How to Measure Link Clicks in Email Campaigns

One of the main goals of email marketing is to drive meaningful action from subscribers. To achieve this, marketers often analyze past campaign data to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Typically, a lot of attention is given to open rates or impressions, but these numbers only tell part of the story. It’s important to know which parts of the email are working for you, aka link clicks.

This guide explains what link clicks are, why they matter, and four effective ways to track them, analyze engagement, and optimize email campaigns for better results.

What are link clicks?

Link clicks in email show how many times people interact with the links you include. These links can direct users to web pages, product pages, sign-up forms, or downloadable resources.

Why is measuring link clicks important?

Measuring link clicks provides insight into how recipients interact with your email beyond just opening it.

• High click rates indicate that your content, offers, or calls to action resonate with your audience.

• A low click rate indicates that your content or the placement of links needs improvement.

This data helps improve future campaigns, optimize email design, refine messaging, and ultimately drive conversions and business growth.

How to measure link clicks in an email campaign

Here are some effective ways to measure link clicks and gain insights into how subscribers are engaging with your emails:

1. Use email marketing software with built-in click tracking

Most modern email marketing platforms track link clicks automatically, making it simple to see how subscribers interact with your emails. Mailmodo is one such email marketing platform that allows you to track link clicks, helping you understand how recipients move through your content.

Inside the Mailmodo clickmaps tracking dashboard, you get an overview of all links, a breakdown of unique links, and a link performance index that ranks each link based on how well it performed.

2. Add UTM Parameters for GA4

If you want to see what happens after subscribers click your links and visit your website, UTM parameters are a simple and effective way to track that. These are small tags added to your URLs that tell GA4 exactly where the traffic is coming from.

For instance, a link in your email might look like this: https://yourwebsite.com/product?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale

This allows you to track the performance of your email campaigns in GA4. To check the data collected:

• Go to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition

• Filter by utm_medium=email or by your campaign name

This shows insights such as:

• How many sessions came from email clicks

• How many conversions resulted from those sessions

• Which campaigns contributed the most valuable traffic

• What users did after clicking, such as time on site or purchases

3. Track click events with custom scripts (advanced)

For teams that send emails through their own system instead of a platform, tracking clicks with custom scripts gives full control over the data. This approach requires a bit more technical setup but provides detailed insights that standard tools might not capture.

Here’s how it works:

• You can start by creating unique tracking URLs for each link, such as https://yourdomain.com/click?id=123&link=homepage.

• When a subscriber clicks the link, your server logs key details like the timestamp, user ID, and campaign ID.

• After recording this information, the script redirects the subscriber to the final destination page.

However, it’s important to ensure your setup complies with privacy regulations like GDPR, since you are collecting and storing personal user data.

4. Use link shorteners or tracking tools

If your email platform doesn’t provide detailed analytics, link shorteners and tracking tools offer a simple solution. Tools like Bitly not only make your links shorter and cleaner, but they also provide built-in tracking to monitor engagement.

These tools show you important information about how your audience interacts with your links. You can see the total number of clicks each link received, where your audience is located, which devices they used, and even which sources referred them.

Final thoughts

Measuring link clicks gives you actionable insights into how your audience engages with your emails. You can identify which content resonates, which links drive the most engagement, and which campaigns deliver meaningful results.

Tools like Mailmodo make it even easier to track every interaction by setting up the entire infra on their end. You can see exactly which buttons or links are generating the most clicks, whether it’s for product pages, newsletter sections, or sign-up forms. These insights help you make smarter decisions for future campaigns, such as adjusting messaging or layout to encourage more clicks and improve conversions.