Have you had response rates for a particular marketing channel drop?  We know that tactics from email to direct mail can have fluctuating response rates, and sometimes the response rates truly have decreased.

Other times, there are non-response driven reasons why a marketing effort looks like it is underperforming, when it is not.   

Here are 6 reasons why your response rates might look lower than they are:  

1. There is a different tracking code put on the effort than what is being tracked
2. There was no tracking code assigned at all
3. The wrong selection was made for who should get the effort
4. Vendor segmented the groups incorrectly
5. The data/mail has been misplaced or not all been processed
6. A response came in through a different channel and is being counted there

If you see a dramatic variance or trends, it is worth your time to do analysis and ask questions to your team and vendors before assuming the worst.  Doing this might also inspire people to become more alert to future anomalies.

This might not be a glamourous topic, but it can be a critical one for your business.  A little digging might help you salvage a working campaign, before you decide to scrap it.  

The journey continues. C