Editorial emails are supposed to build trust so the next offer lands. For a D2C wellness accessories brand we work with, they were doing exactly that, until two of them sent readers somewhere else.

The setup

In late August the brand replaced its product-story emails with editorial emails built on research and observable stories. It worked: editorial earned 25% more per email than the emails it replaced, with fewer unsubscribes (0.16% against 0.22%).

Six of those editorial sends kept the reader inside the brand’s world. The two most recent ones linked out to an external study.

The numbers

• Six sends, no external link: 0.66% click rate, 4.1% of clicks turned into orders, $0.054 per recipient.

• Two sends, external study link: 0.78% click rate, 1.6% of clicks turned into orders, $0.018 per recipient.

Clicks rose 18%. Orders per click fell 61%. Revenue per recipient fell 67%.

It happened even with a strong offer behind it. One of the two sends went out on the last day of a 20% sitewide sale. The launch email of that same sale brought 27 orders. The last-day email with the external link brought 6 from the main list.

Why this happens

A click is not intent to buy. It is intent to do whatever the link promises. When the link promises a study, the reader goes to read a study, on a page with no product, no cart and no way back except the browser’s back button. The curiosity the email created gets spent somewhere the brand cannot sell.

The click rate looked healthier than ever, which is exactly why this is easy to miss. If you judge editorial emails by clicks alone, the outbound link looks like a win.

What we are changing

Two sends are not conclusive, so the next step is a test, not a rule. Until then:

• Keep the research in the email, but link it through your own page. A research or journal page on your site keeps the reader one click from the product.

• Summarize the finding in the email and put the shop button first. The reader who wants the full study can still find it.

• Judge editorial emails by orders per click and revenue per recipient, not click rate.

• A/B the next editorial send: on-site link against external link, same audience, same offer.

The email did its job. The link sent the reader to someone else’s page to finish it.

Real campaign data, anonymized per client confidentiality.

Tools we use

Klaviyo: the email and SMS platform we build every client account on, including the A/B tests described above.

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