how good your swipe is, you got "0" click which means "0"sales.
So, what makes a good subject line?
Curiosity
Humans are bunch of curious creatures so if you can make them curious, they will open and if you are able to follow through that curiosity in your swipe, you will hit goldmine.
Urgency
Most people do not like to be left behind or miss out on "something" so if you can create urgency in your subject line, you can be sure your subscribers will open your email.
Personally, I prefer "Curiosity" over "Urgency" on Subject line.
I find that the combination of curiosity on the subject line with Urgency on the swipe is golden.
Don't get me wrong, Urgency works, it's just my own preference but please make sure you keep the "Urgency"; meaning, if the offer ends in 24 means 24 hours NOT 36 hours or evergreen
What about personalization?
Well, not to brag, I've sent more than 25k swipes over my 6 years as solo ads vendor and from my experience, personalizaton is overated as it doesn't make any difference but of course you can try.
How To Improve CTR?
Below are the 3 steps to boost your CTR
Step #1 - CALL TO ACTION
Step #2 - CALL TO ACTION
Step #3 - CALL TO ACTION
Research according to WordStream - emails with a single call-to-action increase click-through rates by a huge 371% & sales 1716%.
Yes, I personally use lots of CTA and it's true after I implemented CTA with anchor text, my CTR shot up.
You might ask, how about using Button CTA or Banner CTA instead of Anchor Text CTA?
Stick to the essentials
Have you ever receive an email which is so long after finishing reading it, you still cannot figure out what is it all about?
If your email is too stressful to read, your subscribers will lose interest, which means they will click on the "Close" or "Back" button or anything that's clickable except your link!
All you have to do is to KISS, summarize the important part of the product, create an "urgency" bait them to click and let the sales page do the selling!
When it comes to your design, best is just white background or if you must have one, make sure that it’s easy on the eyes!
Segment, Segment, Segment
Segmentation prevent you from sending annoying and irrelevant emails to your subscribers, forcing them to eventually unsubscribe or worst, move your email to spam folder!
Segmentation helps you to hit targeted subscribers thus increasing the likelihood of your subscribers to Click & by sending more relevant messages, you’re creating a more engaged audience & with more engagement, your IP and domain Reputation will be in good standing thus making Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail happy.
Once you got everything right, you will be able to see a drastic improvement on your Open & CTR.
