Opens – The Term is the Problem

Rather than just comment, I thought I’d respond to Josh’s post with a post of my own on open rates. First, my opinions are pretty well known through two columns on Email Insider   - Email Open Rates: What’s the Alternative? ; Why The Open Rate Must Die  and a  How valuable is the open rate for e-mail?  DM News Gloves Off column. So I will focus mostly on responding directly to Josh’s (who I too have great respect for) comments…

"When marketers have nothing else, they usually at least have an open rate." – Unless a marketer is sending email via Outlook or something, why wouldn’t they have click-through rates? The exception being of course if their message has no call to action or links in it. I’ve always granted that scenario as an exception – but would also suggest that those emails should probably be redesigned to drive recipients to a Web site (call center, etc.) in order to read the content or take an action. Otherwise, a marketer that isn’t tracking the success of their email programs by more strategic measures, is doing their employer and their career a disservice.

"…easily accessible" – Just because a metric is easily accessible and widely available, does not make it valuable. In fact the open rate’s ubiquity is in fact one of its biggest problems. Marketers have taken it too seriously over the years because it is so prevalent and has become part of their regular discourse -"what is the average open rate." The direct mail world does not have an open rate equivalent and continues to be a significantly larger industry than email. Direct mailers are focused on response rates, conversions, revenue and ROI – not how many people did or did not open an envelope. I’m sure they’d love to know, but the fact is the main thing that matters is did the recipient take an action? The counter argument of course is that opens capture "reach" and/or "brand lift." I’m not going to disagree with that, but my point is that if the measure of "reach" is off by 20 percent or something – what have you actually measured?

"…the Open Rate is still a very clear indicator of success – the more opens the better!" – Huh? This sounds like a comment from the dot com era when we talked about "hits" and "page views." Have we really gone backward in time? In theory more opens are certainly better than less opens. Just like more people visiting your Web site is theoretically better than fewer. But opens and page views generally don’t pay the bills. A higher open rate does not necessarily translate to better success. I’ve spoken to other marketers who have done tests as I have that prove that in A/B splits that "the better subject line" can often result in a lower open rate, but higher conversion rate and revenue. Do I know how often this happens? No I don’t, so I can’t wage a great counter to your 95 percent statement. But I strongly disagree with the premise. Every day I go to my postal mail box I find at least one (if not more) envelopes from banks, credit card companies, mortgage companies, etc. who use aggressive and misleading copy on their envelopes. They use tactics such as "Official Business" and "Account Information" or make it look like it is from the government. These tactics may get me to open the envelope, but I have no intention of taking any action. And in fact they have damaged their brand in a big way with me. The same is true in email – a subject line that generates a high open rate for the sake of a high open rate just does not guarantee better success. But it doesn’t mean it won’t either.

"Watching opens go up is addictive like no other metric you can watch in real time." – Since when is addictive a good thing:-)? Geez, I remember getting my first taste of this "real-time open count growth" at one of my jobs in 2001. Of course it is fun and exciting to see these opens go up – but your boss could care less. I’ve yet to meet a marketer that was measured on open rates. Never met a marketer that got a raise for increasing open rates. Watching opens grown may be fun, but does it pay the bills?

"It has never bothered me that the Open Rate doesn’t actually represent the exact number of people who opened." – Josh, would it bother you if you stepped on a scale and it told you your weight was double or half what it actually was? Would it bother you if the number of clicks or conversions or amount of revenue was off significantly from what it was? Hey boss, that last email campaign generated $200,000 in revenue – I think? Maybe it was $100,000 or maybe it was $300,000 – ah who cares cause I had fun watching the opens grow. Ugh. Josh, why is it that you and others have a double standard? It seems to be Ok that the open rate, widely acknowledged as being inaccurate, doesn’t bother anyone. Can someone explain to me why it is OK for one metric to be inaccurate, but not others?

A few final points of clarification:

- My main problems with the open rate are that it is inaccurate and not strategic. But what keeps getting overlooked in everyone’s reaction to my original Email Insider post is that the name "open rate" is simply wrong and does not reflect what is being measured. What is being measured is when a tracking image loads in an HTML message. Period, the end. As such, the eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable is making great progress on our initiative to redefine, standardize and rename the open rate. We are looking at new terms such as Render and Email Actions (combining unique opens and clicks) to replace the "open rate." If these (or other) new terms are adopted, I will be a much happier camper. So to be clear, "killing the open rate" is first and foremost about redefining it so that the term and metric actually reflects what is being measured. Once we get past that, we can then resume debate on whether this redefined metric is in fact meaningful.

- One of my other points has consistently been – "Use the open rate if you know its limits and when and how to apply it." My caution has always been that too many marketers become obsessed with tracking or comparing their average open rates – and try to draw some meaning from it at the same time as continued growth of image blocking and use of preview panes. If you have no other means to measure you email program’s success, then fine use opens. But I would bet that the vast marjority of marketers and publishers actually do have other metrics they can use.

- Josh (and anyone else) – if you feel this strongly about the open rate, please join the eec Measurement Accuracy Roundtable – as we are nearing the point of coming to recommendations on the replacement(s) for this metric.

- Some are saying I’m bashing the open rate. I don’t view it that way. I’ve simply raised the conversation within the industry around the need for a more accurate and better definition of a term that isn’t actually accurately tracking opens anymore. I believe this is a legitmate conversation, not bashing.

- Lastly, I’m not with MediaPost, I’m employed by Silverpop, but just happen to write a column for MediaPost.

Last 5 posts by Loren McDonald

• Look Beyond the Obvious for Answers - April 13th, 2011
• Are You Dreaming or Doing? - December 7th, 2009
• Respect Subscribers by Managing Expectations - August 11th, 2009
• Open Rate? Render Rate? Do-You-Care Rate? - March 9th, 2009
• Is Free Really a Four-Letter Word? - January 26th, 2009