Beat Average CTR
1-Minute Recap

If you only skim, here’s the playbook:

  • “Average” CTR is not your ceiling. Recent benchmarks put the average email click-through rate around 2–2.5%, with 3.5%+ considered excellent.
  • On paid channels, typical ad CTRs are even lower (e.g., ~0.8–1.5% on TikTok/Meta, ~0.5–0.6% on YouTube), which is why “average CTR” content feels so pessimistic.
  • Casinos, hotels, and franchises have unfair advantages: rich first-party data, repeat visits, strong offers, and loyal segments. Used properly, those should put you above generic benchmarks.
  • To beat “average” CTR, you need to do five things consistently:
  1. Hyper-target the right audience, not everyone on the list
  2. Align offer + message + landing page for each segment
  3. Trigger messages at high-intent moments (visits, bookings, gameplay, inquiries)
  4. Design for mobile-first clicks, not just opens
  5. Treat CTR like a product metric and A/B test relentlessly

For a deeper email-specific foundation, pair this article with:

What “Average CTR” Really Means (And Why It’s Not Your Bar)

A lot of generic marketing content talks about “good click-through rate (CTR)” as if there’s one number everyone should chase.

In reality:

 

So when you Google “how to beat average CTR,” you’re really seeing:

 

“How do I beat 1–3% on email and sub-2% on most display/social ads?”

For casinos, hotels, and multi-location franchises, that’s honestly a low bar.

You have:

  • Known guests and players, not complete strangers
  • First-party data on visits, spend, preferences, and location
  • Compelling, real-world offers (rooms, events, bonuses, appointments)

The question isn’t “can we beat average?”

It’s “how far above average can we get when we actually use our data?”

Why Casinos, Hotels, and Franchises Have a CTR Advantage

Before we go into tactics, it’s worth zooming out:

1. You’re not selling random widgets.

You’re selling:

  • A night out, a show, a host touchpoint, a VIP experience (casinos)
  • A stay, an upgrade, a special package or local event (hotels)
  • A local service, a trusted brand, an opportunity to open a franchise (franchisors)

Those are naturally click-worthy if you put them in front of the right person, at the right time.

2. Your audiences are repeat, not one-and-done.

  • Players swipe loyalty cards.
  • Guests book multiple stays.
  • Local customers return to the same franchises.

That repeat behavior creates patterns you can act on: time-between-visits, preferred days, favorite games/amenities, usual ticket size.

3. You sit on better data than most brands.

You can tie email & campaigns to:

  • Player IDs and host notes
  • PMS / booking engine data
  • POS receipts, room charges, F&B
  • Franchise CRM and lead stages

This is exactly the type of complex data model iPost was built for and what powers our casino email solutions.

When you connect those dots, “average CTR” becomes something you see in other people’s benchmark decks—not your own program.

Step 1: Hyper-Target the Right Audience (Not “Everyone Who Ever Visited”)

The AI overview you pasted talks about “hyper-targeting” and “showing ads to people who genuinely need your product.”

That applies even more to your emails and lifecycle campaigns.

Step 1_ Hyper-Target the Right Audience (Not “Everyone Who Ever Visited”) - visual selection

At a minimum, split your lists by:

Casinos

  • Visit recency: 0–30 days, 31–90, 90+
  • Value tier: VIP / mid / casual
  • Primary behavior: slots, tables, online, on-property
  • Trip type: locals vs destination guests

Then send:

  • Weekend offers only to those within driving distance
  • High-touch host outreach to top value tiers
  • Low-risk “come back and see what’s new” offers to lapsed players

Our casino email marketing strategies guide goes deeper on segmentation ideas specifically for gaming.

Hotels & Resorts

  • Stay recency and frequency
  • Booking window (last-minute vs long-range planners)
  • Purpose (leisure vs corporate or group if you can infer it)
  • Ancillary spend (spa, dining, golf, shows, etc.)

CTR jumps when an email sounds like you remember their last stay instead of treating them like a stranger.

Franchises

  • Lead stage: new inquiry, discovery call, FDD review, late-stage
  • Geography (state, DMA, or territory)
  • Capital range or timeline to invest

Franchise dev emails with stage-specific CTAs (“Book your next call,” “Download the territory map,” “See build-out cost examples”) will beat generic newsletter CTR every time.

For the baseline mechanics of how CTR is calculated and why segmentation matters, send readers to this CTR 101 primer.

Step 2: Match Message, Offer, and Landing Page for Each Segment

The AI overview also emphasizes “message–landing page consistency.”

Step 2_ Match Message, Offer, and Landing Page for Each Segment - visual selection

Same idea for email and lifecycle journeys:

The promise in your subject line + hero + CTA should be fulfilled instantly on click.

Examples:

Casino:

Subject: “Your offers for this weekend are live”

Email: Personalized tiles with this weekend’s bonuses

Landing: “Your offers” page, pre-filtered for that player

Hotel:

Subject: “Finish planning your March trip to Vegas?”

Email: Dates they browsed, plus a “See rates for these dates” CTA

Landing: Booking engine with dates pre-selected

Franchise:

Subject: “Is Phoenix your next franchise market?”

Email: Local comps, demand indicators, and brand proof

Landing: Territory overview form for that specific region

This is also where brand storytelling helps.

For casinos especially, aligning CTR goals with broader reputation and guest strategy (not just promos) is key, see our casino public relations email marketing strategy guide for positioning ideas that keep PR, host, and marketing teams rowing together.

Step 3: Use High-Intent Moments and Data-Driven Triggers

A big pattern from Billo’s CTR benchmarks is that formats closer to user intent (e.g., in-feed, native placements) beat generic impressions.

