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Open Rates: Friend or Foe?
By: Stephanie Miller
VP of Strategic Services; Return Path, Inc.
Never a very reliable metric, open rates now tell us even less about the actual behavior of our email subscribers. With image suppression on as the default setting for the majority of email clients, tracking open rates with any accuracy is nearly impossible.
However, don't use that as an excuse to ignore what sharply
declining open rates are telling us! Open rates declined by an
alarming 25% over the last year. At the same time, however, click
through rates and conversions (e.g. to purchase) both rose over that
same time period. That means we can't entirely blame unreliable
tracking.
The subscriber experience also plays a significant role. These
days, inboxes are too crowded for any consumer or business
professional to waste time reading irrelevant messages. Many of
these subscribers become "inactive" - not bothering to *** or
visit the preference center, but completely tuning out the email.
As marketer files age, more and more of the total records are
inactive.
The bottom line is that it's never too early to start retaining
your email subscribers. Ensure that your content is relevant and
that you take advantage of targeting and segmentation strategies to
trigger email that delights and engages your subscribers.
The key to retention is to consider all avenues available to you
and use an integrated approach. Rather than rely on inaccurate
measures like open rates, monitor success using metrics like
conversion, website behavior, pass along, retention and response over
time in addition to the results from content and offer strategy
testing. Your subscribers have more control than ever, so it becomes
essential to consider new ways to reach them in today's marketplace.
For new ideas to reach your customers, read our whitepaper:
Customizing Marketing Efforts for a Content-on-Demand Culture.
(And, for a copy of our latest strategy brief on open rates, just
email
rpinfo@returnpath.net)
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A New Blog from Return Path
The new homepage of the Return Path Website features an Online
Resource Center for Email Marketers. Simply put, this is a blog
through which we will publish useful insight and information about
email marketing, and occasionally about Return Path, for you and your
team. You can comment on it, give us feedback or initiate a dialog.
The idea is to make our online presence more interesting, lively,
interactive, useful, and transparent about Return Path.
Check it out and subscribe to the feed,
we welcome your feedback.
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