Email Newsletter KPIs Part 2 - ReOpen Rate

My last column dealt with email newsletter and email marketing kpis, specifically Delivery Rate, Open Rate, Growth Rate and Cost of Acquisition. This time out we'll cover ReOpen Rate and yes, you guessed it, I'll be taking a typical NextStageish look at things.

Once again let me state that I'm sharing my own explorations and don't consider myself an expert...on anything, really. Use them as you will, as you wish and at your own discretion.

ReOpen Rate

One of the things we discovered in our research was that people who find your newsletter valuable tend to open it often and definitely more than once. The trick here is to recognize a genuine reopening as opposed to opening it in an email client then quickly opening it in full screen mode.

Opening it as a reference or for greater exploration rather than opening it in full screen mode simply to read it more easily is an easy metric to determine; there will be a time difference between the openings from a single address. Make a determination of how long it will take for someone to open your newsletter in their email client then reopen in full screen mode. We tend to give subscribers up to ten seconds for this kind of activity. Anything longer and it's a good chance the subscriber is reopening for research or further reading purposes.

The subscribers who open more than three times. They're showing a real interest. Especially if you can determine if the reopen was for further reading, research or similar purposes. One way to determine this is by considering what NextStage calls Environmental and Platform Variance.

Links for this post:

• BizMediaScience Email Marketing blog posts
• How to Design an E-Mail Newsletter to Maximize Your ROI: Part 1 podcast
• How to Design an E-Mail Newsletter to Maximize Your ROI: Part 2
• Email Newsletters, Anyone?
• Make sure your email newsletter is working
• BizMediaScience SEND Glands Blog arc

• This is Your Brain on the Internet at Emetrics SF on 8 May 2008
• "Know How Someone Is Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less" Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08

• New Communications Forum 2008, 22-25 April 08 at The Vineyard Creek Inn & Spa, Sonoma County CA
• San Francisco Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 4-7 May 08
• International Communication Association's Communicating for Social Impact, the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 2008
• SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08

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