Definition
An email click map is a visual overlay of click activity on an email design, showing the number and percentage of clicks each linked element received. Heat-mapped regions indicate where engagement concentrates, cold zones reveal elements that were overlooked and unexpected click patterns may highlight design flaws or confusing layout.
Click maps help answer practical questions: do subscribers click the button or the text link? Does the hero image distract from the CTA? Are secondary links cannibalising clicks from the primary conversion goal? This data directly informs email design and content hierarchy.
What Click Maps Reveal
- Which design elements drive the most engagement
- Whether subscribers are clicking unintended areas, indicating confusing design
- How click behaviour changes between desktop and mobile
- Whether rearranging CTAs changes the distribution of clicks
- Which images or links are dead zones that add no value
Best Practices
- Compare click maps across different email designs to identify repeatable patterns
- Test single-CTA against multi-CTA layouts to measure click concentration
- Use click map data alongside scroll-depth data for a complete picture of subscriber behaviour
- Do not optimise solely on click volume — a secondary link may serve a valuable brand-building purpose even with low clicks
Related Glossary Terms
A/B Testing
A/B testing in email marketing is the practice of sending two variations of an email to a small sample of your list to determine which version performs better before sending the winner to the remaining subscribers.
Accessible CTA (Email)
An accessible CTA is a button or link coded with sufficient colour contrast, visible focus states, descriptive screen-reader text, and a minimum touch target of 44×44 pixels.
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is a metric that measures the average revenue generated per email subscriber over a specific period, used to evaluate list value and campaign effectiveness.
Attention Rate
Attention rate is the percentage of email opens that last longer than 5 seconds, distinguishing genuine reads from passive opens, preview-pane views, or Apple MPP auto-loads.
Bounce Rate
Email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that were rejected by the receiving server before reaching the recipient. It is a key indicator of list health and data quality.
Campaign Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
Campaign IRR is the annualised return rate earned by an email campaign, accounting for the timing and magnitude of costs and revenue across the campaign's full lifecycle.