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Foreign.
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Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.
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This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson from the do this, not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series, we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out.
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We are back with another Bathroom Break. I'm here with the J Shreddleson of do this, not that Podcast. And before we jump in, I want to ask you a question because I don't really know the answer to this. So what is your beverage of choice in the morning? And is it hot or cold? And do you have a routine with your beverage. Beverage in the morning, or is it something different every day?
A
Well, this is very odd that you asked me that. You probably don't know this, but I have drank a lot of coffee, an extreme amount of coffee, my whole adult life. And then I felt really jittery. So I'm now on week seven. I gave up all caffeine, all caffeine, seven weeks ago. So I've had no coffee, no nothing with caffeine. And so my new favorite drink of choice is chamomile tea. I hope all my college buddies hear this. And I get shredded. Cause when you go in somewhere and you go, can I have a small chamomile tea? I should go. And just basically kick my own ass.
B
I've done that once where everybody's ordering alcohol, and I was like, could I get a water with lemon, please? Yeah, like hot water and lemon. And everybody looked at me like, what are you doing? Why are you. We're all drinking, having a hot water with lemon.
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Oh, yeah, I'm on that train also. I am. I am.
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I'm like eliminating everything for people who don't know. Jay used to, like when I used to see him at conferences, he used to be on his fifth Celsius by 10am so this is a big change for me.
A
This is a big change. I didn't get any headaches or anything. And the weirdest thing is I thought when I cut out caffeine, I was going to have no energy and I fall asleep at my desk. I feel exactly the same. I'm still out of control. So, yeah, chamomile tea. What are you, what is your drink of choice?
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I always have to have a coffee in the morning. Like but I do I, I would say it's more of a routine than a. Like I like it as a routine thing. After 12 I don't drink any caffeine. So like it has to be like at an 8 or 8am and then I will, I only have one and it's done so well.
A
Speaking of one and done, you'll probably be listeners will be one and done with listening to us after this episode. So let's jump into it. We're gonna be talking about some quick win tactics. I want to talk about clicks for a second so I'm gonna get right into it. I think everybody is sleeping on what they are doing with clickthroughs. What do I mean by that? So let's say you send out emails. Could be a promotional email, business, consumer, nonprofit, doesn't matter. Could be a newsletter email. It doesn't matter how big or small your brand is. What do you do? Oh, you get some opens, you get some clicks, you get some customers, you get some downloads, whatever. But the majority of people who click on your email, they're not going to convert, right? Whatever it is, they're not going to convert. So you know, maybe somewhere you have in your scoring methodology and some sort of automation tool that you give a couple extra, you know, points to a contact in your database that they clicked on an email. But that's not even close to enough. Here are some of the things that you should be thinking about doing with people that click through on your emails. Number one, you should be segmenting out anyone that clicked on your emails into its own little database. And then you should be running retargeting and remarketing programs across all of social media, all your display ads just with your click through contacts because they're way more engaged than just taking to your entire database and remarketing to them. And you could run remarketing and retargeting campaigns to your click activity like for dollars, for actual no money whatsoever. And then the other thing I don't think that people are doing with their clicks is tagging them in their CRM and in their databases. What do I mean by that? Everybody's always trying to find out more information about people that click. I mean people that are in their database, people that are, you know, whatever your database is made up of, whatever the topic is that the person clicked on. Right? It's an HR software and they clicked on hiring stuff. You know, it's a consumer thing about sneaker and they clicked on hiking. Okay. You want to have tags associated with all the different content types and all the different offer types of those clicks in your messaging and then you want to add those tags in your CRM or in your email tool or whatever your marketing tool is. Because then when you go to do a segmented campaign, you can pull on those tags that you've assigned to those click throughs and you're sleeping on the best way to segment your database. So your clicks have a lot more value than just actually people clicking through.
B
I like that. I also think too just like misnomers is make sure you optimizing for clicks on actual good CTAs because you can have clicks on your database that are of stupid links that are irrelevant to what you're offering. So you could even go deeper and say they clicked on ebook link, they clicked on a, a product link, they clicked on this. And also retargeting, you could do it. You could do retargeting in ways with your life cycle stuff. So you could do it with email retargeting, you could, you could also not only push it to meta, you could push it to other channels that you're trying to remarket. So I like that technique of like thinking about clicks as a way to segment highly engaged people in, in. In your database and but yeah, tag them. The people make the mistake of not tagging because there's so many BS clicks that happen. So you want real clicks in your database that to. To be able to retarget.
A
Yeah. I'll give you one simple hack that all the email deliverability people out there will will hate me for, but I don't really care. Here's a news flash for everybody. You have bot clicks in your tracking reports, in any track. I don't care what platform you use to send out your email. You have bot clicks, clicks that aren't real, your clicks are inflated. That is the nature of the Internet. If you want a real quick way to figure out the inflation of your click activity in your marketing metrics, what you want to do and it's fine. Life will go on. Take one of your emails, send it out at like 2 or 3 in the morning, okay. And you're like why would I ever do that? And then isolate out the click through activity that happens in the first 30 minutes. Here's the deal. You're not that popular at 2 or 3 in the morning. Your brand's not that popular, right. So any clicks that you're seeing in the first 30 minutes or two or three in the morning. Those are bot clicks. And you can actually take that and say that's your baseline for how inflated your overall metrics are. And then you could actually get to what is my real click through rate. Although some of you just want the vanity metrics, you want it to be really high.
B
What I do too is I put an invisible link above, above the fold and see how many people are clicking.
A
Yeah, that's what people do too.
