Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Like Michele said, the reading pane allows you to read you email without opening a new window. I use it 100% of the time.

I click-through just as much as I would using any other program. The messages are marked as "opened", so it does not affect open rates. It's just a quick way to scan through your mail without opening a full page window everytime..that's all. The mail is still technically "open" and all links are operational.

I hope that helps!

A few thoughts so you understand open rates:

Open rates may be calculated differently, depending on the system doing the math. It could be the number of emails opened divided by the number of emails sent, or it could be the number of emails opened divided by the number of emails received. These formulas will give different results. Some systems count the number of times an email was opened (some people may open the same email a number of times), others count the number of people who opened an email, regardless of how many times someone opens it. These calculations would also produce very different results. The important thing is to use the same calculation consistently and watch how the open rate changes over time.

As a rule, email delivery systems can only track open rates on HTML emails. People who get your email in plain-text format for whatever reason - because you send only a text version, or they requested text only, or they have an email client that cannot read HTML - will not be counted in your open rate calculation, but may, in fact, have opened your email.

As Amandavega and Jett said, when your email is viewed in the preview pane of a client like Microsoft Outlook, which is the most popular email client used, it will be counted as an open. The recipient does not actually need to click to enlarge the email, and it doesn't matter how long your email stays in that preview pane.

It is interesting to be aware of the fact that more business people use Outlook than consumers, and the preview pane is widely used by these people, which may explain (in part) why B-to-B businesses get higher open rates than B-to-C.

FYI, the biggest factors determining open rates are a "from" line that identifies you as somebody the recipient knows and a strong, relevant "subject" line.

The biggest factor determining a click-through is if you provide relevant calls to action that provide value to the subscriber.

Hi

nice as it is to have people read your emails, you probably want them to click on something as well!

So make sure there's a link visible in the first 2 lines.
Why the first 2 - because at the moment most folk will not be using Outlook 2003. They'll be on an older version - where the preview window was 2 lines. Every time readers have to click to do something, you'll lose some of them - so save them having to click to open them mail by putting a link in the first 2 lines.

A point well-made above is Outlook 2003 blocking images - so don't use an image for your link - use the bodycopy of your email.

hth

Will Rowan
https://www.morningpapers.com