Should You Use "Read More" Links in Email Newsletters?

You receive dozens of emails a day that qualify as examples of “email marketing” from other brands. Think about what all those emails look like: They’re all different, right? Some are image-heavy, some are text-based, some are jam-packed with stories and links and some are long with lots of text. With so many variations, can everyone be doing it right and what is the right layout for your brand?

I am going to focus on a common email dilemma we hear from clients that is specific to e-newsletters, but applies to any email with more than one content area. What is better: Including full-length articles to keep the user engaged within the email or sharing short snippets of the different articles and linking out to the full piece on a blog or website?

You’ve probably seen both of these methods used before and typically the shorter snippets provide the reader with a quick taste of the article and then offer the option to “read more” if they want to follow a link to the full story. This makes sense when your goal is to show your authority on multiple topics or offer a selection of news that might interest different segments of your newsletter subscribers, but are you losing engaged readers who might benefit from your entire article but get distracted after they click out to a web page? We have developed a pro/con list to help give you a holistic view of the benefits and detriments of both options.

Linked “Read More” Snippets

Pros:

• Increases website traffic and encourages users to visit other pages they are interested in when on-page
• Houses content on the website subscribers can visit later without having to save their newsletter
• Creates new, searchable content housed on the website that can be crawled by search engines and found by interested online researchers
• Allows you to track exactly which topics users are interested in reading more about based on the number of clicks to each link
• Improves click-through rate of emails because there are more links available to click
• Encourages readers to scan all the headlines of the email’s content, even if they do not read or digest the full content, which provides a quick, holistic view of the content

Cons:

• Decreases the chance that users will read all the way through the complete newsletter, especially if it has longer-form content, because the link takes them away from the email
• Provides more distractions within the email competing for the users’ attention

Long-Form Articles in Email

Pros:

• Keeps users inside the email where they can read as much content as they want without in-email distractions, which increases the chance that more of your articles will be read
• Gives subscribers all the content at once in a convenient package they can save in a folder and return to for future reading

Cons:

• Creates the need for longer emails and more scrolling for the user
• There is no way to track or monitor how much content subscribers are reading or interacting with
• Results in a lower click-through rate
• Does not drive as much traffic to your website

What this means for you:

I think it’s easy to see that one of these options has more pros and fewer cons than its opponents, and for all of those reasons, we recommend those “read more” links to most of our clients. If you’re going to present multiple stories to your subscribers at once (we can talk about why fewer content areas is better another time), it typically makes sense to get as much website traffic, tracking data and impact as you can. The snippet format allows for this.

However, there are some cases where we would recommend the long-form article format as well. Maybe you have a very engaged audience who you know will read anything you write and you’d rather give them the convenience of not having to click again to keep reading. As with anything in marketing, the best solution will always depend on your organization’s goals and your audience’s needs.

Want to learn more about implementing an email marketing strategy? Let's chat.