Click-Through Rates For Emails That Include Social Sharing, April 2013 [CHART]

Emails that include social sharing buttons have a click-through rate 158% higher than those do not (6.2% vs. 2.4%), according to a new study from GetReponse. That represents an even bigger boost than the 115% jump noted in the researchers’ study last year. While the proportion of users including social sharing buttons increased by more than 60% year-over-year, this practice remains firmly entrenched in the minority, at 29.6% of users.

Among those email marketers including social sharing buttons, virtually all (almost 99%) included a Facebook share icon, while 90% used Twitter icons (double last year’s 45.3%), and 68.1% used a LinkedIn sharing icon (up from 8.5%).

Those marketers may have been paying attention to last year’s results, which showed that the CTR for emails that included a LinkedIn sharing button was highest, at 9.6%. This year, LinkedIn again led in CTR (7.9%) for emails shared on specific social networks, ahead of Facebook and Twitter (each at 6.2%), Google+ (5.3%) and Pinterest (5%). Those latter, emerging networks, were used by 42% and 46% of email marketers using social sharing icons, respectively. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.