Response Rate

Response rate is a measurement of the amount of people who respond to a certain call-to-action. When marketers want to solicit a response from consumers, they will distribute an offer to the consumers. The consumers who respond to the offer are calculated into this metric.

The response rate is found by dividing the number of recipients who responded to the offer by the total amount of recipients, and it is usually presented as a percentage.

Why is the response rate important for marketers?

Measuring response rate has multiple applications in marketing, depending on the marketer's need. The measurement could be based on the amount of people who responded to a marketing survey, the amount of people who filled out a contact form asking for information, or any other action that requires a response.

Marketers should actively encourage recipients to respond to the offers. Response rates that are too low can result in a sample bias, thus skewing the results and producing inaccurate results for marketers. Careful attention should be paid to eliminating any additional factors that might produce biased results.

Keep in mind that although response rate is a helpful metric to know, it can be misleading as well. Rates can vary dramatically depending on the demographics of an area, the relevance of the offer to the target market, and how compelling the offer is. In some cases, a high response rate can be related to unsatisfactory results, whereas a low rate could produce results that are very positive.