How Does Apple’s Privacy Settings Affect Measurement?
Five Lessons from Starting a Newsletter
May Focus: Communications Measurement
This Week …
Introdcuing, “But First …”: Customer Service as a Brand Strategy
Kicking off May Measurement: Newsletter Measurement Fundamentals
Memoir Confessions Gone Bad or As Planned?
1. But First …
That’s how Tim Russet would start each broadcast of Meet the Press following the opening video. Each week he would write out his script by hand, seen above, and start the first segment of each show by saying, “But first…”
Inspired by him, here’s a new short way to start The EO Report: I will experiment with starting the newsletter with one quick item before the longer article. So here it goes …
This week, I had **40 minutes** to find a yellow tutu, white t-shirt, and yellow face paint for a teenager who kept this list of needs a secret from her scattered mother until the day before they were needed. I screeched into Mangelsens in Omaha, on fire, and this is what I saw as I entered the store:
Her name is Anna, and she was there waiting to calmly help whoever walks in the door. Within minutes, I left with everything I needed from two different parts of the large store.
The customer service strategy to place an employee at the front door to assist — or not assist — based on the customer’s needs defines and reinforces Mangelsens’ brand commitment to exceptional service and personal attention. “Family run and selling fun since 1969,” amen!
2. Measurement + Starting an Email Newsletter
When launching and producing a newsletter, here are forms of measurement to study and track, especially in the current digital landscape shaped by privacy updates like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) and Link Tracking Protection (LTP).
Who needs this information?
Anyone involved in writing and publsihing a newsletter (Understand the measurement fundamentals, make data-based decisions, keep track of new developments that change what you can measure)
Anyone who supervises someone or a team that publsihes a newsletter (Ask better questions, understand the metrics shown to you)
Anyone considering starting a newsletter
Readers of newsletters to know the efforts to return some privacy
What is Apple’s MPP?
Recent privacy updates, especially Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), have made it more difficult to accurately measure open rates. This privacy feature automatically loads all email images, including tracking pixels used to measure opens, regardless of whether the user actually opens the email. As a result, email marketing tools may report higher or less accurate open rates because they can't distinguish between emails that were truly opened by recipients and those that were automatically preloaded by the privacy feature. This change has led marketers and communicators to adjust how they measure engagement.
Here are the top five measurement lessons to consider, which focus on metrics beyond open rates due to the implications of MPP:
1. Click-Through Rate (CTR):
Description: CTR measures the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in an email. This metric is essential for understanding the actual engagement with the content.
Importance Post-MPP: Since MPP obscures open rates by preloading images (including tracking pixels), CTR becomes a more reliable gauge of engagement.
But there is another Apple privacy tool to understand: Apple's Link Tracking Protection (LTP) is a privacy feature that aims to prevent marketers and websites from tracking users' online activities through clicked links in emails. It works by stripping tracking parameters from URLs when links in emails are clicked, thereby shielding users' browsing behavior from being monitored and associated with their email identities. This feature enhances user privacy but can impact marketers' ability to gather detailed engagement data from their email campaigns.
Modern Marketing Blog has a good article on this topic that says, for now, marketers are not affected: Apple's Link Tracking Protection: The Impact on Email & Other Channels
Industry Standards: A good industry standard CTR varies by sector but typically ranges from 1% to 5%.
2. Growth Rate of Subscribers:
Description: This measures the net increase in subscribers over a period, considering both new sign-ups and unsubscribes.
Importance Post-MPP: Monitoring subscriber growth helps gauge the overall appeal and reach of your newsletter content, independent of open rate accuracy.
Industry Standards:
New Subscribers: Healthy growth rates depend on the industry and audience size but aiming for a 1-3% monthly growth is a common benchmark. For many new newsletters, an initial target could be anywhere from 10 to 100 new subscribers per month. However, for a business with more resources and a broad potential audience, setting a target of several hundred to a thousand new subscribers per month might be reasonable.
Unsubscribes: The unsubscribe rate in email marketing measures the percentage of recipients who choose to opt-out from your mailing list after receiving an email. This rate is calculated by dividing the number of unsubscribes by the total number of emails delivered (excluding those that bounced) and then multiplying by 100 to convert it into a percentage. Ideally, this should be less than 1%.
3. Bounce Rate:
Description: Bounce rate tracks the percentage of emails that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
Importance Post-MPP: Maintaining a low bounce rate is crucial for email deliverability and sender reputation, which are pivotal in ensuring your emails reach the inbox.
Industry Standards: A bounce rate below 2% is generally considered acceptable.
4. Engagement Over Time:
Description: This metric looks at how subscriber engagement (e.g., CTR, conversion rates) changes over time.
Importance Post-MPP: Analyzing long-term trends in engagement can provide deeper insights into the lasting impact of your content and reveal shifts in audience behavior.
Industry Standards: While specific benchmarks can vary, a decline in engagement may signal the need for content refreshment or strategy pivots.
5. Conversion Rate:
Description: This metric tracks the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link and completed a desired action, such as filling out a form or purchasing a product.
Importance Post-MPP: Conversion rates help measure the effectiveness of email content and CTAs in driving measurable actions, making them crucial in the context of privacy-first analytics.
Industry Standards: Conversion rates can vary widely, but a rate of 2-5% is typically considered effective across industries.
By focusing on these metrics, you can build a clear framework for measuring the success of your newsletter, tailored to an era where traditional open rates no longer provide the full picture.
Before we go:
Last week’s article, “Established Channels Save Lives,“ on emergency communications during and after the tornado in the Omaha area failed to highlight the work of the Omaha World-Herald from photo, video, and reporting coverage to social media contect. Thanks Omaha.com!
“Only four companies in the world are worth more than $2 trillion: Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet — parent company of Google — and computer chip maker Nvidia.”
Memoir confessions on CBS Face the Nation:
South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem shares her account of killing her 14 month old dog and a goat in her new memoir to be released on Tuesday.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the actions described in her memoir, and the controversy has drawn attention from various public figures and media outlets.
Governor Noem was interviewed on CBS Face the Nation yesterday morning. There are a host of media relations and crisis communications themes to explore in this interview.
If you have a take, email me!