The Open Rate: What does it all mean?
January 18th, 2010 by Dan LukensIn previous posts we have described a condition with which many email marketers are afflicted. This “disease” can break down a marketer, bringing progress to a halt with confusion and distress.
Analytic paralysis is the condition of being completely hung up on the analytic reports of your emails. Those with this illness disregard common sense and place too much importance on numbers they don’t quite understand.
Today I hope to cure some cases of analytic paralysis by discussing the email open rate. The email open rate refers to the number of people who have opened and read your email. It was created for the purpose of giving marketers a way to see how many people opened their emails rather than just deleting it on the spot; however, these numbers are almost always blurred and don’t give accurate real time representations of how many recipients actually read your email.
Why are the numbers skewed? Read below to gain a bit more understanding.
Statistics show that 84% of people 18-34 use an email preview pane. An email preview pane exists in email clients such as Outlook and Thunderbird. It allows you to view a preview of your email in a small window under or next to your inbox. The way opens are reported when an email is viewed in a preview pane is inconsistent. In many instances your recipient may have read your email in their preview pane but their view will not register as an open.
Email open rates are collected based on a hidden image placed into your email. When this hidden image is loaded the recipient can be counted as an open. Many email programs, including Outlook and Gmail, block images automatically. Meaning, users who have viewed your image will not be counted as an open unless they go out of the way to allow the images of your email to be seen, something many people don’t do even if they value the content of the email.
So what does this all mean to you, an email marketer trying to find a good way to judge the success of your emails? Basically it means that open rates are a great way to compare a campaign against one another, but not for much else. If your open rates increase or decrease drastically you’ll know you’re either doing something right or your screwed up.
Open rates are not a good way to judge the individual success of a campaign or your email marketing efforts in general. A low open rate may seem discouraging, but the percentages reported can be very misleading. An open rate percentage should not be used as a hard and fast number to report how many people you have reached. A more effective judge of success of any email campaign is the click-through rate. Click-throughs are recorded more accurately and give you a sense of who has acted based on your email. Action, of course being the goal of any marketing effort.
Don’t let the numbers throw a wrench in your efforts. If you are doing the right things in your email campaign such as providing valuable content, avoiding spam flags and sending to a good list, you will have success.
Avoid analytic paralysis by remembering this information and don’t forget, advertising can only bring customers to your product, you are responsible for giving them something of quality that they truly want or need. No amount of advertising, despite it’s brilliance, can maintain a product lacking in value.