What you need to know about email statistics.
If you don't understand the tracking numbers around your emails, you can't work out what is happening and how you can improve your results.
Most autoresponders get this wrong and I cannot understand why.
Firstly though I should point out that all tracking requires that the email is opened with images turned on as they insert a tracking pixel, which is a 1 pixel x 1 pixel image which is loaded from the autoresponder service so they can tell if an email has been opened.
As an example, the black dot in the middle of this image is 1px x 1px square.
I had to put a border around the box so you could see it.
The links go back through the autoresponder so they can tell that one has been clicked and they know which one.
But, if your email service allows you to turn off images then the pixel doesn't load and the autoresponder doesn't know that you have opened the email.
They will still record the click on the link which means your stats are inaccurate but they're still better than nothing.
OK, having gone through what happens in the background lets look at the stats themselves.
They record opens, fair enough. Inaccurate but the best they can do.
They report a percentage of opens based on the number of emails sent, also fair enough, still inaccurate.
Then they get strange.
They report clicks based on the number of emails sent, what?
If the email isn't opened then there can be no click so why calculate a percentage clicks based on total emails sent?
It makes much more sense to calculate clicks based on opens, it'll still be inaccurate and could result in over 100% clicks but it has to be less inaccurate than basing the clicks on emails sent.
So, here are some numbers that you should be aiming for.
10 - 20% opens, 10 - 40% clicks on your links, 1 - 5% sales.
If you are not getting those then here are the areas to concentrate on.
Opens - Subject line.
Clicks - position of links and engagement of body text.
Sales - relevance of landing /sales page to subscriber.
These are not hard and fast rules, they vary with every email list and every niche but if you are consistently getting these results then you know what you need to do to improve your income, increase your list size, if you're not then you can work to optimise what you are doing.
Regards,
Brent.
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