How to optimize your newslet­ters with e-mail tracking

Creating a newslet­ter is one of the most important dis­ci­plines in e-mail marketing enabling busi­ness­es to stay in regular contact with their customers. But without analyzing an e-mail campaign, you can only guess how suc­cess­ful it is. This can be done with a series of e-mail tracking programs for newslet­ter analysis. E-mail analytics programs will let you know whether a newslet­ter has been opened by sub­scribers. It’s also possible to see whether the newslet­ters prompted readers to then visit the site, and even whether they completed a trans­ac­tion on it.

In online marketing, it makes sense to set a precise target for each campaign and then check whether it has been achieved. Analyzing e-mail marketing campaigns such as newslet­ters or e-mails (the dif­fer­ence between these types of direct marketing is explained in our article on customer retention is hard to achieve without the correct tools. If you decide to promote certain products from your online store in your newslet­ter, but the campaign is not ac­com­pa­nied by e-mail tracking, you won’t be able to estimate how much influence the newslet­ter has had on sales figures. Even if the number of products bought increases after the ad­ver­tis­ing campaign, you can’t say for certain whether this is due to the newslet­ter. Other factors could be re­spon­si­ble for the increase in sales figures, such as other marketing campaigns for the same product, or a change in the state of the market. Without a basic check on how the newslet­ter is per­form­ing, you won’t obtain any insight into how future e-mail marketing measures could be improved. Newslet­ter tracking, as well as being used to un­der­stand the actions of different e-mail re­cip­i­ents, can also be used for op­ti­miz­ing future newslet­ters. In e-mail marketing, tracking is prac­ti­cal­ly one of the basic re­quire­ments for deeper newslet­ter analysis, and has proven to be very suc­cess­ful. E-mail analytics programs collect specific key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors (KPIs) through e-mail tracking. These key figures or KPIs can be used to determine the success of marketing campaigns. In the case of newslet­ter tracking, this is primarily achieved by measuring certain e-mail actions (such as opening them or clicking on embedded links). By using tracking tech­nolo­gies and other tools, KPIs can be collected.

To evaluate e-mail marketing campaigns, a number of very specific KPIs have proven to be reliable. The following in­di­ca­tors are always of interest, since they measure features that are found in every newslet­ter – re­gard­less of an e-mail’s content.

• Delivery rate: e-mails don’t always reach every address on the mailing list, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to newslet­ters with lots of sub­scribers. If an e-mail can’t be delivered, the sender ideally receives a bounce message, which can be used to work out the 'bounce rate' (the portion of mails that can’t be delivered). This mea­sure­ment helps the sender to calculate the newslet­ter’s delivery rate.

• Opening rate: if an e-mail reaches a recipient’s inbox, it doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that it will be opened. However, tracking tech­nol­o­gy that operates with a tracking pixel can let you know whether the recipient has opened the mail. The opening rate can then be de­ter­mined by comparing it with the delivery rate.

• Click rate: the aim of a newslet­ter is to encourage the recipient to click on at least one link. Clicking on the link can lead the user to a website’s online store, to an article about the website, to a company or artist’s video, etc. The click rate measures the number of times the links in the newslet­ter are clicked on.

• Un­sub­scribe rate: a newslet­ter must offer the recipient the option to opt out of the dis­tri­b­u­tion list. The un­sub­scribe rate provides in­for­ma­tion on how many sub­scribers opt out of receiving the newslet­ter. If you compare this figure with the amount of new sub­scribers and the delivery rate, you can work out how many potential customers are happy to receive the newslet­ter.

In general, it can be said that a KPI is always dependent on the marketer’s goals and the cir­cum­stances of the newslet­ter. Those carrying out a newslet­ter campaign can create strict economic ex­pec­ta­tions and hope for higher sales numbers when it comes to the product. You can find out whether the newslet­ter campaign has paid off by looking at sales and Return on In­vest­ment (ROI), which are used to determine the balance between ex­pen­di­ture and revenue. In addition to monetary reactions from sub­scribers, newslet­ters can also target key figures, such as sub­scrip­tions on an online platform or downloads.

