Single, Focused E-mail Call-to-Action Can Hike Clicks

One e-mail creative rule of thumb is that adding call-to-action buttons adds click-throughs, but recent e-mail testing by Whirlpool found that focusing on a single call-to-action (CTA) improved response. MarketingSherpa featured the Whirlpool results in a recent case study article. Whirlpool's e-mail control package had three buttons labeled "Learn more" at the bottom of the e-mail, each directing consumers to three different pages for information on different products. A fourth CTA button was located in the middle of the page: a gold "See Details" button directing to the rebate that the campaign was designed to promote. The test package paralleled the control but used only the one CTA gold button in the middle of the page, driving consumers to the rebate download landing page. "The theory was if you highlighted one call-to-action button that was the primary focus, you'd get more people to go to that landing page than the other creative, which sent people into completely different products," Thomas Mender, Senior Manager at Whirlpool, explained to MarketingSherpa. And the theory worked: The single, focused CTA creative achieved a 42% increase in clicks for Whirlpool. For more details of Whirlpool's e-mail testing, including subject lines and segmentation, go to http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/whirlpool-lift-clickthrough-testing-culture