Rant: That one client who made me rethink email open rates

I was on a call last Tuesday with a local bakery owner in Cleveland who told me she opens every marketing email she gets just to 'see what the competition is doing.' It hit me that a lot of people do that, so those open rates we obsess over might be totally fake. Has anyone else run into clients who openly admit they skew their own metrics?

2 comments

2 Comments

susan_wells23h ago

And @thead44 I bet your friend's client is the same person who thinks they're being helpful by clicking every link in the email just to "test the system." Honestly it makes me wonder if half the email marketing industry is just built on this house of cards where nobody actually reads anything. It's like we're all playing this weird game where the numbers say one thing but reality says something completely different. Next time someone brags about their 40% open rate I'm going to ask if they factored in the bored retirees and the competitive bakers. Maybe we should start a whole new metric called the "actual human who wanted to be here" rate instead.

thead444d ago

My friend runs a dog grooming shop and she had a client admit she unsubscribes and resubscribes to emails just to "keep the numbers interesting for you people." She even said she does it for pizza coupons and car dealerships too. It drove my friend crazy because she thought her email list was growing. Now she just assumes half her open rate is people playing games like this lady in Cleveland.