It’s also possible to obtain data on the un­sub­scribe rate or the bounce rate by using specific tracking tools. This is because in­for­ma­tion on whether a sub­scriber has opted out of the newslet­ter, or an e-mail hasn’t been delivered, can be found directly in the sender’s inbox. If you want to keep track of how re­cip­i­ents actually interact with a newslet­ter, you need to employ ad­di­tion­al tech­niques.

• Tracking pixel: an imagine element used to track the opening rate of a newslet­ter. The tracking pixel is tiny (often just 1 x 1 pixel), is trans­par­ent, and is in­te­grat­ed into a newslet­ter. As soon as an e-mail with a tracking pixel is opened, a message is sent back to the newslet­ter creator’s mail server. This can only happen if the recipient’s e-mail program doesn’t block the automatic down­load­ing of images. If this is not the case, the tracking pixel can determine a lot more than just whether the e-mail has been opened or not; the ap­prox­i­mate time and location of the recipient (via geo targeting) can also be as­cer­tained.

• Tracking link: the click rate is reg­is­tered by tracking links. Similar to the tracking pixel, this link sends in­for­ma­tion to the exit server through which the newslet­ter was sent. Each newslet­ter link can be recorded in­di­vid­u­al­ly.

There are various programs available to check the success of your e-mail marketing ac­tiv­i­ties. Many of them offer packages with numerous functions. E-mail marketing software is included in ap­pli­ca­tions such as MailChimp, Newslet­ter2Go, Clev­er­Reach (all are free when sending a low volume of newslet­ters), as well as programs such as Ge­tRe­sponse and Cam­paign­Mon­i­tor. These tools include the following features:

• An editor for producing newslet­ters
• The pos­si­bil­i­ty of sending the newslet­ter directly through the program
• An analysis of the campaigns being carried out
• Recipient list ad­min­is­tra­tion

In addition, the above­men­tioned programs have an A/B testing function. With this, two different test versions of a newslet­ter (at least) can be sent to a pre-de­ter­mined per­cent­age of sub­scribers. Different criteria (KPIs such as the highest possible opening rate or the click-through rate of an embedded link) are set as targets, after which different versions are sent out. After analyzing the tracking results, the version that faired the best (regarding the pre-defined per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors) is chosen and then sent to the rest of the newslet­ter sub­scribers. A/B testing is a useful feature if the number of sub­scribers is sig­nif­i­cant enough to produce a good result. This method allows the newslet­ter to be quickly adapted to the pref­er­ences of a target group.

Every pro­fes­sion­al e-mail tracking program measures the click rate, delivery rate, un­sub­scribe rate, and opening rate of a newslet­ter (taking the bounce rate into account). In addition to these el­e­men­tary tracking features, Newslet­ter2Go, Clev­er­Reach, and MailChimp also offer the following features:

• Click maps or heat maps to il­lus­trate the data obtained
• Geo targeting for the lo­cal­iza­tion and as­sign­ment of the re­cip­i­ents
• Support from Google Analytics

In addition, most e-mail marketing tracking programs have various other features that help with the analysis. Starting with simple functions, such as being able to au­to­mat­i­cal­ly create print versions of an analysis, through to pre­view­ing newslet­ters on different sized (mobile) displays: depending on the ap­pli­ca­tion you are using, there are many options available for your newslet­ter analysis. A com­par­i­son of the best e-mail marketing software with more detailed in­for­ma­tion of the different functions can be found in our article.

Apart from specific e-mail marketing software, there are also tools and plugins for newslet­ter tracking. With Google Analytics you can easily see whether re­cip­i­ents have opened a newslet­ter. Some WordPress plugins, such as Tribulant Newslet­ters and SendPress Newslet­ters, are more extensive. MailChimp, Newslet­ter2Go, and other providers also offer specific ex­ten­sions for WordPress.

