Email Click-Through Rate vs Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)

Click-through rate and click-to-open rate sound like the same metric. They aren’t, and mixing them up is how brands end up celebrating a “12% click rate” that is really a 1.5% one. Since Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection inflated open rates, the difference matters more than ever.

Here is how each is calculated, sourced benchmarks for what good looks like, and which one to actually manage.

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CTR vs CTOR: the short answer

Click-through rate (CTR) is unique clicks divided by delivered emails. Click-to-open rate (CTOR) is unique clicks divided by unique opens. CTR tells you how the whole send performed; CTOR tells you how persuasive the email was once opened. For ecommerce campaigns, about 1.7% CTR is average on 2026 benchmarks.

Metric	Formula	What it measures
Click-through rate (CTR), or click rate	Unique clicks ÷ delivered × 100	The whole chain: inbox placement, subject line, content, offer
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)	Unique clicks ÷ unique opens × 100	Only the email content and calls to action

A worked example

You send a campaign to 10,000 profiles. 9,800 are delivered, 3,000 open and 240 click.

• CTR = 240 ÷ 9,800 × 100 = 2.45%
• CTOR = 240 ÷ 3,000 × 100 = 8%

Same email, two very different-looking numbers. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

Watch the naming, especially in Klaviyo

Platforms don’t label these consistently. In Klaviyo’s analytics glossary, as of September 2026:

• Click rate is the percentage of people who clicked a link out of the people who received the message.
• Click-through rate is the percentage of people who clicked a link out of the people who opened it.

So Klaviyo’s “click-through rate” is what most of the industry calls click-to-open rate. Most other sources, and this article, use CTR for clicks ÷ delivered. Before you compare a number from Klaviyo with a benchmark or another tool, check the denominator.

Clicks, unique clicks and CTR

• Total clicks counts every click, including one person clicking five links.
• Unique clicks counts each person once.
• CTR turns unique clicks into a rate.

Always benchmark on unique clicks. Total clicks are useful for seeing which links in an email get attention, not for judging the email.

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What is a good click-through rate for email?

Sourced benchmarks, as of September 2026:

Source	Data period	Overall click rate	Ecommerce click rate
Klaviyo (205,000+ brands)	2026 report	1.69% campaigns (top 10%: 3.38%); 5.58% flows (top 10%: 10.48%)	Ecommerce-only dataset
Mailchimp	Page last updated Dec 2023	2.62%	1.74%
MailerLite (medians)	Dec 2024 to Nov 2025	2.09%	1.07%
Campaign Monitor	2021 data	2.3%	n/a

For an ecommerce brand, a practical reading:

• Campaigns: under 1% needs attention; 1.5 to 2% is around average; 3%+ is top-10% territory.
• Flows: expect several times your campaign rate, because flows fire at high-intent moments. Around 5 to 6% is average; 10%+ is top-10%.

Klaviyo click rate benchmarks by ecommerce industry

Industry	Campaign click rate	Flow click rate
Clothing & accessories	1.83%	5.54%
Food & beverage	1.7%	5.8%
Health & beauty	1.24%	4.8%
Home & garden	1.78%	5.96%
Jewellery	1.6%	5.42%
Sporting goods	1.88%	6.13%
Electronics	1.85%	6.11%
Toys & hobbies	2.03%	5.96%

Source: Klaviyo’s 2026 email marketing benchmarks. Health & beauty, the category most supplement brands fall into, has the lowest campaign click rate of any industry in the report at 1.24%, so a supplement brand at 1.5% is doing better than it might look against the all-industry average.

Is a 10% click-through rate good?

On an ecommerce campaign, a genuine 10% click rate (clicks ÷ delivered) is exceptional: roughly three times Klaviyo’s top-10% campaign figure. It is plausible on a small, highly engaged segment or a launch to a waitlist. On a flow, 10% is close to the top-10% mark. If someone quotes you a “10% click rate”, ask whether it is clicks ÷ delivered or clicks ÷ opens.

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What is a good click-to-open rate?

