Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Are Open Rates Unique?

Hi,

I'm currently running a nurture program on Marketo. When I look at the email performance result to see how we're doing I notice that the number of emails sent gets bigger. For example, our nurture program is divided into 3 streams. When I looked at the number of emails sent in the first email for stream 1 (Stream 1 - Email 1) I saw that the number was 100 but when I looked back at Stream 1- Email 1 a week later I saw that the number went up to 120. This behaviour was replicated in the number of emails  opened. Given that the number of emails sent and opened are getting bigger each week i.e. it's cumulative, how do I know that the open rates are unique? If they are not unique, how would I find the unique number of emails opened?

Thanks for your help in advance!

7 REPLIES 7
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

Open rates are unique.  In this case I believe more people are etering your stream, so therefore they are receiving the email

Mel_Dadoly
Level 4

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

Hi Anu,

Open rates are unique as we only track the first open activity for an email. Any subsequent email opens are not tracked or recorded in Marketo.

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

Expanding on that, I believe Marketo reporting almost always runs on number of leads performing an action.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

What do you mean by that?

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

From my experience A report will always show the number of leads that performed an action (opened an email, clicked a link, filled in a form) and not the number of times the action was performed.

Let's say you have a global webinar registration form.

Person A registers for Webinar 1

Person B registers for Webinar 1

Person A registers for Webinar 2

Running a report on form fills for your global webinar registration form will show as 2 form fills in the report since 2 leads filled in the form. It will not show you the form was filled 3 times by 2 leads. It can't generate an average number of times the form was filled.

If you want to know these kind of numbers, you'd best combine with Google Analytics to track anonymous (and frequency) behavior.

Please someone correct me if I'm mistaken.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

That makes sense but my question is regarding a nurture program. For example, say for example 2 lead enters stream 1 of our nurture program. The first lead opens the first email immediately and is converted to the stream while the other lead  stays in stream 1 they received and opened 3 reminder emails. In marketo, that would show as

Stream 1 - Email 1

  • Open: 2

Stream 1 - Email 2

  • Open: 1

Stream 1 - Email 3

  • Open: 1


When you look at the weighted average of percentage of people who opened the emails it would be some percentage but that number is not unique. The same person opened each email so it's not looking at net new leads that opened the email. It's calculating the open rate for each email in the stream and each email could have the same lead. How would you get the unique open rate #?

Stijn_Heijthuij
Level 7

Re: Are Open Rates Unique?

Hi Anu,

Why not run a report on either Email Performance or Engagement Stream Performance?

This will show you the stats over all emails. You can narrow it down any way you want through the Smart List in the report.

Are you trying to do something specific?