Response rates in email marketing

Response rates in email marketing are traditionally measured in the number of people who open your emails and the number of people who then go on to click through onto your website.

However this started to change in 2006 when the first analysis of actual orders as a result of emails came through.

The very latest findings can be found by clicking on the Increasing Sales button above.

Before 2006 many firms aimed to have an opening rate of around 25% and a click through of 8% - but such figures gave no indication of sales.

Shared mailing rates (where the transmission company sends an email made up of five or six email adverts) will be much much lower - maybe around 1% or far less for a click through rate.   Because these services tend to charge a premium price which makes them much more expensive than, say, a direct mail shared mailing (in the case of schools) you might want to treat these with caution.

By early 2006 there was considerable discontent arising in relation to the lack of proper sales figures for email marketing, and so in summer 2006 Hamilton House released its first direct results for email, using its Education Management News list.  Where a free report was offered 30% of the readership applied for a copy.  Where a report was offered for £20 to £30 the response rate was around 2% - higher than could have been achieved with direct mail.

Everything depends on the service you use (Ed Management News is a news service and so attracts readership), and on how you present your email, and considerable research has gone into the effect of the subject line in this regard.   If you would like to know more there is an article headed Opening.

Click through rates also have their own relevant factors, and if you would like to know how to enhance the chance of the person moving from your email to your website, please read this article.