E-Mail Click-Through Rates Increase with Social Sharing Options, Survey Finds

Is your business including enough social media sharing options on e-mails? Based on a survey by GetResponse, e-mail messages that included a social sharing option generated 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option.

E-mail messages that include a social sharing option generate 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option, and messages with three or more sharing options generate 55 percent higher CTRs, according to GetResponse's study, "Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report." The study also found that e-mails with a Twitter sharing option return over 40 percent higher CTRs than messages without any social media links.

The GetResponse study analyzed social media integration and sharing using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Digg in almost 500 million e-mails sent by 19,149 GetResponse customers. The survey found 60 percent of all social e-mails included only one sharing icon and only 11.2 percent of social e-mails included three icons or more. Twitter was the most popular social sharing option, included in 67.2 percent of all social e-mails; Facebook came in a close second at 62.7 percent. E-mails shared on Twitter returned CTRs of 10.20 percent, over 40 percent higher than messages not linked to any social media.

"The impressive 55 percent CTR increase achieved by adding social sharing options tells us it's not enough to integrate campaigns with social media networks-the power is in sharing. For example, Twitter users are posting 55 million tweets per day," said GetResponse founder and Implix CEO Simon Grabowski. "And Facebook has over 400 million active users worldwide, each with about 130 'friends.' Many of these millions of users are potential ambassadors of our customers' brands. Imagine the impact on campaign results if every recipient shared a message with 130 friends, and so on and so on. The best part is that there's no added cost to include social media sharing, so it's pure ROI."

Almost 19 percent of SMB marketers (GetResponse users) used the Twitter integration feature (linked their campaigns to Twitter) at least once. Only 13.5 percent included social sharing options. The survey also found SMB marketers used Twitter social media integration twice as often as social sharing links. Grabowski said he hopes the survey results will inspire their users to experiment more with social media sharing.

"It may seem abstract or intimidating to some, but it's really like having a conversation with a customer or friend that keeps on going and going," he said. "I truly believe that if your messages are relevant, timely and interesting, and you include social sharing icons in your messages, your audience will gladly help your brand message ripple across the Internet."