Time Compares Apples To Goodmail

If a fish salesman's brother tells you his brother's fish is the best in town, do you take his word for it? Or would you think it, um, fishy? So when AOL's brother releases a report that use of Goodmail's Certified Email resulted in a 30% increase in response, shouldn't we subject it to the same scrutiny? Magazine publisher Time Inc., a subsidiary of AOL sibling Time Warner, announced this week that a three-month test of CertifiedEmail's trusted icon system yielded a 30% overall increase in positive response rates. Time sent emails to the AOL accounts of active subscribers to its various publications, which includes Fortune, Business 2.0, and Sports Illustrated, with options to manage or renew subscriptions, pay bills, or make changes to their account. From the Now nothing gets the emarketer's attention more than the phrase "click-through rate." But is this a fair comparison? Authenticated emails, delivered with images and links in tact, received more response than emails delivered without images and links in tact. It's no secret that unless an emailer is on the EnhancedWhitelist, the apparent phase out of which sparked so much controversy for AOL earlier this year, or is using the CertifiedEmail system, that the branding and the functionality of emails sent is severely downgraded. ISPs routinely disable links and images in emails as a security measure. Let's imagine it another way. Let's say Ford brokers a deal with Goodyear so that Goodyear tires are the preferred brand of tires for Ford cars, and the two begin cross-promoting. Jaguar, owned by Ford, publishes (hypothetically) Awesome Tires Magazine. Awesome Tires Magazine compares Goodyear tires with a competing brand of tires. The researchers remove the valve caps and tread from the competing tires and conclude, after three months of research, that cars with Goodyear tires arrived at their destinations faster and with fewer mishaps. While that is true, the researchers were using handicapped tires for their comparison, much like emails sent without authentication were handicapped. Apples. Oranges. But the conclusion sure makes an impression with drivers who just read the headlines. For a more recent example, let's consider the Cingular Wireless apparent plan to require the switch received astounding here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") Yahoo My Web