If your marketing or communications manager quotes you "e-newsletter opening rates", you may be getting misled. The systems that measure opening rates record the number of times a file is launched, but that file will launch even when the email is viewed in the preview screen of Outlook, meaning those that click on an e-newsletter to delete it will be falsely recorded as an open. 

A far better measure of success is 'click-through rates' because it means the reader is certainly interested in the topic and has clicked through to your site to learn more. A recent survey of US marketers from MarketingSherpa indicates that while a vast majority of respondents say their e-mail marketing campaign click-through rates have remained the same over the past year, 18% say their open rates have "increased significantly."

And how do you get better readership rates? By testing reader responses before sending the communication to the whole database. Over 70% of the 2,327 marketers studied told MarketingSherpa that landing page tests and subject line tests were worth an investment, and over 60% cited name personalisation tests.

December 2003