E-Mail Programs Undercount Who Opens Appeals
October 12, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
More people might be opening e-mail messages than charities think, a new study suggests. The proliferation of e-mail programs that give recipients the option of blocking images are probably a key reason that nonprofit groups have seen a decline in recent years in the percentage of e-mail messages opened by their intended recipients, according to a technology-consulting company that examined results of appeals at several charities.
Most e-mail programs compile their tallies by counting the number of times a tiny graphic embedded in the e-mail message is downloaded. Increasingly, however, e-mail programs are giving people the option of not loading graphics, except in specific instances when they ask to open them.
When M+R Strategic Services, a consulting company in Washington, studied nine advocacy and fund-raising appeals by Human Rights First, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Wilderness Society — 37,735 messages in all — it found that 20 percent of the people who had clicked on links in the messages were not reported as having opened the messages.
The company has also published a case study examining whether including images in advocacy and fund-raising appeals encourages people to take action or make a donation, or deters them from doing so.
To read the case studies: Go to http://www.mrss.com.
