A click map is one of the most important analytics tools in email marketing. It helps you understand which parts of an email grab your audience's attention and which go unnoticed.

In this article, we'll cover what a click map shows, how to analyze it, and how to use the resulting data to improve your newsletters.

Why you need a click map

  • To identify which parts of an email work best — buttons, banners, links within the text.
  • To spot areas of an email that users ignore.
  • To check how well the distribution of clicks matches your goals.
  • To optimize templates and boost click-through rate (CTR).

What a click map shows

A click map shows how many clicks each link or element in an email received. This usually includes:

  • the header and logo,
  • the main banner,
  • buttons and calls to action (CTAs),
  • links within the text,
  • product or content blocks,
  • social media icons and footer elements.

Visually, the map highlights areas of the email: the more clicks, the "hotter" the zone (moving from cool colors to warm ones). Sometimes percentages or absolute click counts are shown alongside it.

How to interpret a click map

1. Focus on the first screens

Most of the time, 60–80% of clicks land on the top part of the email. That's normal. If the top part underperforms, the rest of the email barely matters.

2. Evaluate CTA effectiveness

If CTA buttons get fewer clicks than plain text links, that's a signal to rethink the design or the wording.

3. Analyze the "blind spots"

Elements with zero or minimal clicks:

  • may be worth removing,
  • may need a design overhaul,
  • may need to be repositioned.

4. Compare devices

Mobile users often click differently than desktop users. For example, buttons tend to work better on mobile, while text links perform worse.

5. Match it against your campaign goals

If an email's main goal is driving traffic to a landing page, but most clicks go to the social icons in the footer, the email's priorities need to be rebalanced.

How to use click map data

  • Move key CTAs higher up in the email.
  • Simplify the template by removing or reworking elements that don't perform.
  • Test different formats: buttons vs. text, images vs. text.
  • Work on responsiveness so the email looks and performs equally well on every device.

Conclusion

A click map is a great way to peek into your audience's behavior and understand how an email actually performs. Click analysis helps you improve newsletter performance without radical overhauls or expensive experiments.

If you want to work with click maps without unnecessary technical hassle, check out the tools built right into Letteros — they let you analyze newsletter performance directly in the interface.