Click-Through Rate
Also known as: CTR
Click-through rate is the share of recipients who click any tracked link in an email, expressed as a percentage of delivered messages. Modern CTR measurement uses unique clicks (per recipient, per link) because corporate link scanners (Microsoft Safe Links, Mimecast URL Protect, Proofpoint TAP) fire automated clicks on every link. Raw-click CTR is contaminated; unique-click CTR with scanner filtering is the trustworthy number.
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Click-through rate was once a simple metric: clicks / delivered. Then link-scanning gateways became standard. Microsoft Safe Links, Mimecast URL Protect, and Proofpoint TAP all pre-fetch every link in every email for malware scanning. The result is automated clicks fire from the security gateway, not a human, often within seconds of delivery.
How to calculate trustworthy CTR
- Use unique clicks per recipient, not total clicks. The scanner often fires once; a real human firing twice should count as one unique click.
- Filter clicks by source. Known scanner IP ranges and User-Agents should be excluded from the count.
- Time-window the count. A click within 5 seconds of delivery is almost always a scanner. A click 2 hours after delivery is almost always a human.
B2B benchmarks in 2026
For cold outbound there's no benchmark we'd trust. Security scanners click links too: at large corporate domains, Omnivery found 80 to 95 percent of clicks came from bots. So a raw click rate can be mostly machines. Count clicks that follow a real open, and compare your own campaigns.
Track real engagement, not Apple MPP noise.
Start Free TrialFrequently asked questions
Does Outsolvi filter scanner clicks?+
Yes. Clicks graded as a scanner aren't counted: known scanner user agents, scripts rather than browsers, and a click that lands within half a second of an open from the same address. They're still recorded and labelled, so you can see them.
Should I count link previews as clicks?+
No. Slack and Teams link unfurls and social-media link previews are not buyer behaviour. Outsolvi classifies them separately.
Put this concept into practice
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Start 14-Day Free TrialNate built Outsolvi after watching every email-tracking tool he had ever used lie to him about opens. Outsolvi grades every open as a person or a machine, in Outlook and Gmail, so the number on the dashboard is one a rep can actually act on.
We update these pages when the underlying mechanics change. new mailbox-provider rules, new tracker behavior, new measurement gaps. The dates above are real revisions, not auto-touches.