How to Track & Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

When looking into improving traffic to a site, there are some ways to track this, and there are some metrics that you should know about.  Here, we’ll tell you how to track how successful your email marketing campaign is, and some metrics that will help, along with different ways to increase these.

How to Track

The first way to do it is essentially benchmarking the effectiveness. You want to initially check the previous broadcasts and the metrics that are there, and you should make sure that you chart as many of the metrics as possible. You then want to establish the averages and metrics, which is essentially adding the metric values, and the total number of email campaigns done.  You take the percentages of the open rates and then divide by the different campaigns.

Next, you look at the outliers. Essentially, these are the super high or low rates of the metric. You want to at least notes these.  From here, look at the patterns, see which topics are done well, and also look at the time of day and if that changed, always taking note of these to improve these campaigns.

Finally, you want to set the goals and the baseline of these based off the metrics, which in a way will allow you to judge and determine whether one campaign performed better than the other, and what worked, and what didn’t work, such as looking at the subject line of the emails, and seeing why it did so well, or even looking at the times, and seeing whether or not these affect the goals.

The metrics

We mentioned before how the metrics are used, and here, we’ll discuss what each of these is, and how you can improve them.  they’re all important, so keep these in mind, and when you’re tracking campaigns, always consider these metrics.

First, you have the open rate, which is the percentage of those who opened up the emails.  This helps see if the subject is engaged with the marketing campaign. These are usually affected by the subject line, so you want to improve the subject line of these to get a header that grabs the attention, is concise, and clear.  You want to have an open range between 15-25%

Click through rate, is the percentage of those who clicked on the link, and it shows who is engaged, and how to take further action. You can improve this by changing up the content, using better anchor text, and drawing the reader to the content. If that doesn’t work, check the offer and give a great one that this the targetted people.

Then there is an unsubscribe rate, which is those who have unsubscribed to the emails and does measure audience engagement.  It showcases how invested others are in the content. If it’s high, you need to create emails that fit the needs and wants.  Maybe you’re sending out too many emails as well, and you can always find out with a question or even a survey when they choose to unsubscribe, for it can drastically change this rate.

Then there is the conversion rate, which is essentially those who clicked on your content and have chosen to follow through with this.  You essentially improve this by checking to see if the subscribers clicked to the offer, and you can use tips from the CTR to help with improving this.  You want to create a nice landing page for subscribers and make sure if there are forms and such, they’re easy and quick for filling out, and make the site appealing to them.

Factors to Consider Changing

now that you know the metrics, you know what to track, let’s take it a final step further and discuss a few factors you should consider changing. These are simple and can make a marked difference in your campaigns as well.

First, is time. Time is of the essence since it can have a big factor in open rates. If they’re at the wrong time, you’ll see the rate become significantly less. Lunch hour, early morning, and after work is essentially the wrong time to do it since often this is when people purge their inboxes, but this does vary.

Look at the topic too. You want to look at the topics that will engage reader’s interest so that you can get them clicking on this and get them interested.  You should follow this based on the lead magnet, or even just asking subscribers what topics they like and don’t like so that you can create better content for the subscribers as well.

Anchor texts do play a major role, and you should always test this out before sending it out.  You want to consider adding power words to help trigger a great response in people, for it can help with the overall success of a campaign.

Finally, look at the subject line. This affects the open rate, which affects the way people engage with your content. Direct subject lines are essentially concise and to the point, and if they’re direct, they focus on the different benefits that recipients receive.  On the flip side, curiosity subject lines do work, but it’s a bit hit or miss on what types of content you’re going to get. The biggest thing is to ensure that you give them an email that will satisfy the curiosity that’s there.  You should probably if you’re going to use this, make sure that it fits the topic that you’re trying to target.

If you’re having issues with an email campaign, check out these factors or consult someone at SEO Marketing to help you with this. By making sure that you provide the right content for those who open up your emails, you’ll, in turn, create a better, more rewarding situation for yourself, and for others as well, and it can help to increase conversions, and give people what they want to see in your email campaign.

Author Bio: Catherine Park is a connector with Caffeinated Projects who help businesses find their audience online. She loves working in the ever-changing world of digital and is fascinated by the role content plays in today’s marketing.