Email marketing continues to be a top-performing digital marketing strategy, yielding a return on investment (ROI) of $42 for each dollar invested. The achievement of email marketing campaigns, however, is strongly dependent on email deliverability. Email deliverability is defined as the capability of an email to successfully land in the intended recipient’s inbox. One crucial factor that affects deliverability is server-clicks. This paper seeks to demystify deliverability by explaining server-clicks and its importance in email marketing.
Understanding Server-Clicks
Server-clicks, also known as server-side clicks, refer to the clicks that occur when a user interacts with a link within an email on the server-side before the webpage fully loads on the client-side. In other words, server-clicks occur when a server registers a click before the user experiences it.
Server-clicks are different from client-side clicks, which occur when a user clicks on a link after the webpage has fully loaded on their device. Server-clicks are crucial in email marketing because they provide immediate feedback on user engagement, enabling marketers to measure and analyze the effectiveness of their email campaigns in real-time.
Importance of Server-Clicks in Email Marketing
1. Improved Email Deliverability
Email service providers (ESPs) use engagement metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, to determine the relevance and spamminess of an email. Server-clicks provide real-time engagement data, enabling ESPs to deliver relevant and non-spammy emails to users’ inboxes. Moreover, high server-click rates indicate that users find the email content valuable, prompting ESPs to deliver future emails from the same sender to the inbox.
2. Faster Campaign Analysis
Server-clicks provide immediate feedback on user engagement, enabling marketers to analyze the performance of their email campaigns faster. Marketers can use server-click data to optimize their email campaigns, such as adjusting subject lines, email content, and call-to-actions, to improve user engagement and campaign performance.
3. Increased Conversion Rates
Server-clicks provide valuable insights into user behavior, enabling marketers to optimize their email campaigns for conversion. For instance, marketers can use server-click data to identify the most clicked links and optimize them for conversion by adding clear calls-to-action, relevant images, and persuasive copy.
4. Enhanced User Experience
Server-clicks provide a seamless user experience by reducing the time it takes for a webpage to load after a user clicks on a link within an email. This is because server-clicks preload the webpage on the server-side before the user clicks on the link, enabling the webpage to load faster on the client-side.
Best Practices for Server-Clicks in Email Marketing
Use a Reliable Email Service Provider:
Choosing a reliable ESP is crucial in ensuring high server-click rates. A reliable ESP should have a robust tracking system that accurately records server-clicks and provides real-time engagement data. Additionally, the ESP should have a good reputation for deliverability and compliance with email marketing regulations, ensuring that emails reach their intended recipients and reducing the risk of being flagged as spam.
Optimize Email Content for User Engagement:
Optimizing email content for user engagement is crucial in improving server-click rates. Marketers should use clear and compelling subject lines, persuasive copy, relevant images, and clear calls-to-action to encourage users to click on links within an email. Personalization, such as using the recipient’s name in the subject line, can also improve engagement rates.
Monitor Server-Click Rates:
Monitoring server-click rates is crucial in identifying areas of improvement in email campaigns. Marketers should monitor server-click rates and compare them with client-side clicks to identify discrepancies and optimize their email campaigns for better user engagement. For example, if server-click rates are lower than client-side clicks, it may indicate that links within the email are not properly functioning or that the webpage is not loading correctly on the client-side.
Test Email Campaigns:
Testing email campaigns is crucial in ensuring that server-clicks are accurately recorded and that the webpage loads correctly on the client-side. Marketers should test their email campaigns on various devices and email clients to ensure that server-clicks are accurately recorded and that the webpage loads correctly. This is especially important with the increasing use of mobile devices for email consumption.
Use UTM Parameters:
Adding UTM parameters to email links allows marketers to track server-clicks in more detail, including which links were clicked and from where the traffic originated. This can provide valuable insights into user behavior and inform future email campaign optimization efforts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, server-clicks are a crucial factor in email deliverability, providing real-time engagement data that enables ESPs to deliver relevant and non-spammy emails to users’ inboxes. Moreover, server-clicks provide valuable insights into user behavior, enabling marketers to optimize their email campaigns for conversion and enhanced user experience. By following the best practices outlined in this paper, marketers can improve their server-click rates and maximize the potential of their email marketing campaigns.
