| Q&A
- Open Rates & Click-Through Rates Two
of the most common email marketing questions we are continually
asked here at Student Horizons by our colleges are regarding
what kinds of average open and click-through rates we should
expect from our email marketing campaigns.
To answer
these questions as accurately as I can, I went back and reviewed
our tracking data over the last 18 months for broadcast email
messages that we sent out for Colleges of Distinction schools.
Student Horizons sent out more than 2,000 seperate messages
to over 5 million individual high school students for our
schools during that period so we have a pretty good feel for
the kind of results a school should expect from their various
messages.
One observation
before I take on each question in more detail - a mistake
we continually see colleges make when attempting to assess
their mailing results is that they try to compare their non-profit
college mailings open and click-through rates to open and
click-through rates they see quoted for commercial e-commerce
mailings. It is apples and oranges. Banana Republic, JCrew
and Amazon have much higher name recognition, much more aggressive
and repetitive email campaigns and a more engaged audience
than individual colleges will have, so their e-message campaigns
will invariably yield much stronger results.
Question: What is the average open rate
for email newsletters?
Answer: There are many
variables that go into open rates that make the “average”
question difficult to answer. However, for a captured audience,
meaning audiences that have expressed interest in receiving
information from the school such as admissions inquiries or
applicants or audiences that are stake-holders in the college
or university such as alumni, current students and parents,
the open rate should fall comfortably in the 30-45% open range.
Read
More
Question: What is the average click-through
rate for email newsletters?
Answer: There is no
single answer for what statistically to expect from your emails
in terms of normal or average click-through rates. The number
of click-throughs on a given message will depend on the audience
the email message is directed toward. As with opens, the more
directly interested the recipient is (alumnus, current student,
etc.), the more likely they are to click on a link. Read
More
I would
be happy to answer any further questions about open rate,
click throughs or anything else related to email marketing.
lmunns@studenthorizons.com
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