My Click-Through Rate Can Beat Up Your Click-Through Rate

03:30 PM Feb 15, 2006

There are plenty of statistics available about list performance in DemocracyInAction and similar tools. One of the most common questions about them is: how do we know if the numbers are good or bad? Is my open rate typical for the sector? Unusually high? Shockingly low?

It's a hard question to answer in the abstract for a couple of reasons. First, these sorts of numbers are highly variable with the type of organization (or the type of messaging). Local lists, for instance -- or messages by a national organization referencing a local issue -- perform much better than national lists. Second, the space is so fast-moving that industry-wide numbers have very short half-lives.

So, get it while it's hot: M&R Strategic Services and the Advocacy Institute have just issued an e-Benchmarks Study. Check it now, because it'll be dated by spring training. Or maybe not that soon. But certainly by pennant races.

Bear in mind that the first complication -- specific list dynamics -- still applies. Your results may vary. That, of course, is the point.

Excerpted from the release message:

Some key findings:

• More Donations Online: Nonprofits raised 40% more money online in 2005 than in 2004, likely driven in part by the surge in online giving after the cataclysmic Asian tsunami.
• Email Overload: The rates at which online constituents open emails declined from 30% in 2003-2004 to 26% in 2004-2005, likely as a result of supporters becoming overwhelmed by emails.
• Budgets Matter: Nonprofits with larger online budgets had better online programs, building larger email lists, generating more online activism, and raising more money online.
• Email Lists Growing: On average, the 15 nonprofits studied more than doubled the size of their existing email lists in a 12-month period.
• Bad Email Addresses: Despite this growth, over a quarter of all email addresses on nonprofit email lists "go bad" each year, making it hard for organizations to keep up with "list churn".
• Activism More Popular Than Donations: Not surprisingly, more email subscribers took action online than made a donation online — 47% vs. 6%.

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