How long does it take for someone to book after they open or click an email?

How long does it take for someone to go from opening your email to a transaction? A day? Three days? What about clicking? These are common questions and ones that, today, we’ll begin to answer. Here’s what we’ve found.

The Goods
To find our answer we looked at 20,000 recent transactions that occurred within four days of the transactor first opening or first clicking a marketing email. We then worked backwards and found how many people booked the same day they opened that email, the day after, and so on. Here’s how it looks.

OPEN-TO-TRANSACTION

For our sample, 36% of transactions happened the same day an email was first opened, 21% the day after, 16% two days after, 14% three days after and 13% four days after.

But what do these gaps look like for the first click?

CLICK-TO-TRANSACTION

For our sample, 52% of transactions happened the same day an email was first clicked, 18% the day after, 12% two days after, 9% three days after and 8% four days after.

What This Means
There are two lessons to take away from this sample. The first is that, somewhat surprisingly, people who booked lodging were slightly more likely to book the same day they opened or clicked an email compared to those who purhased something else (spa, tickets, golf, etc.).

The second insight is that someone who clicks is significantly closer to transaction than someone who opens. And not by a little. About 1/3 of email openers who eventually transact will do so that same day while that number is north of 1/2 for clickers.

The next question you might have is transaction size? Do people contemplate larger transactions for longer and act more impulsively (same day) on smaller bookings? Funny you should ask →