Consumers, devices, and e-commerce have changed much over the last twenty years. Yet the core goal of email has not. Most email campaigns continue to take subscribers out of the inbox and onto the web: Huge Sale--Click here to shop! Sign up for a demo here! Review your purchase here!

As marketers, click-throughs remain a key measure of a campaign's success. What does CTR/CTOR really tell us? Does it provide enough insights into subscriber behavior or all of the data we need to improve our campaigns? In an internet of personalization and immediacy, relying on click-through alone limits the power of your email marketing.

Enhance Your Emails With Interactivity

Interactive email modules allow subscribers to take an action without leaving the inbox. Some examples of interactivity that Rebelmail powers include: typing a review within the body of the email, changing featured images by selecting a thumbnail, or filtering the featured products by choosing preferences. In addition to enhancing subscriber experience, interactive email allows marketers to go beyond opens and clicks.

Interactivity comes with it's own unique set of metrics:

1. Interaction: A click, toggle, character entry, tap, etc. taken in email that triggers a selection, search, reveal, slide, overlay, etc. without leaving the email. Accelerates conversion funnel.
2. Engagement: The sum of subscribers who clicked and/or interacted with an email. Demonstrates the subscriber's interest in accelerating their purchase decision.
3. Engagement Rate : Percentage of users who engaged, divided by the unique number of emails opened. The true percentage of subscribers who have used an email.

With Rebelmail, all interactions are recorded in the Marketing Cloud--empowering marketers to create even more personalization and brand engagement in the future.

In this example of a campaign sent by Airbnb, subscribers are able to take a quiz within the body of the email. This campaign was deployed to Airbnb's least engaged subscribers. The quiz, however, got these subscribers to interact with the brand again. The majority of subscribers who interacted with the quiz completed all three questions. The email provided a lift in click-through compared to the static counterpart and significantly boosted engagement.

Interactivity helps Airbnb re-engage their subscribers and send more qualified leads to site.

In this example, Casper asked their subscribers to review their purchase inside the email. They tested this against the their static review email, which forced subscribers to go the the website to review their purchase. Through interactivity, they saw double the amount of completed reviews, compared to their static review email.

Using interactivity, brands allow subscribers to rotate through multiple product views, select their size and add the item to cart without going to the product page. This creates a frictionless, engaging experience for the subscriber, boosts product conversion rates, and provides deep behavioral insight for the marketer.

Using interactive specific metrics, brands can see the subscribers who interacted with the product views and selected a size, but did not add to cart. These interactions demonstrate interest in the product. Armed with more than click-through metrics, brands can retarget interested subscribers through social media or through another email campaign.

When you have the ability to tap into subscriber psyche, you can personalize your campaigns in new and innovative ways.

More Email Campaign Tips

Learn more about interactivity and interactive specific metrics at rebelmail.com. Also, check out 4 Email Practices of Marketing Masters for more insights into how to drive engagement with email.

About the Author:

Veda Kumarjiguda is a Client Success Rebel at Rebelmail. She loves talking about email analytics and reality television.