OPEN RATES

These are the most widely quoted of all e-mail statistics, and yet they can present rather unreliable figures. To give but one example, consider the person who receives emails via Outlook Express, and who has the system set so that he/she can read the email without clicking on it. This person might well read the whole email, and yet not be recorded as having “opened” the email.

Thus open rates always under-estimate the number of people who have read all or part of the email. Unfortunately different open rate programs tends to handle this sort of anomaly in different ways.

In the chart below we give some figures from campaigns recently run that use our software – but beware of anyone who says, “we get much higher than this” – they might be using software that measures something else.

If you would like to read more on open rates, including a full analysis of how and why they can give misleading results please do take a look at http://www.hamilton-house.com/free%20reports/OpenRates.htm

CLICK THROUGHS

The click through rates (the measurement of the number of people who click on a link to a web site) are more reliable.

Click through figures are given as a percentage of those who received the mailing, not a percentage of those who are shown in the Open Rate

THE RESULTS

Using general email addresses into organisations (in our case schools) the best open rate we got as 20.3% and the best click through was 1.6%.

However the average click through was only 0.4% – and we believe this change reflects not primarily on the product on offer, but rather the way the email was written.

But when we started to use genuine opt-in lists (ie not those where people just gave permission for their email address to be on a list, but people who themselves sent in an email and said “put me on your list” the results shot up.

The top open rate was a staggering 86% and the top click through rate was 40%.

Of course every list is different and every campaign is different – but if nothing else this shows the incredible difference between serious “opt in” lists, and those where general addresses are mailed. It also shows what is possible, if the way the email is presented is changed.

If you would like to know more about our email services please click here. Or call Hamilton House on 01536 399 000.