[epub] Re: Subscriber activity

[Adam Boettiger <adam.boettiger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Do any of you keep track of how many subscribers open your
> newsletters versus just deleting them? How do you do this?
> Is there a particular kind of software that enables you to
> do this? Just as bounces are automatically removed from my
> mailing list, I wish the same were true for "inactive"
> subscribers. I don't want to pay mailing list costs for
> subscribers who are too lazy to unsubscribe.

As I understand it, open rates are only trackable if your newsletter is HTML
email.  If it is HTML email, it's easy enough to server a 1x1 pixel
invisible graphic that is labelled with the drop date, like 022702-open.gif.
You don't need any fancy software or expensive third party solutions to
track open rates.  Just check your server logs to see the number of times
that issue's image is served and over what period of time.

However, this is not entirely accurate as many folks read their email
offline, so the image may not be served in some instances, causing a false
low open rate.  Then there's also the issue of text newsletters.  To my
knowledge if non-HTML, text-formatted email is how you send your pub out,
your options for determining the open rate are slim to none.

I have been told through numerous sources that the average open rate for
ezines is typically about 50%, (YMMV) so if you want to go with an assumed
number for projections that may or may not be indicative of what yours does,
assume that only 50% of your readership is reading your ezine within the
first week.  That would be pretty depressing, but reality given the current
state of clutter and email overload.

Due to the fact that there are SO many things that can affect open rate and
that it is such a skewed statistic for reasons above, for ezines I would
strongly recommend that you do NOT provide this information to advertisers
as it may be completely inaccurate, falsely low and work against you in the
sponsorship sales process.

AB
-- 
Adam Boettiger
I-Advertising - http://www.i-advertising.com/
Phone: (503) 925-8434 - Email: adam.boettiger@i-advertising.com
We help publishers generate revenue from unsold ad space and position them
in front of appropriate advertisers, agencies and media buyers




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