Once again, it's time to publish the list of which headlines got the best open and click-through rates last month.

The rankings are calculated based on the numbers reported by AWeber for my "blog broadcast" for this blog.

Where you see (+), (++) and (+++), that indicates that the headline in question was at the top of one of the other lists (with (+++) indicating the #1 position).

Best Open Rates

The 10 headlines that got the most emails opened last month were:

  1. Finding ClickBank Vendors Who Are Primed for Joint Ventures
  2. (+) Should New Blogs Display Ads?
  3. The Importance of Price Anchoring
  4. (+++) (+++) What's Up With Mike Filsaime's ListDotCom?
  5. Thoughts on What I Learned from "Predictably Irrational"
  6. Why "the Laziest Way Ever" is the Path to Misery
  7. How to Sell Information That Others Give Away
  8. Which Headlines Got the Most Opens, Clicks and Bounces? (April)
  9. Finding the Right Learning/Doing Balance
  10. (++) Acceptable Risk

For the second month in a row, a ClickBank-related headline grabbed the top spot. It beat the #2 headline by 13%, the #4 by 32% and the #10 by 54%. However, this post completely missed the top 10 in clicks per open. The #3 post missed both click-though top 10 lists.

Mike Filsaime's name recognition appears to have done pretty well by the post about ListDotCom, though not well enough to crack the top 3.

In last place for the month was Sales Letter Secrets from SpongeBob SquarePants.

Most Clicks

The headlines that got the most clicks through to the blog (as a percentage of emails sent) were:

  1. (+++) What's Up With Mike Filsaime's ListDotCom?
  2. (++) Acceptable Risk
  3. (++) Should New Blogs Display Ads?
  4. (+++) Finding ClickBank Vendors Who Are Primed for Joint Ventures
  5. How to Sell Information That Others Give Away
  6. Shoemoney's April Fools Backlink Getting Secret
  7. (+) How to Make Prospects Love You
  8. Thoughts on What I Learned from "Predictably Irrational"
  9. Which Headlines Got the Most Opens, Clicks and Bounces? (April)
  10. Is Twitter Turning Us Into Birdbrains?

The #1 post clobbered #2 by a whopping 42%, and beat #10 by double.

The SpongeBob headline scored second to last :-).

Most Clicks as a Percentage of Opens

As I mentioned last month:

Open rates tell us which headlines drew the most interest, and raw click-through percentages tell us something about which post bodies were the most interesting. But the ratio of clicks to opens tells us even more about which posts started with content that kept people moving.

The body of each email contained an excerpt from the beginning of the post. Any posts that start with too much introductory drivel will produce boring emails, and draw less clicks. Post that created curiosity or interest at the very beginning got more.

Here are last month's winners:

  1. (+++) What's Up With Mike Filsaime's ListDotCom?
  2. (++) Acceptable Risk
  3. How to Make Prospects Love You
  4. How to Sell Information That Others Give Away
  5. Shoemoney's April Fools Backlink Getting Secret
  6. Parable of the Plow Horse and the Chimera
  7. Is Twitter Turning Us Into Birdbrains?
  8. Which Headlines Got the Most Opens, Clicks and Bounces? (April)
  9. (++) (+) Should New Blogs Display Ads?
  10. Thoughts on What I Learned from "Predictably Irrational"

The #1 and #2 posts were the same as the raw click numbers. But since the "Acceptable Risk" post wasn't opened nearly as many times as the ListDotCom post, the margin was much narrower (but still pretty wide) at 22%. The ListDotCom post beat the #10 post by 86%.

Other Stats

Last month, I reported which day of the week had the best open rate. This time, the difference was small enough that I doubt it had any significance -- particularly considering that if the ClickBank post is removed from the winning day (Thursday), it comes in dead last!

I also reported on which messages got the most bounces last month. This rate, no message had a significant bounce rate, and the differences were trivial.