Published CTOR benchmarks are thinner and older:

• MailerLite: 6.81% median CTOR (December 2024 to November 2025), up from 5.63% the year before.
• Campaign Monitor: 10.5% average across industries, with 6 to 17% depending on industry, from 2021 data.
• Klaviyo doesn’t publish CTOR, but its 2026 averages imply about 5.5% for campaigns (1.69% ÷ 31%) and 17% for flows (5.58% ÷ 32.2%). That is our arithmetic on Klaviyo’s averages, not a Klaviyo figure.

So for ecommerce campaigns, a CTOR of 5 to 10% is typical today, and anything consistently above 10% means your content is doing its job.

Why CTOR looks lower than it used to

Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads emails automatically in the background, which registers opens from people who never read the email. More opens in the denominator, same clicks in the numerator: CTOR falls. That is why pre-2021 CTOR benchmarks look generous by today’s standards, and why the more of your list uses Apple Mail, the lower your CTOR will read. For the full story, see email open rate benchmarks and Apple MPP.

If you use CTOR, calculate it on non-Apple opens where your platform allows. In Klaviyo, every Opened Email event carries an Apple Privacy Open property you can filter on in a custom report.

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Which should you track: CTR or CTOR?

Manage to click rate. Use CTOR to diagnose. Click rate has a clean denominator (delivered emails) that MPP can’t inflate, and it captures everything from inbox placement to the offer. CTOR is useful when you want to know whether the content or the subject line is the problem:

Open rate	CTOR	What it usually means
High	Low	The subject line earned the open (or Apple did), but the content or offer didn’t deliver
Low	High	Content works for those who see it; look at deliverability, sender name or subject line
Low	Low	List quality or targeting problem: wrong people, wrong message
High	High	Working. Send more of it to more of the right people

Above both sits the metric that pays the bills: placed order rate and revenue per recipient. A click that doesn’t convert is a landing page or offer problem. We break those down in Klaviyo metrics explained.

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Bot clicks: the other inflation problem

Corporate security filters and some mailbox scanners “click” every link in an email to check it is safe. Those clicks are machines, not people, and they inflate both CTR and CTOR, mostly on B2B-heavy lists.

Klaviyo’s attribution documentation says that for all new accounts, email and SMS bot clicks are excluded from attribution and reporting by default, and older accounts can switch the exclusion on in attribution settings. Klaviyo also notes that the campaign trend report still includes bot clicks even when the exclusion is on, so expect small differences between reports. If your click rate suddenly drops, check whether bot-click exclusion was recently enabled before you rewrite anything.

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How to improve click-through rate and CTOR

1. Segment first. The same email to a 90-day engaged segment and to your full list produces very different click rates. Our Klaviyo segmentation guide covers the segments that matter.
2. One job per email. One primary call to action, repeated, beats six competing links.
3. Put the click above the fold on mobile. Headline, product and button visible without scrolling.
4. Show products the reader is likely to want. Dynamic blocks based on browsing and purchase history beat a static bestseller grid.
5. Deliver on the subject line. If the subject promises 30% off, the first thing they see should be the 30% off. Broken promises kill CTOR.
6. Make buttons tappable. Big enough for a thumb, with clear, specific labels (“Shop the protein range”, not “Click here”).
7. Test the content, judge on clicks and orders. Not on opens, which Apple distorts.
8. Fix deliverability. You can’t click an email in the spam folder. Low CTR with a healthy CTOR often means inbox placement.

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The bottom line

CTR divides clicks by delivered emails; CTOR divides clicks by opens. For ecommerce campaigns in 2026, about 1.7% CTR is average and 3%+ is strong; flows run several times higher. CTOR is useful for diagnosing content, but Apple’s automatic opens have pushed it down, so manage to click rate and, above that, to placed orders and revenue per recipient.

If your click rates are stuck under 1%, our ecommerce email marketing agency team rebuilds the segmentation, creative and offers behind them. Or request a free Klaviyo audit and we’ll show you where the clicks are being lost.

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Sources

• Klaviyo, Email marketing benchmarks 2026
• Klaviyo Help Center, Analytics glossary
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to change your attribution model
• Klaviyo Help Center, How to use the email campaigns trend report
• Mailchimp, Email marketing benchmarks
• MailerLite, Email marketing benchmarks
• Campaign Monitor, What are good open rates, CTRs and CTORs?