Email Newsletter Analytics

More and more companies are distributing newsletters via email to their customers and prospects. Surprisingly, some companies are not tracking anything but the most basic results. With each mailing we send, we review the available statistics for insights into our customer base, and you should be doing that, too.

What metrics can an effective e-letter campaign provide in terms of feedback after the fact? Let’s take a look at a few basics:

Delivery metrics: How many of those emails were delivered, bounced (failed), and opened? It’s important to keep your email list current, and do all that you can to encourage delivered mail to be opened. If you don’t know that it is being opened, how do you know that it is effective and to what degree?

Article Popularity: When you include an article summary in the letter, it generally improves readability. It also gives you a cleaner presentation, is easier to digest and makes it faster to find stories of interest. This approach allows linking to your website or blog for the full article.  You can then turn to site analysis software such as Google Analytics to determine which links generated the most clicks to the site. This helps you better understand your audience and gear content to their interests.

Time on Site: When a recipient opens your newsletter, that’s good news. But when that leads to a customer or prospect reading multiple articles or spending additional time investigating your website, the news gets even better.  Whether you are looking for averages or details on specific visits, these statistics can be available to you.

Reporting by Sales Rep: With a little extra effort, it is also possible to track e-letter results by sales rep. This can be particularly helpful in situations where sales representatives are taking time to include a personalized note along with the emailed newsletter.

Regional Reporting: Your marketing efforts may be targeting particular businesses in a city or state. By turning to Google Analytics, you can measure your success within that region. In fact, the information that Google Analytics provides may help you to determine which specific businesses viewed your newsletter, and even gauge their degree of interest.

So get the most out of your email marketing campaign. If you’re not tracking results, you should be. It’s another avenue to understanding more about your customer.