Beware the click through trick
I have noticed a rather interesting change in the way the results of email campaigns are being reported in some quarters.
Generally the tradition has been to say that the total number of emails sent is the 100% from which other numbers are considered.
From that you get the number of people who opened the email (maybe 25%)
Then there is the number of people who clicked through to the web site.
We have always quoted the number of people who have clicked through to the web site as a percentage of the total number of people reached. So 100 people mailed, 7 click through to the web site, that is 7%.
But some firms say 100 people mailed, 25 opened, 7 clicked through – that is 28% – (i.e. 7 out of 25).
There’s nothing wrong with this at all of course – it is just another way of doing it. But I did come across one company making the point that their click through was in the region of 30%, and pointing at other companies (perhaps meaning my firm) with much lower click throughs. Lies, damn lies and statistics!
The problem with all this is the open rate. Open rates are only meaningful within an individual system – because each program measures open rates in different ways. On my computer, for example, I can read most emails without clicking anything – and thus I don’t register on some systems as “opening” an email. But on some systems, the fact that my email has not bounced back counts as “open”. Others give an assessment of open, for no activity.
So open needs to be treated with a bit of caution. And if you see a high click through percentage – do take care and see how the percentage is calculated.
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Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.