📩21.7% Email CTR w/ plain text emails

We often get asked whether it's safe to send a Cuda link in the first email of a sequence. People are worried that including a link in the first email will hurt deliverability. So instead, they do something like this

(1) Send an email asking if they “mind if I send a demo”

(2) If they respond, send the demo

(3) Hope that they now read your follow up email with the demo

(4) If they respond after watching the demo, ask for a meeting

There's nothing inherently wrong with that strategy. Plenty of people have done it (myself included) and gotten solid results. But it creates extra steps that are all opportunities for a lead to drop off.

I ran a split test across 1k leads where I employed the strategy above for half and included the demo link in the first email for the other half.

The Results

Across campaigns where I included the link in the first email, I achieved a

• 21.7% CTR

• 9.7% Reply Rate

• 3.3% Positive Reply (Opp Created)

In the campaigns where I forced the prospect to ask me for the link, I saw

• 4.3% CTR

• 5.9% Reply Rate

• 1.9% Positive Reply (Opp Created)

I attribute our success to a few things

(1) Less friction. If a prospect finds my initial email interesting, they can jump straight into watching a demo. Since my Cuda page has my Calendly embedded, the prospect can then go straight from watching the demo to booking a call.

(2) Lower commitment. It turns out that some people are unwilling to reply to your email until they've gotten to know you a little better. Since the demo is already available, a lot of prospects who would have not replied to my initial email if it were just text went on to watch the demo and then were encouraged to reply.

Plain Text v Hyperlinks

In addition to testing link v no link, I also tested including the link as part of a plain text email as well as hyperlinking using HTML.

I found that HTML does negatively impact deliverability. So sending a link is safe, so long as it's part of a plain text email.

How to share the link in the email body

Even if I may want my prospect to book a time on my Calendly, my email CTA is focused around getting them to watch a demo or consume free content that's hosted on my Cuda page. I let my content do the talking and only once they're on the Cuda page and have gotten some value are they prompted to book a time with me.

Here are some examples:

• You can find a 2 minute video showcasing how we do it here: {{cuda_link}}

• Here's a case study showing how we 3x'ed our positive reply rates: {{cuda_link}}

• You can get a sense of what I'm talking about at the custom page I made for you: {{cuda_link}}