In Email Marketing, click-through rate (CTR) has long been considered a key performance indicator. Marketers celebrate high click rates, assuming they reflect real engagement and intent. But what if those clicks don’t actually mean anything? In reality, clicks are one of the most misleading and unreliable metrics in Email Marketing today. Here’s why you should stop obsessing over clicks and focus on what truly matters - delivering your call to action.

Many email security tools automatically scan Emails and click on every link before the recipient even opens the Email. These security systems, designed to detect phishing threats, artificially inflate click numbers and give you a false sense of engagement.

• Impact on Metrics: You may think a recipient engaged with your email when, in reality, a security bot just triggered the click.
• Distorted A/B Testing: Bots can disproportionately affect one version of an email over another, leading to misleading test results.
• No Real Conversion: A bot clicking a link doesn’t mean the recipient ever saw your content.

With Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), opens and clicks are no longer reliable indicators of engagement. MPP loads email content in the background, making it impossible to track true open rates. But more importantly, many privacy-focused tools preload links, causing clicks to appear in reports - even when the recipient never actually engaged.

• Apple Mail now accounts for a significant portion of email users (especially in B2C).
• Other email clients are following suit, making click tracking even less reliable.
• Marketers are chasing vanity metrics instead of real engagement.

Even when a click is real, it’s still not a meaningful metric. Why? Because a click doesn’t mean the recipient followed through on your CTA.

• Did they actually read your content or just skim and leave?
• Did they purchase, register, or take the action you wanted?
• Are you tracking conversion rates or just celebrating clicks with no follow-up?

Clicks without action are empty victories. Instead, marketers should track conversions, responses, and revenue—not just link activity.

If clicks are misleading, what should you focus on?

• Conversions – Track who actually completed the action you wanted.
• Replies & Engagement – A genuine response or inquiry is more valuable than a random click.
• Revenue Impact – Is your email driving sales or sign-ups?
• Website Behaviour – If they clicked, did they spend time on the page or bounce immediately?

Click-through rates have become a vanity metric, skewed by security bots, privacy tools, and artificial inflation. Instead of chasing clicks, focus on measuring actual business impact.

• Is your Email driving real engagement?
• Are people taking meaningful action?
• Are you tracking conversions instead of misleading numbers?

Email Marketing is about delivering results, not just generating clicks. Shift your focus, and you’ll create smarter, more effective campaigns that drive real business success.