(Survey) Q4 2005 Email Statistics by List Size
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on January 30, 2006
Interesting study by the folks at eROI, tracking changes in opens and clicks between different list sizes and different send days.
Just to pick out a couple of things and highlight a problem or two.
First, there's a strong suggestion that the increase in email volume for the holiday season might explain the drop off in open and click rates compared to the previous quarter and previous year.
The logical conclusion is to be careful not to overburden recipients with email. But there are two problems with that...
1. This doesn't help much if everyone else is still sending like mad. Though it might leave people with a warmer feeling about you. Is there value in scarcity? Or do people simply forget you?
2. Just because open rates and click rates fall, doesn't mean that bottom line success falls too. The number of clicks per send may drop, but the total number of clicks per quarter is perhaps higher (through more frequent sends). If that translates to more sales, is that necessarily bad? Just what is the optimal send frequency?
Then you also have to factor in how your send frequency during the holiday season affects responses to emails later on. How does that customer experience impact how recipients view your emails in 2006?
Did you turn too many people off your emails for the sake of a few extra sales?
Summary: Metrics, analysis and strategy are a heck of a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface.
In other insights, Friday seems to be the best day to send out your emails, in terms of success metrics. But that may not be the case next quarter, as everybody starts sending their marketing emails on Friday in response to this survey.
And there's more evidence that smaller targeted lists -- or segments -- get better results (in case anyone was still wondering if targeting or segmentation was worth trying).
Just to pick out a couple of things and highlight a problem or two.
First, there's a strong suggestion that the increase in email volume for the holiday season might explain the drop off in open and click rates compared to the previous quarter and previous year.
The logical conclusion is to be careful not to overburden recipients with email. But there are two problems with that...
1. This doesn't help much if everyone else is still sending like mad. Though it might leave people with a warmer feeling about you. Is there value in scarcity? Or do people simply forget you?
2. Just because open rates and click rates fall, doesn't mean that bottom line success falls too. The number of clicks per send may drop, but the total number of clicks per quarter is perhaps higher (through more frequent sends). If that translates to more sales, is that necessarily bad? Just what is the optimal send frequency?
Then you also have to factor in how your send frequency during the holiday season affects responses to emails later on. How does that customer experience impact how recipients view your emails in 2006?
Did you turn too many people off your emails for the sake of a few extra sales?
Summary: Metrics, analysis and strategy are a heck of a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface.
In other insights, Friday seems to be the best day to send out your emails, in terms of success metrics. But that may not be the case next quarter, as everybody starts sending their marketing emails on Friday in response to this survey.
And there's more evidence that smaller targeted lists -- or segments -- get better results (in case anyone was still wondering if targeting or segmentation was worth trying).
[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
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