B
And this is the problem because you can, we've gave the tip sometimes which is smart but also can inflate your kicks. If you put the link in your logo to your offer, it will inflate the clicks on your email. So if you put like another link above the logo that's hidden, you could see how many because only computers are going to be able to see that link and not a. A regular person.
A
Yeah, I mean that's 100% a cleaner way to do it. And the last thing I'll tell you on clicks, which you'll be shocked how many people do this. Make sure your unsubscribe link click is not factored into your click through rate. You would be shocked about how many companies do not actually discount the unsubscribe link from their click activity. You can't be like we got a great click through rate. We also have a high unsubscribe rate. That's weird.
B
And I think the last thing I would add is make sure you also have a filter of like ICP in the click report because sometimes you'll have a good clicks of people who are just like stragglers clicking and they just interested. So take that. And also make sure you look at the list and clean it from for icp. Cause you can run it through an enrichment software and stuff like that too to get more information and then push it to any ad platform out there.
A
Totally. So let me so back to the beginning here. Are you like some sort of like dude, like when you go to Starbucks do you have like an order that's like hi, I want a caramel macchiato, three pumps, no pumps, two things of stevia and hold the cream or do you have like the most complicated order of all time? Are you an embarrassment?
B
But I do. I did actually to be honest. I was in the airport the other day and like I think Starbucks trained me. I felt like scared to go order like at the desk. So I went, I saw it and I took out my app and mobile ordered it. So I didn't have to talk to anybody because I'm. I get so nervous. Like, if I want to add one stevia, I get like, oh, my goodness. I add one little stevia to it. It's. It's getting crazy. So I went mobile, ordered Scared of the barista. Yeah.
A
There needs to be, like, a phobia for that. Like, you know, barista phobia. Wow. Who knew?
B
Wow.
A
Meanwhile, you put out, like, this monster podcast. You talk to people all day long, and you will talk to the.
B
Sometimes I just don't want to. I don't want to deal with people, like, knowing exactly what my order is every single time. I know if I want to try something new, I'm like, I don't want to mess this up. So I want to go slowly and look through the options. I feel rushed when I'm up there, and that's what I don't like.
A
Okay, we'll keep it chill for you. Well, once again, we've crushed another episode. Everybody leave. Daniel review. Follow the Market Millennials do this, not that. And keep it real. Daniel, come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, While he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that for Marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.
B
Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go Follow the Market Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear.
A
Peace out. Later,
Episode: How to Turn Clicks Into Real Revenue | Bathroom Break #104
Date: April 20, 2026
Hosts: Daniel Murray and Jay Schwetelson
This “Bathroom Break” episode zeroes in on transforming “clicks” from emails into actual revenue. Daniel Murray and Jay Schwetelson delve into tactical and actionable advice on how marketers can do more with their email click data, moving beyond vanity metrics to create smarter segmentation, retargeting campaigns, and cleaner analytics. The episode is fast-paced, lighthearted, and practical, filled with hacks and reminders that help listeners unlock missed opportunities within their email strategy.
Missed Opportunities:
Jay highlights that most marketers stop at basic scoring or a minor segmentation when someone clicks an email, rarely taking full advantage of that signal.
Segmentation for Retargeting:
Proposes segmenting users who click any email into a separate database to drive highly-targeted, cost-effective remarketing campaigns across social and display channels, instead of blasting your entire database.
Tagging for Precision:
Jay insists on tagging user click data for precise follow-up:
Not All Clicks Are Equal:
Daniel warns that many clicks may be on irrelevant or “stupid” links (like footers or privacy policies), which dilutes the value of segmentation if not filtered.
Lifecycle Retargeting:
Suggests leveraging click-based segments not only for ads but also within lifecycle marketing and across different platforms, not just Meta, for omni-channel follow-ups.
Bot Metrics Reality:
Jay drops a practical method to estimate fake click rates caused by bots:
Invisible Links as a Bot Test:
Daniel mentions placing invisible links above the fold to identify bots versus real users, as only bots are likely to “click” on hidden elements. (07:40)
Inflating Clicks via Logos:
Both joke about marketers artificially boosting click counts by putting key links in the logo or hidden areas, cautioning that this can backfire on reporting accuracy.
Exclude Unsubscribes:
Jay stresses the importance of not counting unsubscribe clicks in overall click-through rate (CTR):
Filter for Ideal Customer Profile (ICP):
Daniel encourages marketers to cross-reference clickers with their ICP via enrichment tools, ensuring you follow up with high-potential leads, not just any clicker. (08:39)
On Going Caffeine-Free:
“So my new favorite drink of choice is chamomile tea. I hope all my college buddies hear this. And I get shredded, 'cause when you go in somewhere and you go, 'Can I have a small chamomile tea?' I should go and just basically kick my own ass.”
(01:18 — Jay Schwetelson, on changing his coffee habit)
Email Segmentation Hack:
“You should be segmenting out anyone that clicked on your emails into its own little database and then you should be running retargeting and remarketing programs... just with your click through contacts.”
(04:10 — Jay Schwetelson)
On Barista Anxiety:
“I took out my app and mobile ordered it... I get so nervous. Like, if I want to add one stevia, I get like, oh, my goodness... I'm scared of the barista.”
(09:39 — Daniel Murray, discussing coffee order anxiety)
Light, comedic, and rapid-fire, with direct, no-nonsense marketing advice. Both hosts playfully roast themselves over beverage choices, weaving banter into tactical tips. (“Stories or it didn’t happen” is the running philosophy.)
For more practical quick-hits, follow The Marketing Millennials podcast and join the LinkedIn conversation. If you want playbooks you can actually take to the meeting, this episode’s for you.