2 – Open rates measure everyone who has read my message.
If you use Outlook 2003 or 2007, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail or just about any other new email program or service you’ve probably loaded messages to see a prompt saying that images have been disabled for your safety and you have to download them by clicking. Open rates are measured by the loading of images (or when someone clicks through your message for some providers) so if a user browses your message but never chooses to download it they wouldn’t count as an open. Furthermore some email clients don’t even display the possibility of images and the user just sees text (this is especially true for smartphone email clients) which means there’s absolutely no chance of registering an “open” until a click is made.

3 – Using fewer images will make my open rates more accurate.
As I mentioned before, an open is only counted when someone loads images. If all you have is a small logo or a couple of aesthetic images in a mostly text message there’s very little reason for anyone to download the images associated with the email and thus become an open. So while you want your messages to be legible and clear without images being loaded, you also want images to be important enough to the message that people have a reason to download them and trigger your tracking in the process. Your images need to add to the message to be used… having too many will make the message bulky and impossible to read without images being loaded but having too few will give the user no reason to load them at all.

4 – Images are a thing of the past. Everyone is going to text.
For a while the marketing buzz out there almost got me to believe we were going to see the end of images and HTML in email but so far that has not been the case and in fact, I’d argue that email is going more image heavy these days thanks to improved bandwidth and big brands doing more email. The truth is most consumers are going to shop using visual cues and while text may get delivered better it doesn’t show the product, the story or the experience nearly as well as images. Thus image emails are almost demanded (I’ve had customers ask me why we sent them a text campaign before) and despite the extra step many consumers are more than willing to open up images to get a better sense of the message. A picture is worth 1000 words even in email.
Of course don’t mistake this as an absolute. Some niches have seen much better responses from text only campaigns like those targeting blackberry users (b2b).

5 – Its either text or images, there’s no other option.
Emails don’t have to be sent in just one format and most email service providers have started forcing emails to be sent with text and html/ rich versions if a rich version is being used. By creating what’s known as a multi-part message your emails can be all done up for users with rich viewing clients yet also have a simple and completely separate text version for those using more restrictive systems or older mobile devices. Multi-part messages aren’t perfect as SPAM filters still see the HTML for their equations but it’s a great option for your users and something every email message should have setup.

6- Every email can be tracked to sale.
While email is one of the more contained means of online marketing where you really can tag every link don’t make the mistake of believing that everyone who sees your email uses those links to convert or at all. While many people do click, there have been a few studies showing that many people will simply surf to a site directly after seeing an email blast (and not always immediately) or just go to a store. And of course if you have other conversion options like a phone number there may be no reason for a click at all.

So there you have it, 6 myths you hopefully didn’t fall into but now know the truth about. Have more questions on email marketing analytics? Leave me a comment.

While average order values are a commonly used tool for getting around measuring cost of goods they’re no substitute. Assume for example that your average order for the last year was $100 with a profit 40% margin leaving you $40 to cover marketing and other variable costs. On the surface a mid-year for a new product campaign with a $10 cost per acquisition and a $9 free shipping discount would seem quite profitable but not when we add a few more data points. Most retailers see a strong spike in both conversions and average order size around the holidays and events so mid-year average orders are probably lower than that $100 goal. Furthermore your new product may break margin rules and sell for an introductory price further lowering your ROI. Combine the two and that $40 buffer quickly turns into $30, $20, $10 and well you get the idea.

And of course it’s not just about seasonal events and margins. Offers change your order size and mix in many ways… free shipping with a $99 threshold may seem like a great way to get more orders but let’s build off the first example some more to see what really happens when you measure a promo gross. Assuming you already have a campaign that costs $0.50 per click, a 4.5% conversion rate and charge $8 for shipping for orders would have to move to over 5.5% or a full percentage point to cover the impact of the discount. On the other hand rolling out free shipping with a lower qualifier like $49 may drive your conversion rates through the roof but tank your average order size pushing your margins into the floor as you spend every free dime delivering a small order. In both cases your topline income would likely increase with more orders but again, more does not always mean more profit.

Of course most etailers have all this data at their disposal, it just requires going over to the product database here and there. But you already know what I’m going to say – and no that really doesn’t cut it. When you have to use multiple data sources things get overlooked or put off; a campaign that seems good on the surface doesn’t get delved into for a few days after which money’s been lost and decisions have been made. Only when the data is available in a central place does it truly become actionable and reliable and reliable is exactly what you need to make the next step decision.

So how do you do this? It’s actually fairly simple. Most enterprise reporting suites except secondary commerce metrics like product cost, shipping amount, tax and discounts all through their base tag structure with no need to build fancy import routines. More basic analytics may not tolerate secondary cost data but by computing the net result on your end before the data is put into a tag you can achieve the same result. Either way the analytic provider integration is pretty simple. What’s more complex is trying to bring raw product costs into your ecommerce system. In an ideal world this data should flow right out of your ERP/ Inventory system and to your site but that’s just not the reality for many businesses. A second solution is a simple update process to bulk modify records with raw prices at a regular interval (i.e. weekly). When even that isn’t available it gets down to manual updates and keeping up on them. No matter which integration phase you fit into it’s worth the effort and time to make it happen – and don’t stop half way, it’s better to use gross numbers than to have the wrong net figures anyways.

Once you have everything packaged together and can get that true top to bottom result set you’re ready to really rock and roll. Now instead of looking at campaigns against a big margin percentage you can start looking at both net and gross, pre-campaign cost and post and make decisions about what’s good for growth and what’s good for revenue and do so without waiting weeks to reanalyze every order in another tool.
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