Have you ever noticed how teenagers want to “be my own person!” and not “follow the crowd” even as they rush to do so? For everything ranging from their hairstyles and clothes to their cars and leisure activities, teenagers find stress in fitting in.

Marketers are a lot like that too. Everyone tries to run with their own uniqueness, but they do the same things.

Everyone looks at the same markers. For instance, do you actually have any idea what “open rate” means in terms of real content views? No one outside of an ISP controlling the mail interface can tell you who opened what because “open rate” is based upon image loading. But, back in 2008, MarketingSherpa noted that “59% of consumers and 90% of business email users view some or all of their email with images turned off.” Does anyone take that into account? So, comparing open rates is like comparing bad mullets. Every teenager in the 1980s had one and they were all uniquely the same, and quite pointless.

So, what’s the point here? The point is that marketers need to grow up. Find stats that actually mean something and stop looking at the stuff that doesn’t, just because everyone else is looking at it and comparing it.

Al Iverson has a short, but great post up on engagement being an old thing up over at Spam Resource. There are some statistics that can help you there that you already know about.

• How many people follow through on your call to action? This is usually measured as a “click rate” but can also just be the number of times that someone gives you a call, or prints out your email coupon and takes it to the store.
• How many people unsubscribe? No one ever seems to look at this, but I think it’s important to listen to your subscribers.
• How long has it been since a particular subscriber responded to your message? If they don’t care, they’ll mark it as spam eventually.

The statistics that you have access to on engagement are the ones that can actually do something to help you. And I, personally, long for the day when marketers stop comparing the size of their lists, and start comparing the activity they get from their lists.

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