Effects of link placements in email newsletters on their click-through rate

TLDR

Email marketers struggle with low CTR, and the limited attention economy demands that psychological consumer behavior be integrated into digital content design. The study investigates how link placement in email newsletters affects click‑through rates. The authors explain the link‑placement effects using psychological principles and visual heuristics. Empirical results show a U‑shaped click‑through pattern, with left‑side links, especially top‑left, generating higher CTRs, suggesting that positioning links in the left region boosts engagement.

Abstract

Firms adopting email marketing strategy often complain about low click-through rate (CTR). Scarcity of attention in this digital economy requires including psychological aspects of consumer behavior into the design considerations of digital contents. In this study, we propose differential effects of link placements in email newsletter on their CTR. We explain the observed effects of link placements on CTR drawing concepts from psychology and visual heuristics. The empirical analysis confirms that when it comes to clicking on the links of a newsletter, the click-through follows a U-pattern, i.e. as users traverse the links placed on a U-path their responsiveness decreases gradually. Thus, links placed in the left region of an email newsletter have higher impact than those placed in the right region with links in the top-left region having highest impact. Insights gained from this study can be used in the design consideration of email newsletters.