In a normal case, the values collected via newslet­ter tracking are not absolute (as is often the case in sta­tis­tics), but rather show ten­den­cies, since only the success of part of the dis­patched newslet­ter can be fully analyzed. This is due to the fact that certain e-mail programs prevent tracking pixels from being used. Users whose e-mail programs prevent this kind of tracking are therefore not included in the sta­tis­tics. However, other factors can also falsify results: for example, a user could open the newslet­ter several times, so that this in­for­ma­tion is recorded each time as a new action when passed onto the e-mail analytics database. The same applies to the click rate.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, results should not be seen as de­fin­i­tive values. Just because a newslet­ter has been opened, doesn’t mean that its content has been read. Just because a link has been clicked on, doesn’t mean that the in­for­ma­tion has been properly read or noticed. There are many factors you should bear in mind when analyzing results. When it comes to the values, the quality of the results should be assessed re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, keeping the factors that distort the results in mind.

After analyzing and tracking your newslet­ter via an e-mail analytics program, you should now have a col­lec­tion of data and sta­tis­tics. The final step is to draw correct con­clu­sions from the results. However, only sig­nif­i­cant results should be used for the basis of any op­ti­miza­tion: if the figures are quite small compared to the total (which may be the case in A/B testing), the data obtained won’t be very rep­re­sen­ta­tive. However, if the sample is large enough, this is a solid basis for op­ti­miza­tion. Some of the problems that can be tackled, include:

• Low opening rate: the e-mail’s subject is often the reason behind a low opening rate. If it isn’t in­for­ma­tive enough or too long, it won’t peak the recipient’s interest enough to be opened. Further reasons for a low opening rate could be the lack of sender in­for­ma­tion – it should be obvious to the sub­scriber who the e-mails are from. It could also be that you’re sending the newslet­ter out at the wrong time.

• High un­sub­scribe rate: if you send out too many newslet­ters, it could come across as annoying. Sub­scribers also won’t ap­pre­ci­ate it if the content isn’t optimally prepared or the wrong topic is focused on. Many newslet­ter ap­pli­ca­tions offer users the option of giving a reason for un­sub­scrib­ing. This can give provide insight into a high un­sub­scribe rate.

• Low click rate: first you should check whether all links can be rec­og­nized as such: if a user doesn’t see it’s a link, they obviously won’t click on it. If the links are indeed visible, it could be that there are too many of them. Instead of linking every­thing in your newslet­ter, it makes more sense to add links that are best suited to your campaign goals.

• Low con­ver­sion rate: even with an un­sat­is­fac­to­ry number of con­ver­sions, you should make sure that you haven’t ad­ver­tised too many offers in your e-mail. Keep in mind that your sub­scribers do not want to spend an infinite amount of time searching through a newslet­ter and all its links. In­cen­tives are a good way to get readers in­ter­est­ed, alongside being per­son­al­ized and quick to read.

If you were able to determine the problems with your newslet­ter and have rectified them, you should then carry out an A/B test to determine whether the changes have worked or whether you need to make any further changes. Sometimes patience is required: getting your newslet­ter just right can take time – e-mail tracking, newslet­ter analysis, results analysis, and resulting op­ti­miza­tion should be built on each another.

Make sure you don’t rush into making con­clu­sions from the given sta­tis­tics and also don’t over-interpret the findings. Some in­di­ca­tors point to non-rep­re­sen­ta­tive results – a low delivery rate versus a large bounce rate, or a very low sample in an A/B test. Knowing the limits of newslet­ter tracking is also important, for example, that not every e-mail program allows tracking pixels to be loaded and that this can falsify results.

If you are cautious and are able to generate mean­ing­ful sta­tis­tics with the analysis, e-mail marketing programs and as­so­ci­at­ed an­a­lyt­i­cal methods prove helpful. The resulting im­prove­ments should have a no­tice­ably positive effect on the success of your future e-mail marketing campaigns.