You can replicate that logic with triggered email and lifecycle flows:

Casinos

  • Post-visit recaps (“Here’s what you did on your last trip”) with a tailored follow-up offer
  • Near-expiry rewards nudging players before points or offers lapse
  • Event-based triggers: tournaments, concerts, and special nights that match game preferences or host notes

We cover several of these flows in detail in our casino email marketing strategies.

Hotels

  • Browse / abandon triggers from the booking engine
  • Upsell flows based on room type (suite, standard, group)
  • Pre-arrival sequences that push ancillary revenue (dining, spa, activities)

Franchises

  • Content-based nurture: send different follow-ups based on which resources a lead viewed
  • Time-based nudges: if someone hasn’t moved stages in 14–30 days, prompt them with next-step content or a direct calendar link

Triggered flows not only lift CTR, they often double or triple conversion rates compared to generic campaigns because they intersect with actual intent. Benchmarks bear this out: the top 10% of automated email flows often see click rates in the 4–7%+ range.

Step 4: Design for Mobile-First Clicks, Not Desktop Opens

Across most industries, email opens are now majority mobile, and short-form content has trained people to scan brutally fast.

To beat average CTR, your creative needs to:

  • Use single-column layouts that look great on a phone
  • Make CTAs thumb-reachable and visually distinct
  • Keep paragraphs short and scannable
  • Put one primary CTA above the fold

CTR doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you’re only looking at opens, you might think a campaign is healthy when it’s actually underperforming. That’s why this post pairs well with Understanding email open rates—you need both metrics to see the full story.

Step 5: Treat CTR Like a Product Metric and Iterate Relentlessly

One reason CTR threads and benchmarks exist at all is because marketers see massive swings just from creative and audience tweaks. Conversion-optimization firm CXL stresses that “good CTR” is always contextual, by channel, format, industry, and even ad position.

And outside the big studies, everyday creators say the same thing.

In one Reddit thread on YouTube “type beat” channels, multiple producers report 5–7% CTR on average and 10%+ on top videos, while noting that thumbnails or going “wider” can cut that in half.

For you, that means:

Test small, test often.

  • Subject line vs preheader
  • One hero offer vs multiple small offers
  • Image-heavy vs text-first layouts

Isolate variables.

  • Change one major thing at a time so you can see what really moved CTR.

Benchmark against yourself, not just the internet.

  • Use generic averages as sanity checks, then set your own “great” threshold for casino, hotel, and franchise segments.

Vertical Playbooks: What “Beating Average CTR” Looks Like

For Casinos

Baseline goal: Beat 2–3% CTR on core campaigns; aim for 5%+ on high-intent flows (post-visit, expiring offers, host outreach).

Levers:

  • Segment by recency + value tier + game preference
  • Use Player ID and host notes to personalize offers without overstepping
  • Build automated flows around visits, events, and reward windows

To see how leading casinos are already using lifecycle marketing this way, explore our casino email solutions.

For Hotels & Resorts

Baseline goal: Beat generic email CTR benchmarks; strive for 3–4%+ on stay-related flows and 5%+ on browse/abandon/cart-like triggers.

Levers:

  • Combine PMS and email data so messages reflect actual stay patterns
  • Use pre-arrival and post-stay flows to drive ancillary revenue
  • Always sync email promise with booking engine landing pages to avoid drop-off

For Franchises & Franchise Dev Teams

Baseline goal: Beat general B2B email CTR (often in the ~3% range) and push 5–7% on carefully segmented dev funnels.

Levers:

  • Map dev funnel (cold → curious → active → close) and assign one primary CTA per stage
  • Segment by geography, capital readiness, and timeline to send relevant proof points
  • Use nurture sequences instead of one-and-done blasts; think “journeys,” not “emails”

FAQ: Beating “Average” CTR for Casinos, Hotels, and Franchises

1. What CTR should we actually aim for?

Use benchmarks as a floor, not a ceiling:

  • Emails: Treat ~2–2.5% as average; aim for 3.5%+ on well-targeted campaigns and 5%+ on triggered flows.
  • Ads: Expect lower CTRs across display/social, but your best-performing ad sets and UGC/creator-style creatives should still beat platform medians.

The real goal: month-over-month improvement for each segment, not hitting one magic number.

2. Does higher CTR always mean higher revenue?

Not automatically—but it’s a strong leading indicator.

You still need:

  • The right audience (not just cheap clicks)
  • Clear conversion paths after the click
  • Offers that make sense for the segment

This is why it helps to cross-reference CTR with open rate, conversion rate, and revenue per send—metrics we break down in CTR 101 and Understanding email open rates.

3. Should we optimize CTR on email or ads first?

For most casinos, hotels, and franchises:

  1. Stabilize and optimize email CTR (your cheapest, highest-ROI owned channel).
  2. Then use those learnings to improve ad creative and landing pages.

When your list is segmented, your offers are strong, and your email CTR is healthy, it becomes much easier to:

  • Warm up paid traffic
  • Retarget intelligently
  • Turn ad spend into profitable lifetime value

4. How does iPost help us beat average CTR?

iPost is built to handle the data complexity and volume that casinos, hospitality brands, and multi-location franchises deal with every day:

  • Player IDs, visit history, and event data in casinos
  • PMS and booking data in hotels
  • Multi-brand, multi-location data for franchises

That lets you:

  • Segment based on real behaviors and value, not just demographics
  • Trigger high-intent journeys at the right time
  • Keep creative and message aligned with actual guest and player experience

You can see that philosophy in action across our resources: