Open rates no longer effective for tracking email marketing

Measuring open rates alone may no longer an effective way to gauge the success of email marketing campaigns, a new study has found.

A survey by Epilson International revealed that email marketing click-through rates increased by 11.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, despite recorded open rates declining by 14.8 per cent.

The firm suggested that the findings indicate that email marketers have to concentrate more on click-through rates when measuring email campaigns.

Open rates are also becoming increasingly unreliable because anti-spam software is now blocking images in messages in emails, Epsilon said.

Ian Hit, managing director of Epsilon, told Internet Retailing: “It has become increasingly difficult to track open rates accurately, because of anti-spam measures taken by ISPs, ESPs and even in some email software packages on PCs.

“Open rates are tracked using single pixel images embedded in emails - unfortunately more emails are being delivered with images suppressed and when that happens, the tracking pixel won’t work unless the customer actively chooses to display pictures.”