Comments on: Do Tracking Links Reduce Click-Through Rate? (Case Study)

By: Roy Aldrie

Roy Aldrie — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:24:24 +0000

Nice test, “People are more willing to click on clear and trustworthy links. A generic domain and a combination of generic characters are not the things that instill trust” great conclusion . i’ll keep that in mind.
Thanks for the info
Roy

By: Rodney@Taguchi Split Test

Rodney@Taguchi Split Test — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:20:59 +0000

Hi Julia,

This is a very interesting test. I have often wondered how some email programs, such as Thunderbird, impact reported open rate. Since it by default requires you to click on load images, does that result in lower reporting of open rate?

I put your numbers through my CTR Statistics Calculator and found the probability of statistical difference to be 71.6% for test # and #2. The CTR 95% confidence interval for test #1 is 16.2 to 31.3% with actual of 22.9%. Test #2 was 13.2 to 27.3 with actual 19.3% and test #3 was 10.3 and 23.6 with actual 15.9%. The probability of statistical difference between test #1 and #3 was 87.4%. Probably need a much large sample to get a definitive answer.

Note: the 95% confidence internal for test #1 mean you can be 95% confident that CTR will be between 16.2% and 31.3%. Since the confidence intervals for test #1,2 and 3 overlap significantly, you cannot be sure the final result will be any different.

By: Shawn@Anger & Rage

Shawn@Anger & Rage — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:18:33 +0000

Thanks for doing this test and sharing the results with us. I guess you would kind of expect that people would make clicking decisions based on appearance. To be honest I’m surprised the difference is so small.

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:10:57 +0000

Hello Hrvoje,

G-Lock EasyMail doesn’t affect spam filters in any way. Whether your emails will be sent to a Junk email folder or to the Inbox depends on your IP address reputation and on the mail server you send emails from. It’s important that the mail server has the sender authentication records properly setup because many ISPs takes them into account when filtering emails. You can read articles on this website where I write about the sender authentication, about the shared and dedicated IP address, etc.

By: Hrvoje Livnjak

Hrvoje Livnjak — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:16:42 +0000

Hello Julia,

Wanted to ask how your software affects the spam filters? do you have lot of emails sent to junk mail like some autoresponder tools have or?

Thank you,
Hrvoje

By: Eamonn@Serviced Offices

Eamonn@Serviced Offices — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:07:10 +0000

An interesting article though instinct lead me to guess what the results would be. This is a very useful piece of software you have here. I think I’ll be making a purchase as and when I set up my email marketing.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:40:14 +0000

Interesting. I wonder if the rollover has any effect.

In other words, I am assuming that the anchor text in Version 1 has the tracking links in Version 2 underneath (something that you can see when the mouse rolls over the link). Would the clickthrough rate have been different if the tracking links from Version 3 were used?

Just a thought . . .

By: sean@building a list

sean@building a list — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:40:45 +0000

Hello Julia, That was very interesting to me, as I am now building a list with some free software so thank you.
I was thinking though that if you are sending out a plain text email and a html version at the same time to get clients who do not want any html, You would still have to give them a longer link minus tracking data? in the plain text version.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:21:58 +0000

What about the ugly non domain name links behind an anchor text. I dont think it matters if you have the ugliest tracking link behind anchor, because people don’t usually look at the url until they are already a few pages deep. In that case, the tracking link would haven fallen off.

My grandma sends me these horrible forwards DAILY. About 10-15 a day. ONE of them was about paying careful attention to the url in your url bar. The thing is, even if you are entirely honest in your practices, but your url changes a LITTLE bit, THOSE peopel that got that email and over reacted will freak out and leave. Thats what makes shared SSL and things like that a little more risky.

By: Alauddin

Alauddin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:54:21 +0000

Hi Julia,

thanks for this post, its was nice to see your research and confim my opinions.
As for the split testing, I think the test should have had an email where ‘anchor text’ is the same and the ‘url’ is different.

I know i hover over a anchor text link to see the url in the browser status bar before I click