Why Opens and Click Web Metrics Are Worth Caring About

Avinash Kaushik tells us in his book Web Analytics 2.0 that the world of Web metrics has changed a lot in the past 10 years. The most important foundational metrics in the 1990’s used to be website hits, but today “in a world where every home page sends 50 or 100 hits and rich experience dominates, hits mean nothing” (Kaushik, p. 36). So if we won’t care about hits, should we care about visits, click throughs or click through rates?  

These visitor characterization metrics are defined as:

• Click-through: Number of times a link was clicked by a visitor
• Click-through Rate: This is the number of click-throughs for a specific link divided by the number of times that link was viewed
• Visits: An interaction with a web site by an individual consisting of one or more requests for a page

(Wells, 2014)

Metrics and KPI’s keep evolving as marketers have an increasing arsenal of tools that measure every interaction on the web that go beyond click streams. In fact according to Kaushik, we have evolved from hits to page views to visits but now what really matters is outcomes (Kaushik, p.36).

So, what has changed and how do we as marketers understand what the measuring stick of KPI’s should be and what web metrics should matter?

Visits and Visitors are still the foundation of all web metrics and essential to understand more complex metrics that help us understand engagement and conversion. Different metrics help you as a marketer measure what it meaningful to your business, and as such, one size does not fit all.

But we can all agree that the best metrics support business objectives, are simple to understand, and easy to implement. Metrics form the life blood of all measurement we do, and the reason we call the web the most accountable channel on the planet (Kaushik, 2010). And based on this fundamental purpose of metrics, there is still a place for visits, click-throughs and click-through rates (CTR) in web analytics.

Here is an example of why Click Through Rate Matters When Marketing an Event

An event’s date, time, host, and contents is very unique to that event.  It is practically impossible to replicate an event, even when two hosts are competing in the same niche. People who attend events are usually optimizing for three things: Date, time, and contents.  So unless you have two events happening on the same date, at the same time, delivering the same contents, they are not competing with each other.

When event hosts cross-promote their events using cooperative email marketing within their niche, click-through rates go up just because it makes it easier for event prospects to do what they already love to do: browse events in their niche by checking out the date, time, and contents.

Another Reason to Consider Click-Through Rates

When we target cold prospects with email communications, we usually see lower open rates than communications sent to customers. Marketers who only look at the low open rates could make a lot of assumptions including; that the targeted audience is not interested in the communication; that the creative was weak; that the call to action was not compelling; or that they are the wrong target audience altogether. The key with open rate is not necessarily the number itself, or how you compare with other businesses or organizations, but the trend. And when you combine it with click-throughs, you can get real reporting gold provided that you're including calls to action and links in your campaigns (Kahill, 2010).

Constant Contact, an email service provider, explains that click data shows exactly what information people are interested in and can be used to further segment your list for better targeting of subscribers.

For example, if you're writing about multiple topics in each newsletter, click-through information can be used to determine which topics are of most interest to readers. As an example, a business consultant may think readers are interested in leadership tips, but find they're clicking most on articles relating to marketing. Does this mean the consultant stops writing about leadership all together? No, but he may want to change the mix of article topics to favor marketing, since that's what readers are clicking on most often.

Bottom Line? Don’t be so quick to throw the traditional tried and true in favor of the new and shiny metrics. When you combine them together, that is when you will have your best overall measurement that will allow you to meet your business objectives.  

 

Want to learn more?

Kahill, P. (2010) What Do Your Email Results Mean? Retrieved January 19, 2014 from: http://www.constantcontact.com/learning-center/hints-tips/ht-2010-06b.jsp

Kaushik, A. (2010, April 19) Web Analytics 101: Definitions: Goals, Metrics, KPIs, Dimensions, Targets. Retrieved January 16, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu

Kaushik, A. (2010) Web Analytics 2.0 . p.36. Wiley Publishing, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana

Wells, M. (2013, October 10) Lesson 2: Basic Web Analytics. Retrieved January 16, 2014 from: www.ecampus.wvu.edu