Data: Jump on it!

What do you do with the data from your email marketing program? Do you review a report, shout “Interesting!” and move on to doing the same thing you’ve always done? Or do you print it out and dump a stack of papers on your boss’s desk? (Cartoon compliments of Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports)

Data means nothing unless you take time to analyze it and then take actions based what you learn. So, are you taking advantage of the clues that your email data is pushing at you?

Testing is the path to improvement and data points should be the landmarks that let you know whether you’re moving in the right direction.

Today, we’ll review 2 important metrics - open and click-through rates over time - that you should be tracking. By thinking through the answers to these questions, you’ll be in a great position to tweak your actions and improve results.

Stay tuned for future blog posts that will discuss some other metrics to pull out of your data.

Open Rate Over Time:
While there is some healthy debate on open vs render rate, it is still a fact that the goal of many email marketers is to increase open rates. If your open rates are dropping over time or you want them to improve, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Are my subject lines enticing and to the point?
• Am I actively testing subject lines at every opportunity? Think outside the subject line box you’ve created. Consider a new approach.
• Am I emailing more frequently and tiring my lists - and maybe not even giving folks enough time to see the email I just sent yesterday before reiterating the same ongoing sale with another email today?
• Is my sign-up process successful, adding fresh interest to my lists on a continuing basis?
• Is my creative unchanging and are my offers always the same (so no one really even needs to open the email because it’s always the same old, same old)?
• Am I segmenting and targeting my emails to be relevant to everyone who will receive them?
• Am I actively testing time of day and day of week to reach inboxes at the best time for my audience?
• Is there anything going on in the world that could be hurting my rates (i.e. holiday email madness from all angles, a downturned economy, etc)? This should be just a consideration, but not a scapegoat, especially if you are not addressing any of the issues above.

If your open rate has been trending upward, these are the kinds of questions you can ask yourself to figure out what has changed and you can expand on those actions where you can.

Click-Through Rate Over Time:
Every marketer has different click-through goals - some folks want all information laid out in the email with no need to click-through to a landing page. If that’s not you, and you’re interested in improving this rate, ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I including a call-to-action preheader?
• Are my calls-to-action clear (message-wise) and well-positioned within the email (for example, above the fold)?
• Are my calls-to-action clearly visible (links that are underlined, different colors, highlighted, bulletproof buttons)?
• Am I really emailing the right people for this offer/communication?
• Should I include a navigation bar in my email to provide other points of engagement other than the main call-to-action?
• Are my images linked?
• Am I utilizing alt text behind images to entice readers who don’t have images displayed?
• Am I giving away all the information in my email (full content in a newsletter) so that no one would need to click-through to learn more or read the rest of the article? Should I test linking through to more details/full stories?
• Am I engaging readers in alternate ways (if appropriate): poll questions, product review requests, contests, videos, the “Did You Miss It” link?

These, of course, are only some of the many questions you can ask yourself to improve metrics and ultimately, end results. What have I missed here? What questions do you ask yourself to boost these rates?

Stay tuned for subsequent posts where I’ll tackle more data points (click/open, conversion, turnover, performance by list, contact growth over time, etc) for your consideration.

In the meantime, start listening to your data!

Kristen Gregory
Account Manager at Bronto

Related posts:

1. More Data: Jump On It! Your data is talking to you. If you’re not taking...
2. Even More Data! Jump On It! (Part 3) We’ve already explored some of the more obvious metrics...
3. Be a Data Detective: Tips to Test to Lift Engagement - Part 2 In the first post in this series, I posed some...

Tagged as: click-through, email design, email marketing data, email sign up, email subject lines, open rates, preheader, relevant emails, testing