Goodbye Open Rates, Hello Link Tracking

Marketers can’t afford to be static. They need to adjust their processes and strategies to what’s happening in the marketplace. This means adjusting the consumer demands, cultural changes, economic conditions—but it can also include changes to the technological landscape.

Privacy and security are hot topics for consumers, and some of the biggest names in tech are adjusting to public needs and expectations. When companies like Apple and Google change their policies on pixel tracking, Marketers need to take notice and make appropriate changes to their tactics.

Let’s explore what’s happening with email pixel tracking for open rates, what that means for Marketers, and how Conversica helps companies get the most out of their email marketing and lead outreach.

Open Rates Are Dying: What’s Happening Now?

Google and Apple provide users with the ability to block email senders from using invisible pixels to track email open rates. This is part of a larger effort to put consumers in control of their data. Keep in mind that this doesn’t change the effectiveness of the email. It just impacts the ability of the sender to track, report, and act on opens once tracked via pixels.

Yes, some Marketers dislike this change. They fear losing open tracking for A/B testing and send-time optimization. But the fact of the matter is that click rates, response rates, and conversion rates are all far better indicators of success than open rates ever were. Marketers ought to see this as a blessing in disguise. The end of pixel tracking puts an emphasis on direct engagement with content to determine success and trigger the next step in the campaign.

Engagement Rates, Not Open Rates, Are the Way of the Future

While savvy Marketers can pivot to meet the moment, there are some potential drawbacks to recognize. Without open-rate data to gauge performance, it’s even more important to reduce risky behaviors that can land you in the spam folder.

Best practices include:

• Writing personalized greetings
• Using an individual sender in the “From” line
• Including a signature and contact information
• Avoiding excessive punctuations or red-flag words in subjects lines and copy

No matter what kinds of changes Apple, Google, and others choose to roll out, good email copy and clear calls to action will never go out of style. Relevant, engaging, and useful content is what people want to find when they open an email.

A Bit About Link Tracking

Link tracking is exactly what it sounds like—the ability to track link engagement. Link tracking opens the door to new ways of analyzing your lead activity and campaign performance. This gives you insight into what engagements drive the most value, so you can make informed decisions about where to focus your marketing spend.

Here are the benefits of link tracking:

• Link tracking provides direct insight into a prospect’s interest and can inform the next best action to convert a lead quickly.
• Engagement rate is a better indicator of success and interest than open rates ever were.

Admittedly, link tracking is nothing new, and a lot of businesses use it already. If this applies to you, that’s great! You’re ahead of the game. But if you haven’t embraced link tracking yet, now is the time.

Link Tracking for Conversica Users

Link tracking is just one of the capabilities Conversica introduced to ensure Marketers get the data they need to succeed. This includes measuring the effectiveness of campaigns; as well as comparing how often scheduling links are clicked by leads vs. how many appointments actually get scheduled by the leads that are clicking on the link.

With link tracking from Conversica, you can measure the effectiveness of your Conversica AI Assistants’ engagements by recording when leads click on a link in specific conversations. With this information, you can better understand which links generate the most activity and compare the results against your website traffic or appointment scheduling data to see how Conversica performs against your other marketing channels.

Here’s how it works:

1. When you use a link variable in a conversation, Conversica replaces that link with a codified version.
2. When a lead is sent or clicks a link, Conversica registers the link traffic.
3. The lead’s experience is not affected and they are directed to the original link destination in real-time.
4. The link sent and link clicked data are available in Conversica dashboard reporting and the lead manager.

Yes, open rates via pixel tracking are shrinking in relevance. But that’s no problem for savvy Marketers.