Click Rates

What constitutes a click?

A few different things register as a click in email markeing: 

• A recipient clicking a link(s), including multiple clicks.
• Anti-virus checkers checking the validity of links (also known as bots).
• Clicks from recipients of emails forwarded by the original recipient.

Mail-to links are not trackable as clicked links.

How is the click-to-open rate calculated?

Your click-to-open rate is calculated by dividing the total number of links that were clicked within your email, by the number of trackable email opens. 

How are my campaign’s clicks tracked?

When a recipient clicks a link, their web browser will connect to our mail server which will then instantly redirect the user to the web page that the URL was pointing to. At this point, the click is logged as a click within your tracking report. 'Mailto' links (clickable email addresses) do not register as a click.

What is the education sector's average click rate?

The education sector's average click-to-open rate is the average clicks an email receives when sent to schools/education staff by education businesses where they have designed the email content themselves, i.e. they have not used Sprint Education's email design services.

Why do my clicks not match Google Analytics?

There are many reasons why Google Analytics won’t marry up perfectly with an email broadcasting system's tracking. The following points are just some of the reasons for email clicks vs. Google Analytics discrepancy:

Google Tracking Not Implemented
Some/all of the pages on a website may not have the Google tracking code installed correctly.

Server Latency
If a recipient comes to a site from an email and then leaves the landing page before the Google Analytics tracking code executes, then the “gclid parameter” is never passed to the Google servers, and that click is not associated with the session.

Clicks Are Not “Sessions”
If a recipient visits a website more than once within thirty minutes without closing their browser, this is registered by Google Analytics as one session, whilst an email tracking system will register every click they make.

Audiences Can React Very Differently
Different audiences within the education sector can react differently to new emails/brands compared with audiences that are familiar with a brand. If the campaign in question was sent to a different/cold audience compared to usual then there is usually a spike in clickers that visit a site but leave quickly. This affects the reporting as described in the ‘Server Latency’ section above.

Recipient Has Blocked Google
Teachers (or anyone for that matter) can now opt out of Google Analytics so they can visit your website but not be tracked in your analytics. However, their click will still register in an email tracking report.

Bots
Bots are anti-virus checkers that some schools may have set up on their filter systems. They automatically open an email and click some/all of the links to check for viruses before letting it pass into a teacher's inbox. These clicks will not usually be recorded by Google as per the explanation in ‘Server Latency’.

Recipient’s Settings
If a teacher has any of the following disabled in their browser/device and security settings then Google cannot track their visit:

• Cookies
• JavaScript
• Images