(The following was written by Patrick Knight, Director, Client Deliverability, and myself.)

When you send out an email campaign, you need to know how many of your subscribers actually took the time to click on your message and open it. This measurement is called the “open rate.”

The open rate compares the number of people who opened an email message to the number who did not. It’s a percentage of the number of messages “delivered.” An open rate is dependent on a number of different factors. It could be affected by aesthetic reasons, or it could reflect your data management, which in turn may have to do with deliverability issues.

For instance, if your email is blocked by Yahoo!, and the majority of your subscribers have Yahoo! email addresses, the open rate for your email campaign may be disproportionately low.

On the aesthetic side, an open rate is influenced by things like the subject line, sender identification, HTML rendering (such as how the email is show on a mobile device), bulk folder delivery, relevancy of content, and timing of send.

Sometimes a message might be reported as having been opened multiple times. This may happen for a number of reasons. For example, email clients such as Outlook render HTLM within the preview pane, so that each time the user scrolls through his or her inbox and passes your message, it will count as an open. This happens because each time the user previews the message, the user is actually requesting the embedded image from your server, resulting in the report of an open. Ultimately, this would be counted as multiple opens versus a unique open.

Unique opens are somewhat like total opens. The important difference is that only one user is being counted or reported. For example:

• User #1—opens email 2 times.
• User #2—opens email 4 times.
• User#3—opens email 4 times.

This makes a total of 10 opens. However, there are 3 unique opens.

Whether or not emails are opened consistently is largely based on sender reputation, relevancy, and other factors mentioned earlier. Although open rates render inconsistencies, email is very much about building a relationship with your subscribers. As you achieve this through relevant content, setting and honoring expectations, creating trust with your brand, and following best practices, email open rates tend to increase. (more…)

(The following is an excerpt from the article “Email Conversion Rates: A Primer” by Director of Client Deliverability Patrick Knight, appearing in tomorrow’s edition of mobileStorm’s Outside The Inbox.)

Conversion data should be analyzed to know the effectiveness of an email campaign. Your conversion analysis can tell you how many of your recipients actually did exactly what you wanted them to do. Based on this number a marketer can better understand the audience, and create campaigns based on this feedback in order to make a future offering more effective.

Additionally, low conversion rates can be used as a key indicator of email deliverability issues. Since conversion rates are based on the number of messages delivered—not messages sent—inbox delivery of the message is of great importance, which ultimately can significantly affect return on investment (ROI). mobileStorm’s technology can provide click rates which can be used in conjunction with other metrics to determine a marketer’s conversion rate.

In the short term, marketers can use conversion data to make adjustments as needed, and find what best works for what they are trying to accomplish. In the long term, marketers can use this data to better understand their client base.

(Want to know more? Subscribe to Outside The Inbox, mobileStorm’s newsletter about digital marketing. Go to https://www.mobilestorm.com/newsletter/ today, and read Patrick’s article tomorrow!)

(The following comes from Patrick Knight, Director of Client Deliverability for mobileStorm.)

In the world of email, bought lists are pretty common. Buying a list is not against the law per se(CAN-SPAM never specifically states it); however it’s not such a safe bet since it’s not necessarily clear how these lists are compiled. In many cases they contain addresses that were collected by third-parties who use pre-checkboxes, `and or contain harvested, spam traps (old addresses used to monitor and identify spam activity) and invalid addresses (addresses that are no longer active and bounce).

Contrary to what many marketers think, purchasing lists is not very cost effective, when you consider the facts. Anywhere from 80-90% of these lists have data that is useless. Not to mention the costs marketers incur by having to resolve issues as a result of using these lists.

There is never a time when you should send messaging to people who didn’t opt in. The question to ask your self is …Did these people request to be on my list? Do they expect to receive emails from you, have you sent emails to these people before. The main point here is consent.  These people did not give you permission to send them messages.

Those marketers who do buy lists run serious risks. Beside the fact these people never sign up to receive your messages, even if you were to perform a permission pass campaign you run the risk of hitting spam traps, and in the end, it’s just not worth the risk.

 A sender’s reputation is based on measuring many variables including, spam trap hits, number of complaints, and invalid addresses.  As mentioned, many of these lists contain addresses that affect these variables negatively which can hinder if not ruin a good senders reputation.

Ultimately, good senders can end up being listed by major blacklists.  IP addresses used to send messages in some cases can be permanently blocked.  Furthermore, subscribers who have given permission to receive messages will most likely not receive it because of blocks place on your IP. It may also take a significant amount of time and resources to repair your reputation. If utilizing an ESP this can also cause collateral damage to your provider.

So you know you want to add or continue email campaigns for your 2009 marketing efforts. But you need to consider email relevance as a factor from the start. Not only will this increase your campaign success rates; it also will serve as a preventive measure against your messages being marked as spam.

Where do you begin? The answer is to start with your subscribers, those people to whom you plan to send email messages. Remember, there is a person on the end of each address (at least in most cases).

Some of you may already have a database with existing email addresses, while others may be employing various forms of email capture–via a website, brick-and-mortar locations, etc. Regarding those contacts in your existing database, it’s important to ensure they still want to receive your emails. If you’re just starting to send out marketing emails, make sure you send an opt-in message to these addresses. This way you reduce the risk of sending an irrelevant email to a recipient who will very likely hit the spam button.

Next, consider where you are getting your email addresses, and why your subscriber signed up in the first place. Was it for a newsletter to keep updated on information in your industry? For a specific product offering? Or maybe to get updates on new events? Each of these people have completely different motivations for interacting with your company, and will be more responsive to messages that take this into consideration. Each grouping should either have its own list, or else be properly segmented within your database.

Remember, email can be the extra punch in your marketing strategy, but not just in terms of the volumes of leads. Quality email programs allow timely deployment of targeted messaging, which triggers an increase in the quality of leads (and the qualification) and ultimately equals higher revenue for your business.

Tune in next week for more on email relevance…

Shaneli Ramratan, Director of Marketing, mobileStorm