Which Headlines Got the Most Opens/Clicks? (March)
by Antone Roundy | 4 Comments | Blogging, Mailing Lists, Tracking
Every time I post to this blog, an announcement goes out automatically to my mailing list, which tracks how many people opened the email and how many clicked through to read the full article.
I thought I'd start a new monthly feature here, listing the headlines that got the most people to open the email, and which posts got the most people to click through to the site.
Here are the rankings for March. The top three from each list are color-coded in the other (if they appear there).
Headlines that Got the Most Opens
Since I only started sending hybrid HTML/plain text emails near the end of the month (and HTML is necessary to track open rates), I only have open-rate stats for the last six posts, but I have click-through stats for the whole month.
#1 got 1.36 times as many opens as #6.
- Google +1 vs. the Facebook Like Button
- Email Format: HTML or Plain Text? (Why I Changed My Mind)
- Welcome Back, AdSense
- Using Sunk Costs as Marketing Motivators
- How to Under Price Without Under Valuing?
- Should You Save Your Best Content Till You've Got a Big Audience?
Notice anything there? "Google", "Facebook", and "AdSense" scored high. And "this vs. that" headlines scored high. I'd guess that "why I changed my mind" helped #2 too -- and "welcome back" also implies a change with a reason behind it.
Which Posts Got the Most Clicks?
Here are the top 10. #1 got 3.6 times as many clicks as #10, which got 1.8 times as many clicks as the worst of the month. #5 got 1.75 times as many clicks as #6.
Gerry,
AWeber has a feature called "blog broadcast". You enter your blog's RSS feed URL, and they monitor it for new items. When something new appears, they send it to your list.
Ross,
Yeah, I thought about the day of week issue...but decide...- Welcome Back, AdSense
- Duplicate Content: Which Should Rank Higher?
- Simply Awesome Sales Page Design: Google's Nexus S
- Google +1 vs. the Facebook Like Button
- Email Format: HTML or Plain Text? (Why I Changed My Mind)
- List Building Freebies: Less is More...Sort Of
- Using Sunk Costs as Marketing Motivators
- Why I Don't Like Paper.li
- Fools Cash In Where Angels Fear To Tread
- How to Under Price Without Under Valuing?
April 13th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Maybe there are a lot like myself who would love to see adsense do a rebound and come back strong. One can only hope!
April 13th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Hi Antone
You mentioned that as soon as you make a new post to your (WP) blog, a message goes out to your list automatically.
How do you do this?
Regards,
Gerry D-R
April 13th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Very informative post, Antone.
Note that we shouldn't assume the headline is the only variable. The day of the week that the email is sent can also have a significant effect on opens and clicks. You can do a comparison over time of your click and/or open rates between each day. Once you have see a consistent pattern, you can adjust the raw scores. Statistical analysis ;)
Second, you could do a follow-up post showing the worst headlines! We could learn from that, too.
April 13th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Gerry,
AWeber has a feature called "blog broadcast". You enter your blog's RSS feed URL, and they monitor it for new items. When something new appears, they send it to your list.
Ross,
Yeah, I thought about the day of week issue...but decided to keep things little simple :-). Maybe next time around I'll do a little more analysis.