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Response rate

What does this mean?

One quantified measure of the success of a marketing or research exercise.

Done by comparing the actual replies achieved with the initial number of items issued, this is conventionally expressed as a percentage.

How did we get this definition?

This is a quantified measure of the success of a marketing or research exercise. It works by making a comparison between the actual replies achieved and the initial number of items (or opportunities to reply) issued.

As such it can be used in relation to direct mail and other marketing campaigns, and research activities such as surveys and questionnaires.

Although response rate may be important in evaluating the success of a marketing campaign, it is vital in assessing the validity of surveys and questionnaires since the extent to which different types of people respond will have a bearing on how representative the sample used is.

Response rates are usually stated as percentages. But here it should be noted that this is another instance where there is no universal standard for a good or bad response rate.

However the New York-based research and consultancy organisation Guidestar gives a useful digest of the sorts of response rates that can be expected from different sort of survey exercises. These are reproduced in the table below.

Related and similar definitions

So that response rates can be analysed and evaluated, both the initial number of items sent out or dispatched (e.g. surveys or mailing items), and the usable number of items returned will need to be monitored.

This will then allow the percentage response rate to be worked out using the formula:

Percentage response rate = R ÷ D × 100

Where:

  • D is the number of items sent out or dispatched
  • R is the number of items returned

Hence, if – as part of a postal survey – 3,000 questionnaires are sent out and 700 are returned, then the percentage rate =

(700 ÷ 3,000) × 100 = 0.2333 × 100 = 23.3%

When to use

This technique is a useful one when organisations want to make comparisons (both internally and externally) of the effectiveness of their marketing and research activities. It is also essential for assessing the validity of sample findings.