Monitoring the deliverability of your e-mail campaigns involves much more than simply observing open or click-through rates. Other indicators, sometimes less widely used, can be used to identify warning signals in greater detail. These include dissatisfaction rateThis ratio is particularly useful for quickly pinpointing content or senders that are generating rejection on the part of recipients. And at Badsender, this ratio is the darling of our team. from our deliverability experts.
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What is the email dissatisfaction rate?
The dissatisfaction rate correlates the number of clicks on the unsubscribe link and the overall number of clicks of a campaign. The dissatisfaction rate allows to show the level of dissatisfaction of an email campaign, thus the strong risks of having deliverability problems (on one or more ISPs/Webmails) on your short/medium term marketing campaigns.
It therefore makes it possible to identify problematic campaigns and to rectify them.
How do you measure dissatisfaction?
The dissatisfaction rate is very simple to calculate.
All you have to do is take the cumulative number of clicks on the unsubscribe link and divide it by the cumulative number of clicks (clicks on the different links + clicks on the unsubscribe link). You multiply the resulting figure by 100 and you have your dissatisfaction rate.
It is assumed that:
- Dissatisfaction rate < 20% (i.e. less than 2 out of 10 people who unsubscribed): your subscribers are quite satisfied with your mailing.
- Dissatisfaction rate between >=20% and =< 40% (between 2 to 4 people out of 10 have unsubscribed): we can see the beginning of dissatisfaction, there is still time to react by analyzing the content of the message and the segment used.
- Dissatisfaction rate > 40% (more than 4 out of 10 people have unsubscribed): dissatisfaction is very high, delivery problems may already be visible. Did you really send the right message to the right person? Was your database well optimized before being used?
What is it used for and when should it be monitored?
You will say to me but why to supervise it if all is well or almost well...
Simply because, thanks to it, you can easily escape from a disaster. Remember that you only need one campaign to lose your reputation but it will take you several weeks (or even months) to regain it. So a significant saving of time and energy 🙂
It might also be interesting to integrate it into your deliverability monitoring:
- You want to know where your subscribers stand in relation to your various email communications.
- You have just acquired new addresses indirectly. This can help you to know how the new target reacts to your e-mails.
- You are launching a new product/service. This can help you to know how it will be perceived and if it is adapted to your subscribers.
- You're in a sales period and you want to target a little more (or a lot more for some :p) wide. This rate allows you to set the limits not to exceed.
Some examples...
During the latest deliverability audits I've carried out, I've noticed that dissatisfaction rates vary enormously, and the causes are very diverse.
I will share with you these experiences (anonymizing the companies of course).
Case 1: We have openers, we have clickers but very little transformation... Why?
Dissatisfaction rates show a very strong dissatisfaction (more than 8 out of 10 people click on the unsubscribe link).
Questions to ask:
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- Is the database opt-in? Has it been properly qualified before being used?
- Is the proposed offer really adapted to the target?
Case 2: Our view scores are quite low, we would like to improve our performance on our next campaigns.
The dissatisfaction rates by target show a more or less strong dissatisfaction (between 3 and 7 people out of 10 unsubscribe).
Questions to ask:
- Is the proposed content really adapted to the target?
- Is Target B opt-in?
Case 3: We have just bought a new base. The first tests performed on it are very weak, why?
Like case 1, the dissatisfaction rates show a very strong dissatisfaction (almost 9 out of 10 people click on the unsubscribe link).
Questions to ask:
- Is the database opt-in? Has it been properly qualified before being used?
- Is the proposed offer really adapted to the target?
What's the alternative to the dissatisfaction rate?
The dissatisfaction rate is based on the analysis of clicker behavior: it highlights the ratio between the number of unsubscribes and the number of recipients who have carried out a significant action (the click).
However, in certain contexts - notably for purely editorial newsletters - messages may offer no incentive to click. As a result, the dissatisfaction rate becomes unusable due to the lack of relevant data for calculation.
In these situations, we need to find another way of detecting content that generates dissatisfaction. An alternative solution is to use the disengagement ratealso known as negative click-through rate.
This rate is based not on clickers, but on openers, i.e. recipients who have opened the message. The formula is simple:
Opt-out rate = Number of opt-outs / Number of openers
The disengagement rate has several advantages. It remains legible and usable even in the absence of links in the content. What's more, since it's based on openers, it keeps the analysis proportional to the number of people who actually read the message, ensuring a reliable measure of the dissatisfaction generated.
Please note: this rate does not replace the dissatisfaction rate when a significant click rate exists. It's an alternative to be favored only when the majority of campaigns are opened but few (or no) clicks are made.
Conclusion
Little known and above all little monitored, the dissatisfaction rate is a key indicator that deserves, just like the opening rates - the bounce rates - the complaint rates, to be monitored more closely.
The calculation is simple (especially if your router provides you with the data directly) and the accuracy is effective.
To your calculators now 🙂
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