Round-up issue: four tests, four accounts, one finding. A slightly longer read than usual.
Same finding in four different accounts this quarter, and the smallest win was still +25.1% Revenue per Recipient, RPR from here. Nobody touched a subject line. Nobody sweetened the offer. In a couple of them the offer was word for word identical on both sides. The only thing that moved was where the button sat, and whether a human thumb could reach it. 📱
Most of the emails I open run like a lovely little store that keeps the cash register in a back room and half-hopes you'll wander back to pay. Gorgeous window. Beautiful hero. And the button that takes their money is three thumb-flicks down, trapped inside a picture, or written out as plain text you're meant to copy by hand like it's 1997.
The industry will split-test a subject line to the fourth decimal and never once open the thing on a phone to check the button is reachable.
The same leak, in every pocket
Four tests, RPR first, because that's the number that pays rent. All four point the same way.
The supplement brand, Welcome #1. Offer left as plain text, "10% off with code SAVE10", no button until the footer. The winner put a real tappable button and the code under the hero. +25.1% RPR, +14.9% order rate, clicks +386%, and the biggest sample of the set.
The apparel brand, Welcome #1. Dreamy lifestyle hero, 15% offer below the fold behind a vague "SHOP NOW". The winner led with the offer and a "CLAIM MY 15% OFF" button up top. +387.5% RPR, clicks 14.19% against 7.14%.
The toothbrush brand, Checkout #1. Aspiration hero, offer buried mid-email. The winner surfaced the offer and one clean button on the first screen. +38.1% RPR, +43.4% order rate, and 76.9% of its clicks turned into orders against 41.2%.
The medical scrubs brand, Cart #3A. CTAs baked into image banners, so the button vanished the moment images didn't load. The winner ran two real "Finish Checkout" buttons. +38.9% RPR, +30.3% order rate.
Four accounts, four flows, one direction. Plenty of my tests faceplant, by the way. That's the tax on finding the ones that don't. ✋
Your buyer never reaches paragraph two
Your buyer is on a phone, on a couch, half-watching something. The first screen before the scroll is, for most of them, the entire email. If the action isn't on it, or isn't obviously a thing you press, you've asked them to do unpaid labor for the honor of handing you money. They decline with a swipe away.
A generic "SHOP NOW" is the sales clerk who gestures at the whole store and then drifts off to restock something. It points at everything, so it points at nothing.
It's so crucial that on one toothbrush checkout email we changed nothing but the words printed on the button, same body, same subject, same design, and "Finish Checkout Now" beat "Complete My Order" by +51.4% RPR. After all the talk of thumb geometry, the finding is embarrassingly blunt.
BIGGER BUTTONS, PLEASE. 😅
No, this isn't the discount-seat thing again
A while back I wrote about where the discount sits in a flow, cold versus warm. That one was about what you lead with. This is about whether the button that does the actual buying is real and reachable, whatever you lead with. Lead with the story all you like. Just don't make them go looking for the register once they're ready.
Steal this, no charge
You don't need me for this one:
Open your five core flows on your phone, not your desktop.
Look at the first screen only, before you scroll. Real tappable button? Is the offer on that screen too?
Kill every "use code XYZ at checkout" sitting there as plain text. Make it a button that carries the code.
Any CTA baked into an image becomes a real HTML button.
Drag the primary button up until a thumb lands on it.
Honest cost: an afternoon. Two hours if you're quick. You keep whatever it shakes loose.
How I know it isn't just me getting lucky
Why I trust four accounts over my own gut: 140 to 180 flows under management, 1,800-plus messages tested on a loop, north of 100 tests launched every week. It all lands in one database built to notice what repeats, so a button test on a scrubs brand tells a supplement brand what to try next. Darts with the lights on. And the fair worry, when everything pours into one pool: your numbers never leave your account. Only the shape of what works travels.
An afternoon, or about five minutes
The whole thing in one line: your subject line got them through the door, and then you left the register in the back room.
Two ways to shift that. Spend the afternoon above, open the five flows on your phone, drag every buried button up to where a thumb lands, and pocket whatever it finds. If that's the version you run, respect.
Or spend about five minutes on the audit application and I'll read the whole account, every flow, and send back exactly where the money's leaking inside three business days. Costs nothing, no obligation, no pitch on the other side. Take the report, fix the list yourself, never speak to me again: completely fine outcome. Either way, put the register by the front door, card reader out, before they've got their coat off. 🚪
