Get the click
Most emails exist to win one click to a page that does the rest. Give the email one main action as a real button that names what the reader gets, put it in the first phone screen, answer the last doubt beside it, and send the click to a page that keeps the email's promise.
Most marketing emails exist to win one click, to a page that does the rest: the product, the booking form, the offer. The button is the hinge between the two, and the page must finish what the email started.
The short version
- Email visitors are the best visitors a page gets. In Unbounce's 2024 count, visitors from email converted at 19.3%, against a 6.6% median for all landing pages (Unbounce's own customers).
- One main action, several ways to take it: the picture, the headline and the button all go to the same page.
- Make it a real button, in code, never a picture. In Campaign Monitor's test a button drew 28% more clicks than a text link.
- The label names what the reader gets: a verb and an outcome, 2 to 5 words. "Book a roof check", never "Click here".
- At least 48 pixels tall, full width on a phone, with space around it.
- In the first phone screen, and again at the end of a long email.
- Answer the last doubt in one line under the button: "Takes 2 minutes", "Free returns for 30 days".
- Send the click to the exact page that shows the same offer, in the same words. Never the home page.
- Urgency only when it's real.
One main action, several ways in
The email has one job, so it has one main button. But the evidence doesn't support stripping out every other link:
| Study | What it found |
|---|---|
| MailerLite, 2.9 billion shop emails (2026) | 2 to 5 links drew the most clicks (2.08%) and the most orders. Single-link emails drew fewer clicks but 37.5% more orders per click. |
| Campaign Monitor, 500 million recipients (2019) | Clicks rose with the number of links up to about 11, then levelled off. Emails with no links had 55% more unsubscribes. |
| Inntopia, 70 million recipients (2015) | 6.7% click rate with 1 to 10 links, 8.6% with more than 30. |
So a focused offer gets one main action, reached from several places: the picture, the headline, the button, a link in the P.S., all going to the same page. A newsletter gets one link per item. Only an email asking for one decision should strip everything else out.
Fewer choices for a decision, more for browsing. In the famous jam study, a table of 24 jams drew more shoppers, but 3% bought, against 30% at a table of 6 (Iyengar and Lepper, 2000). A review of 50 experiments later found the average effect of more choice was close to zero, strong only when people have no clear preference and the options are hard to compare. So when the reader must decide, which plan or which class, offer one recommended choice and at most two others. When they're browsing, new arrivals for example, more items help.
The button
It must look pressable and stand out from everything near it: a solid fill in the email's one accent colour, a bold label, and nothing else in that colour. There's no best button colour. The famous test where red beat green was run on a green page, so red won on contrast.
Sized for a thumb. Apple asks for touch targets of at least 44 points, Google's Material Design 48, and the web's accessibility standard (WCAG 2.2) sets 24 pixels as the minimum. Bigger and nearer is faster to hit.
| The button | |
|---|---|
| Built as | Real text on a coloured block, never a picture |
| Height | 48 pixels or more |
| Width | Full width on a phone, or at least 200 pixels |
| Label | 16 to 18 pixels, bold, 2 to 5 words, a verb first |
| Colour | Your one accent colour, label contrast at least 4.5 to 1 |
| Space | 30 to 50 pixels clear above and below; 8 or more between any two links |
| Corners | The same on every button |
| Under it | One optional line, 13 to 14 pixels: your terms, the time it takes, a reassurance |
The label names what the reader gets. "Get the planting guide", "See the January timetable". Never "Submit", "Click here" or "Learn more" when something more specific is true. People using screen readers hear the label on its own, so it must say where it goes.
Try the reader's voice. On landing pages, changing "Start your free trial" to "Start my free trial" lifted sign-ups 90% in one test by Michael Aagaard (2013). Treat "my" as a good first version, and test it.
Answer the doubt beside it
A line of small text under the button removes the last hesitation: "Takes 2 minutes", "Free returns for 30 days", "No card needed". Only your real terms. MECLABS sums up what makes people act as motivation, the clarity of the value, the incentive minus the effort, and the worry. That one line works on the last two.
Where it goes
In the first phone screen, for the reader who's ready, and again at the end for the one who needed the whole case. Most attention sits at the top of anything people scroll.
Everything that looks clickable is clickable. People tap pictures. A dead picture is a lost click.
Second actions look second: a plain underlined link or an outline button, so it never competes with the main one.
After the click
Keep the promise. The page must show the same offer, in the same words, with the same picture. Unbounce's co-founder Oli Gardner: "If your ad copy doesn't match the message on your landing page, you're disrespecting the click." Send the click to the exact product, class or form, never the home page.
A plain, short page. Unbounce found pages written in plain words converted at 11.1%, 56% more than pages written at a higher reading level (2024). The headline repeats the email's promise, and the form asks only for what's needed now.
Urgency, and replies
Urgency only when real. "Ends Sunday at midnight" next to the button works when it's true. A countdown timer suits a real deadline. The evidence on timers is thin: in one publisher's campaign, they lifted revenue per click 18%, with revenue per thousand emails about the same.
A reply is an action too. In a sequence step or a founder's note, the ask is often "Reply and tell me…". Make the question easy to answer in a word or two.
Name every link for what it is, the picture, the button, the P.S., so the report shows which one worked. Then test one change at a time: Test your emails.
Words that work
| Button | Under it | |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome | Get your planting guide | Free, in your inbox now |
| Newsletter | Read the full story | 4-minute read |
| Promotion | Shop the winter sale | Ends Sunday at midnight |
| Launch | See the new self-watering pots | Ships from Monday |
| Abandoned cart | Finish your order | Your basket is saved |
| Win-back | Keep me on the list | Or unsubscribe in one click |
| Event | Save my place | 8 places left · Saturday 10 am |
| Free trial | Start my free month | No card needed |
| Local service | Book a roof check | We call back the same day |
| Sequence step | No button: "Reply with your postcode" |
Doing it here
- Every campaign's emails link to a page you choose. A landing page is written for you from what it's for, the offer and who it's for, and a second version shows which brings in more enquiries: Write a landing page with AI.
- When someone from your campaign fills in the page's form, they become a lead linked to that campaign, and their entry lands in your inbox to answer: From a click to a lead.
- A click in a campaign you name can start a follow-up sequence for that one person: What starts a sequence.
- Clicks are counted only when a person made them: security scanners click every link on their own, and they're left out: Real people, not machines.
The button, the words and the page that keeps the promise, drawn, are in the free guide Everything you need to know about email marketing.