What Is a Good Email Click Rate? Click Rate vs Click-Through Rate in Klaviyo

Email click rate is the percentage of people who received your email and clicked a link in it. In Klaviyo, click-through rate is something else: clicks divided by the people who opened the email, which most other tools call click-to-open rate. For ecommerce campaigns, we're happy with a click rate of 0.5% or higher. Chasing 1% or more usually means sending to smaller segments, and making less money.

"Our click rate is only 0.6%. Is that bad?"

We get that question a lot.

Usually the answer is no. And the brands that push hardest to get it over 1% often end up with a nicer-looking dashboard and less revenue.

Here's what each click metric actually measures, what we consider a good click rate, and when a higher number is the wrong goal.

By Emiel Dingemans, Founder of Magicianly

Updated October 2026

What Is Email Click Rate?

Click rate is the share of recipients who clicked at least one link in your email. Klaviyo's analytics glossary defines it as the percentage of people who clicked a link in your message out of the people who received it.

Click rate = unique clicks ÷ recipients × 100

Unique means each person counts once, no matter how many links they click or how often. Send a campaign to 40,000 people, have 240 of them click, and your click rate is 0.6%.

What's the Difference Between Click Rate, Click-Through Rate and Click-to-Open Rate?

The difference is what you divide by. Click rate divides clicks by everyone who received the email. Click-to-open rate divides clicks by the people who opened it. And "click-through rate" means different things in different tools.

Klaviyo's glossary defines click-through rate as the percentage of people who clicked a link in your message out of the people who opened it. That's why a Klaviyo click-through rate of 2% and a click rate of 0.6% can describe the very same email.

So before you compare your number with a benchmark, a colleague or another platform, check which one you're looking at.

Which Click Metric Should You Track?

Click rate. It tells you how many people the email actually moved, out of everyone you sent it to.

Click-to-open rate sounds more precise, but it depends on opens. And opens are the shakiest number in your account. Apple Mail Privacy Protection can register an open when nobody read the email, which pushes your open count up and your click-to-open rate down. We explain how that works in are your Klaviyo open rates real?

Click-to-open rate is still handy for one thing: comparing two versions of an email that went to the same audience at the same time. For everything else, use click rate.

What Is a Good Email Click Rate?

For ecommerce campaigns, we aim for a click rate of 0.5% or higher. If you're there, you're usually fine.

You don't need 1% or higher. Getting there typically means sending to very tight segments, and that's not what you want for most campaigns.

Context matters a lot:

• Hyper-specific segmented campaigns get higher click rates. An email about one product, sent to the people who just looked at it, should clear 0.5% easily.
• A send to your full engaged list can have a lower click rate and still bring in more revenue. You reached more people.
• Flows usually click better than campaigns. They go out right after someone showed intent, like starting a checkout. Judge them separately.
• Your own history beats any benchmark. Compare the same campaign type, sent to the same audience, over time.

If you want to see what the platforms publish, we've collected the vendor numbers in our ecommerce email marketing benchmarks.

Why Can Chasing a Higher Click Rate Cost You Revenue?

Because the easiest way to raise your click rate is to send to fewer people.

A simple example. Send a campaign to a 30-day engaged segment of 20,000 people and 1% click: 200 people visit your site. Send the same campaign to a 90-day engaged segment of 60,000 people and 0.6% click: 360 people visit your site.

The first send has the better click rate. The second one sent 80% more people to your store.

So do you want a higher click rate, or more revenue? We'll take the revenue.

The same goes for offers. A 30% off email will probably lift your click rate. That doesn't make it the better email if it cut your margin and taught your list to wait for the next sale.

That's why we never pick a winner on click rate alone. Click rate tells you the email created interest. Klaviyo placed order rate and revenue per recipient tell you whether that interest turned into orders.

How Do Bot Clicks Affect Your Click Rate?

They can inflate it. A bot click is a click made by a machine, not a person. Inbox providers, security software and mobile carriers click links to check they're safe, and phones open links in text messages to build a preview.

Klaviyo marks these clicks with a Bot Click property on Clicked Email and Clicked SMS events (Klaviyo Help Center). In your account settings, you can exclude bot clicks from reporting for email, SMS or both, which removes them from click rate, total clicks and unique clicks across most reports (Klaviyo Help Center). For new accounts, email and SMS bot clicks are excluded from attribution and reporting by default (Klaviyo Help Center). Older accounts should check the setting.

Two things to know:

• Don't switch the setting on in the middle of an A/B test that uses clicks. Klaviyo warns it can change the winning variant.
• Custom reports include bot clicks by default. Filter them out there too.

If your click rate suddenly jumps and your orders don't, bot clicks are the first thing to check.

How Do You Improve Your Email Click Rate?

Mostly by making the click easier and the email more relevant. These are the changes we make first:

1. 1Put one clear call to action above the fold. Most people never scroll past the first screen. A big, obvious button there does more than three links further down.
2. 2Show 3 to 5 products, not your whole catalog. A 2x2 grid works well, with a "Shop now" button on every product.
3. 3Add your product categories to the footer. People who scroll all the way down are still looking for a reason to click. Give them one.
4. 4Write shorter, more conversational emails. Conversational subject lines, shorter body copy and the point up front.
5. 5Send plain-text emails regularly. One to three a month. They look like they came from a person, which helps them land in the primary inbox, and they often get more clicks than designed emails. Here's why plain-text emails can win.
6. 6Send to your engaged segment. Inbox providers like Gmail watch engagement. Sending to people who never open pushes you toward the promotions tab or spam, and that drags down clicks for everyone. Here's how we approach email segmentation.
7. 7Send product-focused campaigns, not just promotions. Bestsellers, comparisons, how-tos and use cases give people a reason to click without a discount.

How Should You Read Click Rate Next to Your Other Metrics?

As a diagnostic. Click rate tells you where to look. It doesn't tell you whether the email worked.

And for the bigger question, whether email is actually growing the business, look past all of these. Repeat purchase rate, first-to-second purchase rate and customer lifetime value by cohort answer that. Here are the retention metrics we actually track.

So What's a Good Email Click Rate?

• Track click rate (unique clicks ÷ recipients), not click-to-open rate.
• In Klaviyo, click-through rate means clicks ÷ opens. Don't compare it with another tool's click-through rate.
• Aim for 0.5% or higher on campaigns. You don't need 1%.
• Expect higher numbers from tight segments and flows, and lower ones from bigger sends that can still earn more.
• Exclude bot clicks.
• Pick winners on placed order rate and revenue per recipient, not clicks.

A high click rate is nice. More revenue is better.