(Listen to this post, here.)

Recently, I’ve been exposing myself to a lot of babies.

Well, hang on now, that doesn’t sound right.

What I mean to say is that recently, I have been exposed to a lot of babies. That’s because wherever I look, the children of the people I know – friends, relatives, my office mailman – have been procreating feverishly (which, if you ask me, is the best way to do it).

I’ve tried counting back nine months but have not found any common cause. Was there an extended TikTok outage I am unaware of?

In any case, when people tell you about their new grandchildren, two things tend to happen:

#1. They take out their phone and show you a picture.

Usually several. Hint: All babies look the same. Just smile and do some oohing and aahing until they put the phone away. (This may not occur for several hours.)

#2. If appropriate, they talk, in detail, about how unusually large the baby is.

That’s right. The same people who can no longer remember how to do long division, have suddenly discovered terms like “standard deviation” and “percentile.”

Interestingly, excessive size, while considered a positive trait among the newly born, is the kind of thing that 40 years from now will lead that same individual to hire a personal trainer and suck in their stomach during group photos.

But what else is a new grandparent supposed to talk about? After all, most babies have an extremely limited track record of serious accomplishments (I know, your grandchild is the exception).

Within this population, that’s the only objective information Nana and Gramps have at their disposal.

Not All Data is Worthwhile

As it turns out, grandparenting is not the only area with limited useful data. Email newsletters are subject to similar constraints.

Because while your newsletter also comes with its own share of intriguing statistics, not only are these numbers filled with more noise than a third-grade birthday party, but even if they were dead-on perfect, they are not really measuring what you care about.

If you are using a third-party vendor to format and deliver your newsletter (e.g., MailChimp, Constant Contact, Active Campaign), you are given access to an assortment of statistics each time you publish. These include things like the number of newsletters sent, delivered, opened, clicked, and unsubscribed.

Open rate (or “opens,” if you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about) and “clicks” tend to be the most watched and discussed. They are both problematic.

Opens are calculated as the number of people who opened your newsletter divided by the number of newsletters delivered.   

Tracking these has always been as much art as science. There are “false positives” – people  who appear to have opened the newsletter but never did, and “false negatives” – people who actually opened the email but appear not to have done so.

To make our birthday party stats even noisier, back in 2021, Apple devices (which account for more than half of all emails received) added a privacy protection feature which makes it appear as if all emails received were opened – whether they were or not. (That’s an oversimplification, but more or less correct. You can read more about it here.)

The upshot is that since Apple made the change, open rates (the statistic, not the actual number of opens) have increased dramatically across the board.

Besides, even if the numbers were perfect (did I mention they are not?), the most significant variable in determining open rate is where the list came from in the first place.

If your list includes everyone whose house you have ever driven past (still legal in the U.S.), your rate will be much lower than if you only send it to those who have explicitly requested it. Open rates are but one more instance in which comparing the size of yours to that of others is not a good idea.

The point is, while it’s worth keeping an eye on open rates to make sure nothing has changed suddenly or dramatically, don’t treat them as fact.

Click rates are calculated as the total number of times people click on any of the links in an email divided by the number of emails opened.

At one time, click rates were perfectly accurate, showing you who clicked on which link(s) and when.

Now, however, and again due to Apple’s changes as well as security features in other programs that automatically click and inspect all links to make sure there is no malicious content, you can’t be sure what you are seeing is what actually occurred. These, too, are inflated.

Here’s the Bottom Line

The thing to keep in mind is that for professional service providers like us, our newsletters are not intended as direct response tools (“Click here to buy”).

Rather, they are scalable networking devices – a means of keeping us in front of the people we know, over and over again, in a way that positions us as likeable experts. Primarily for the purpose of some readers either referring us or hiring us themselves.

All of which means that while open and click rates are not irrelevant, they are only kinda sorta measuring what you care about. Directionally helpful, but frankly no more so than would keeping track at your next networking event of hands shook divided by total meeting participants to calculate your “handshake rate.”

When you live in a trust-based, word-of-mouth world as we professional service providers do, your marketing goal is to stay visible, demonstrate expertise, build relationships, and present the human side of who you are.

So sure, go ahead and watch your newsletter stats. Just do it with a grain of salt – and maybe some birthday cake.

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Discussion Questions:

1. Do you have grandchildren?
2. Sure, I’d love to see a photo.
3. Yes, they are certainly beautiful and I can see, quite large.
4. Oh, you’ve got some video too.
5. I really need to take this call…

Share your answers below…

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