6 Email Marketing Tracking Priorities
How many times have you sent an email and waited and waited and wondered …what happened to it?
| I think most people have questioned Was my email received? Did it get lost in their inbox? Did it go to the spam folder? Was my link clicked on or attachments opened? Having the answers to those questions, (Email Tracking), will help boost your marketing with maximise returns from your email marketing campaigns. Email marketing still remains one of the best marketing tools available to a business. The saying the money is in your list still holds firm. Hubspot reports that there will be over 5.6billion active email account in 2020 and that the ROI for email averages $38 for every $1 spent, that is a fantastic ROI. But . . . and it’s a big BUT. . . you must be able to track your emails. When you know the numbers associated with your marketing emails you can adapt and optimise your future email campaigns, to build and maintain relationships in an exceedingly crowded environment. The good news is email campaigns can be easily tracked when using a marketing platform (like Mailchimp. Ontraport, infussionsoft, hubspot & many more). When using a platform and after hitting the send button you have the ability to look behind the scenes and work out what happened to your emails after sending. |
Boost Your Marketing with these 6 Email Tracking Priorities
Tracking Priority # 1 – The Open Rate. The open rate tells you how many people opened the email you sent in your last campaign. NO more wondering what happened. It’s a crucial piece of information because it can identify several issues with your campaign. Primarily, that the people on your list aren’t as engaged with your content as you need them to be. They don’t care enough, which is why they’re happy to skip over the email. As tough as it may sound, this suggests that you may need to clean your list. At the very least, there are a bunch of people on it with whom you’re going to have to find a way of engaging. A low open rate could also tell you that there are problems with how the email appears when it’s in an inbox. But in the simplest terms, a low open rate means there are major issues with your campaign. After all, you can’t expect to convert prospects into clients if none of your prospects even glance at your content.
Tracking Priority # 2 Click-Through Rate Once you know how many people open the email, we need to learn what people do once they have opened it. Did the reader take the desired action after reading? In other words, you need to track how many of them click-through to your offer. The information gleamed from this metric will tell you how effective your content and Call to Action (CTA) were. You may need to adjust both if you’re getting a low number for this metric.
Tracking Priority #3 – Bounce Rate Bounce What’s Bounce, I hear you say? All “Bounce” means is how many emails did not make it to the intended recipient. You can have hard and soft bounces. Hard Bounces – Are the emails that come back because it’s impossible to send them. One of the most common instances for this is that the email address does not exist. Hard bounces need to be addressed as they skew your numbers and Internet Service Providers use this information to decide on your reputation as a sender (SPAM or straight to the Inbox). You need to clean your email list regularly if you have emails that do not exist. Soft Bounces – Are the emails that couldn’t be delivered due to a temporary problem. For example, the recipient’s email server may have a few issues. Or, they have a full inbox, which means they can’t receive any more emails. Soft bounces tend to resolve themselves fairly quickly. The email will automatically send when the temporary issue gets resolved.
Tracking Priority #4 – Conversion Rate We all know about conversion – how many people become your customers. Typically, this number will be low. However, you should look out for an extremely low number. Something along the lines of 0.2%, tells you that there’s a problem with your offer. You will need improve your content or tweak your offer with the goal to raise this rate.
Tracking Priority #5 – List Growth Rate This is what we live for… a growing email list. We always want to see a positive number here. If the number dips into the minus, then your marketing efforts aren’t working. It’s time to adjust your content so that less people unsubscribe.
Tracking Priority #6 – Spam Score It’s important to know the Spam Score, because you don’t want your emails to end up going directly to the spam folder. If this happens, the intended recipient won’t realise they’ve received and email from you – ouch!. Did you know that many people use anti-spam software to stop their inbox from getting clogged up? This type of software analyses an entire email and assigns a score. If the score goes above a certain threshold, the email goes straight to spam. Each piece of software has its own issues that it looks for and applies different weights to each of these issues. This makes Spam Scores one of the hardest pieces of the puzzle to track. There’s no set standard for a spam score however some platforms have a traffic light system o guide your content. We suggest you keep your content green! It might be worth downloading an anti-spam software and running your email through it before sending it out. You will also want to avoid the red flags that these types of software look for. You’ll also want to ensure that it’s clear who’s sending the email.
One of the best advantages of working in the digital world is you can measure pretty much everything you want. Look at what works and what doesn’t in your marketing campaigns, so you can then optimize them for better results. The data you use to drive your campaigns can now help you get the results you desire.
If you’d like further assistance to help take your business to the next level contact the team at Business By Design today on 02 6658 0775.