Metrics...

Metrics...

It's a fact of life. If we don't measure something, we don't know where we are or how well we are doing.

And once we start measuring, then we should all use a ruler of the same size, shouldn't we?

How many cubits in an ell? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Now this is not going to turn into a plea for the US to join the rest of the world and start using the metric system.

But I am going to ask is what does a term like "open rate," mean to you?

If you are not involved in online or email marketing, that term is probably Greek to you as well, but you can probably guess it means the number of people that opened something (an email?) per something.

Where opinions diverge is

• whether to count the people or the events
• whether to count them all or just unique events
• what events to count as an "open"
• is it just a person opening an HTML message?
• what if the images are blocked and they click a link?
• what if they clicked on a link in the plain text version?

The Email Experience Council has suggested a way to clarify these data points in their white paper "The Email Render Rate," available in their white paper section.

They propose the word "Render" instead of "Open" but also the use of "Total" or "Unique" to clarify whether unique or total events are being calculated.

In addition, they suggest the use of "Action" to include not only "Opens" -- excuse me, "Renders" -- but also people who click on a link in a message that was not rendered (whether due to having images blocked or being a text email)

Finally, they state after they finalize these definitions, they request support from email marketers and email solution providers in helping to use the new terms.

What are your thoughts?