Over the past few weeks alone I’ve gotten multiple questions, from completely different people, in totally different markets, that essentially ask (1) what is a solid “benchmark” opt-in rate, open rate, and click rate and (2) if their metrics are considered “good” or not.
(After they show me their stats, of course.)
My answer:
That question can harm, injure, and even kill your advertising dead.
Why?
Because it doesn’t matter what anyone else’s stats are.
Nor is there some mythical benchmark that applies to everyone.
Let’s take opt in page stats, for example.
I purposely put barriers up to keep the riff-raff off my list as much as possible (and, frankly, I need to be doing a better job at this for my paid traffic). Why? Because I want quality over quantity. I don’t want all people on my list. I want the right kind of people on my list. I also want to be as Google AdWords compliant as possible. And, I want to be as transparent as possible — even going so far as telling people (right at the opt in) they can expect daily promotional emails from me, and forcing them to tick a box acknowledging it before the system will even let them opt in.
Now, ask yourself:
If you’re not doing the same, are my numbers at all relevant to yours?
Of course not.
Here’s another reason not to compare your results with mine.
(Or anyone else’s).
This is just common sense, but:
Unless you’re selling the exact same product, to the exact same people, and you have the exact kind of brand, with the exact same marketplace positioning, selling the exact same kind of products, at the exact same price points, that have the same appeal to the market, with the exact same opt in set up and bribe that I use, along with the exact same relationships with podcasters and other people who send me word-of-mouth traffic… with the same guy doing your paid ads as me running the exact same ads to the exact same people, and you have the exact same track record, been in business the exact same amount of time, are in Google for the same rankings, etc etc etc it’s like comparing walnuts to watermelons.
This is why I find it so amusing when people obsess over other peoples’ metrics.
Or, even better, when they arbitrarily say something like:
“Doing xyz increase response by abc %!”
As if their results are going to be the same across the board for everyone else.
Moral of the story?
Worry not about mine or anyone else’s business.
Mind ye your own business, instead.
Work on creating more appealing offers, generating higher quality leads, writing ads that give you a better message-to-market match, and, yes writing better emails. And by better, I mean emails people look forward to reading and buying from (such as what I teach in my system).
Do that and I reckon you’ll do just fine.
Speaking of which:
The June “Email Players” goes to print soon.
It is the first I’ve ever taught what I call my “rogues gallery” secret (I learned from studying old Disney movies) I’ve been using for years to write high selling emails to aggressive markets full of lots of competition (like golf, weight loss, prostate problems, and the list goes on).
It’s a great jumping on issue for people new to my world.
And, I daresay, will give you a huge advantage over other marketers.
But time’s short my little droogie.
Subscribe to get this issue while you still can here:
Ben Settle
