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

 

 

Will Gmail Tabs Improve Legitimate Visit Metrics?

Since Google launched its new Gmail inbox featuring the Tabs functionality in May 2013, the email marketing world has been scrambling to understand the impact on visitor characteristics and web metrics.

According to eConsultancy, this is what your tabs would contain:

·        Primary: Messages from friends and family, as well as any other messages that don’t appear in other tabs.

·        Promotions: Your deals, offers, and other promotional emails.

·        Social: Messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, gaming platforms, and other social websites.

·        Updates: Notifications such as confirmations, receipts, bills, and statements.

·        Forums: Messages from online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists.

The impact on promotional email marketing

Of course, this introduction of Gmail’s tabbed layout caused a lot of worries among email marketers. What does this new layout mean for commercial and promotional email campaigns?

Does this mean a decrease in opens, clicks and eventually revenue? The introduction of this new feature has upsides and downsides and can be seen differently based on what your goals are and what you are measuring. In fact different browsers and clients show very different results as seen from Litmus:

Silverpop is beginning to see changes in Gmail subscriber engagement, but it’s not clear whether or how much Tabs is driving this. Return Path and Litmus (both Silverpop partners) found mixed results when studying Tabs’ effect on email engagement.

ReturnPath’s study from August 2013 said “read rate” in the first week or so after Gmail Tabs went into general rollout went up 2.1 percent among highly engaged readers. Inbox placements rates also went up both for medium- and low-engaged customers. However, the read rate plunged nearly 80 percent among lowest-engaged readers, from 2.2 percent before Tabs to 0.42 percent after. Litmus’ study found that Gmail opens fell 18 percent from mid-May to mid-August 2013.

However, Litmus also found Gmail opens had declined overall by 13 percent since July 2012. In the approximately six weeks following the Gmail Tabs announcement, Litmus saw a 7.8 percent decrease in Gmail opens as percentage of total opens across all email clients. Further, its study revealed that Gmail opens accounted for only about 4 percent of total email opens across all email clients. Also, 41 percent of those opens (roughly 1.6 percent of all email opens) occurred in Gmail clients that support Tabs. 

What does it mean for my email campaigns?

An email that gets placed in the Promotions tab faces different types of competition. First it competes with other email marketing campaigns.Second it also competes with Gmail’s native inbox ad placements. Which is kind of a set back, as these inbox ads are placed above “normal” promotional emails, pushing these campaigns even further down the folder.

The main worries for email marketers are the following. Firstly, recipients will spend less time reading emails in the Promotions tab, than those in the Primary tab. Secondly, triggered and transactional emails might lose their effectiveness with this new feature.

These emails are highly effective for ecommerce professionals because they are timely and relevant. In fact, abandoned shopping cart emails have the highest return on investment when sent within the first few hours after the abandonment. If these messages appear in the Promotions tab, it could reduce their effectiveness and the revenue they generate. 

In fact, Return Path sees this as a positive development and believe that Gmail users who matter most to marketers appear likely to continue reading their email at the same rates they always did, and the most engaged may actually read more. The impact of Tabs and similar inbox organizers may vary widely among brands, though. Those with higher concentrations of less engaged subscribers may indeed see sharp drops in email marketing response, while the ones who succeed at engaging their audiences actually enjoy a lift thanks to Tabs.

Bottom Line? If you are sending relevant email communications to an engaged audience, Gmail tabs may actually improve your visit metrics and your marketing effectiveness.

Want to learn more? Download the white papers from the following sites:

Linthorst, M. (2013, October 13). The effect of Gmail Tabs on email marketing. Retrieved January 19, 2014 from: http://econsultancy.com/blog/63569-the-effect-of-gmail-tabs-on-email-marketing

Silverpop (2013, December) Gmail Tabs: Impact on Email Marketing and Strategies to Respond. Retrieved January 19, 2014 from: http://www.silverpop.com/marketing-resources/white-papers/all/2013/Gmail-Tabs/

Return Path, (2013) Gmail Tabs Don’t Stop Shoppers: So Far So Good for Email Marketers. Retrieved January 19, 2014 from: http://landing.returnpath.com/gmail-tabs-marketing-impact-analysis-report-thanks

Direct Mail Lives - and Still Delivers

In an increasingly digital age, direct mail is still a highly effective marketing strategy. According to Epsilon’s 2012 Channel Preference Study:

·        42% of U.S. consumers said direct mail is the preferred channel to receive sensitive health information

·        36% of U.S. consumers said it’s the preferred channel to receive insurance information

·        39% said the same for financial services information.

What’s more, a whopping 73% of consumers said they prefer direct mail for brand communications because they can read the information at their convenience. Even the majority of today’s tech-obsessed 20-somethings (76%) said in a recent U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Household Diary Study that they’d make a purchase based on something they received in the mail. And a June 2012 Direct Marketing Association report reveals that response rates for direct mail to an existing customer averages 3.4%, compared to 0.12% for email.

You can read about this and much more if you download the US Monitor eBook.

It makes for interesting reading and reconfirms that even in our multichannel, digital world, there is a place for the much maligned direct mail.