With the new age of digital marketing, most EDM Marketing tools such as Ontraport used have evolved their functionality in a lot of ways. It is more convenient now to check and monitor the performance of your email campaign. You can even customise your analytics reports on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.
The matrices involved can be measured in numerical and graphical values. If you want to know how your email campaign is performing, you need to understand how these values work and what they mean for your business.
Through the years within the marketing industry, we have created and analysed email campaign reports regularly to help clients know how well their email campaign is doing. We provide the best solutions and recommendations for the next course of action towards their campaign goals based on these values. With proper knowledge of these data, we were able to steer our client’s business towards achieving their goals.
To further add your knowledge in understanding these matrices, here are a few important details that you need to be aware of when you check your email campaign’s analytics:
1. “Delivered” does not always mean “Received”
Most email service providers (ESP) will tell you that your email was delivered. You would think that it was successfully received by the recipient. This may not always be the case. Your delivered email may encounter different factors that could have prevented your email to reach your contact’s inbox.
In most cases, depending on the content of the email, they get routed to the “Spam” folder by mistake. Another possibility is when the current email address in your contact list isn’t valid or unavailable.
To avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, Ontraport provided the best solution for this matter. Aside from categorising emails as “Sent”, you can also view if the contact was able to receive and open the email. Also, any bounced emails were filtered so it would also be easy for you to distinguish which email needs to be verified if it’s still active.
If you would wish to verify if a certain contact has received and opened the email that you have sent, it is certainly possible as well. Ontraport has provided this tracked details for you which is quite beneficial with the behaviour of your contacts.
If you want to know the percentage of the emails that are delivered straight to the inbox of the recipient, you can check it on the STATS section of the email.
2. Open Rates record loaded image not Open Clicks
Open rates are recorded when a tiny image is loaded into an email recipient. There is a big problem with this.
First, for the image to be loaded, the recipient should turn their images on in their inbox setting. If not, even though the recipient has received and opened the image, if the image is not loaded, it won’t count as “open”.
Second, there are inbox providers that automatically block images by default. This would automatically make your count as zero since it is dependent on the loading of the image in the email.
Third, for people who read emails on their phones, there are some email reader apps block images in mobile view. You must have a mobile-friendly email. With Ontraport, it provides you with a preview of the email if it is mobile friendly upon editing the email. Taking advantage of this feature will make a huge difference in your goal of having your contacts open and read your emails.
Lastly, some recipients block all HTML in their received emails and only receive “plain text email” that does not have images.
With this, open rates can be tricky. That is why it is important to focus more on “Link Clicks” than “Open Rates” for they are more accurate.
3. Inconsistencies across email service providers
If you are new to Ontraport, you may notice a low open rate on your email stats. That is because most ESPs infer an open when in fact there is none. You get the most accurate data as possible.
Open rate is not a reliable metric in measuring email success. Ontraport focuses more on Link Clicks, which shows how often the link on your email was clicked. Also by looking at Link Clicks, you’ll be able to know if your email message has resonated with your recipient to follow through with your call of action.
Some email providers have high-security filters which are quite difficult to deal with. Even if your spam score is great, due to this inconsistency, it can still cause for your email to be unable to reach your contact.
4. Know why your contacts opt-out
In a lot of cases, contacts opt-out on your emails because of numerous reasons. The most common factor is the content of the email. However, it would still be best to learn more about it. Ontraport provides you with a small summary of this through the Contact History or Contact Logs.
This is one of the best features that can point you why your contact opt out on your list. This can be a key factor for you to know what would be your next course of action on future email campaigns.
5. Knowing your customer’s interest
There may be quite a few contacts that are still loyal to your email list. If you think properly, you may want to know why they decide to stay. You might end up surprising your self in the end.
In most cases, these contacts decide to open only a few of the emails you send. They may have received it but they decided not to read it. This is why an enticing or engaging subject line and the header is crucial. Not only it gives your contacts an introduction to your email, but it’s also what capture your reader’s interest. The more interesting it sounds, the higher possibility that they will open it.
These are only a few major factors that you need to consider when analysing your email metrics. It is best to know what would be the best layout for your email. These factors are giving you results which, again, helps you improve your email marketing. However, it would be awesome if you get it right in the first try. As the saying goes – “Prevention is better than cure”.
Ontraport has been one of the industry leaders when it comes to well-featured EDM marketing for marketers. It provides its users with the best functions that would suit their needs. This includes a continuous improvement for years to come.
There are still a lot of things to know about email stats. If you are using Ontraport, you are assured that you are getting accurate results on your EDM Marketing analytics. On the other hand, if you are using a different ESP, and unsure about the meaning of your email stats, you can always contact us so we can assist you on how to understand it better.
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