How to Approach Your Email Reports with Confidence
[Excerpted from a blog post by Miranda Paquet]
If you’re sending email out through Constant Contact, you have access to helpful email reports that show you how your emails are performing, what’s working for you, and where you can improve.
Here are the five most important areas you should focus on:
- Opens: You can view the percentage of contacts that opened your email, as well as a specific list of everyone who opened each message.
- Click-through rate: Your click-through rate shows you how people are actually engaging with the content in your email. You can view which contacts clicked your links, then target them with follow-up emails.
- Bounce rate: Emails can bounce for a number of reasons, including invalid email addresses, a full inbox, or out of office statuses. Keeping an eye on your bounces will help you to remove any addresses with ongoing issues and maintain high deliverability rates.
- Spam: If an individual on your email list reports your email as unwanted or unsolicited, it will be marked as spam. The best way to ensure a low spam rate is to practice permission-based email marketing.
- Opt-out: An opt-out occurs when one of your contacts no longer wants to receive your emails and unsubscribes from your list. A few opt-outs are normal from time to time, but you should pay attention to this number to make sure your emails are not turning people away often.
Now, think about what these numbers are really telling you… Here are some common questions you might be tackling, and advice for how your reports can help.
1. Is my audience engaged?
Focus on: Opens
2. Are my emails inspiring people to take action?
Look at: Clicks
3. Are my emails reaching the right people?
Pay attention to: Bounces, Spam
4. Am I doing anything to turn people away?
Watch your: Opt-outs
If email reports seem overwhelming at first, start using them a little at a time. Not only are email reports far from intimidating, they’re some of the most valuable marketing tools you have available.
To gain some helpful takeaways, read the full post at http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/email-marketing/email-reports/.