Open Rates:

E-Marketer recently published E-mail Marketing:  Strategies, Stats, Techniques and Tools.   This report presents some interesting and some surprising stats about open rates and click-through rates.  For example, a surprising number of marketers are currently unable to report e-mail campaign performance metrics (52%, according to IMT Strategies, Sept 2002).  This represents a huge lost opportunity for marketers.  Reporting, even the most simple form that tracks open rates and click-through rates (CTR), can help marketers determine not just how many people are reading their emails, but what information within those emails are of most interest to the most people.  This information can help marketers fine tune their offerings and improve their future communication to their target audience.

In terms of measuring the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns, many might expect that open rate (a measure of the percentage of emails that have been opened and not immediately trashed), would be the most popular method among US marketers.  In fact, according to eMarketer, open rate was rated only the third most popular method at 47%.  The two most popular methods of measuring effectiveness were CTR at 64% and unsubscribe rates at 61%.  However, at 47%, open rates beat out conversion rates-website only (46%), unique CTR (43%), direct revenue (38%) and e-mail forward rates (23%), among others.  This suggests that marketers are demanding more of their email campaigns - it’s not enough to have people open the email anymore.  Marketers want their target audience to interact with the email and certainly not to unsubscribe.

Click-Through Rates (CTR):

Click-through rates are distinguished from open rates in that they refer “to clicking on a link that typically takes the user to the sender’s or advertiser’s website.”  Thus CTR is a more active metric on the end of the email receiver, than is open rate.  According to eMarketer, with respect to interactive direct marketing, CTR “rules”, as a result of its ease of measurement and familiarity in the market.  As mentioned above, total click-through rates was the top measure of effectiveness of email marketing campaigns in 2002 (64% of respondents agreed).  Nevertheless, the July 2002 eMarketer reported falling CTR for email from 1999 to 2002 (5.4% in 1999, 3.2% in 2001, 1.8% in 2002).  While neither banners nor rich media showed quite as drastic decreases in CTR in this time frame, these forms of advertising nonetheless remained below email with respect to CTR at 0.3% and 1.7% in 2002 respectively. 

Variations in the measure of CTR in the market prevent consistent numbers across the board.  For instance, one study shows that 40% of respondents to their research inquiries claim CTR of 10% or more, a far cry from the previously noted 1.8% in 2002 from eMarketer.  Variations include use of self-reports, permission methods or types of clicks recorded. 

All data has been gathered from Ó2002 eMarketer, Inc. “Email Marketing: Strategies, Stats, Techniques & Tools, August 2002.”  For information on how to purchase this report, go to www.emarketer.com.