Open and Click-Through Rates Aren’t Telling the Full Story About Your Email Campaigns
When it comes to email marketing analytics, open and click-through rates only tell part of the story of a campaign’s impact. To enhance the impact of your email marketing campaigns, you must look beyond these standard statistics. By delving into their nuances as well as other data points provided by a platform, such as Constant Contact, you’ll learn how to build rapport with your audience through email marketing. The following insights exemplify the importance of data to your organization’s marketing efforts.
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Going mobile is more than common practice.
People are opening and reading emails more often on mobile devices rather than webmail or desktop platforms, such as Hotmail, Gmail and Outlook. According to Constant Contact, approximately 48% of Constant Contact opens are on mobile devices.
Considering open rates for mobile and desktop devices will determine the optimal time for your campaigns to be sent. Keep in mind that evening times will result in greater open rates from mobile devices when people are home, and morning and day times will yield greater open rates from desktops when people are at work. Also factor in that your industry influences what time of day you should send your email campaigns.
Tip: To ensure that your campaign will look great regardless of the device it’s viewed on, always opt for a mobile responsive template. Constant Contact offers premade mobile responsive templates as well as a mobile preview option.
Be mindful when building campaigns for mobile viewing.
Remember that when viewing an email on a mobile device, users are not just reading on smaller screens; they’re reading smaller text and “clicking” with a finger. Facilitate a positive experience for mobile audience members by making links easier to tap. You can achieve this by leaving large gaps of space between links, using a button in place of a link (this has additional benefits of drawing attention and creating a clear call-to-action), enlarging text size and/or using an up-to-date phrase, such as “tap here.”
Tip: Always test email campaigns on your own mobile and desktop devices before sending them to your audience. Make sure the format is correct, grammar and spelling errors are absent and links are in place.
Pro Tip: Adding links to multiple components of your email creates more potential for your audience to engage with content on your website, social media, etc. Be generous with links, adding them to header images, photos, headlines, embedded text and more. Numerous links also provide a chance to better understand the specific interests of readers.
Not all opens are created equally.
An “Open” doesn’t always mean that someone read your entire email, and not all opens are accounted for. Viewing a Constant Contact email in certain mobile devices, preview panes and any service that prevents images from loading automatically will not be counted as an open.
When using Constant Contact, rather than solely considering a campaign’s amount of “Unique Opens,” also refer to its amount of “All Opens.” Comparing these figures will allow you to discern whether readers are opening emails multiple times and why. Perhaps they are highly engaged, or alternatively, perhaps they had to use another device for a better user experience. Analyzing all “opens data” will help you recognize patterns to identify potential problems and opportunities.
Don’t ignore people who ignore you.
Constant Contact allows you to see a list of people who did not open your email in the “Did Not Open” category. If you send out regular emails, such as a newsletter, consider past “Did Not Open” results. Are the same people repeatedly not opening your emails?
If you have a group of recipients who never or rarely open your emails, this is a red flag that they are disengaged, uninterested or technology is intervening with a spam filter. However, by identifying the people who consistently don’t open your emails, you create an opportunity to re-engage them.
Before you send more email campaigns, reach out individually to make sure you have their preferred email address on file and that your emails aren’t simply going unseen into their spam folders. After, you can create a separate list for these contacts and send them an alternative version of your last email. Try modifying the subject line and content to make it more engaging.
You can also send these contacts a special discount or offer, or ask them what type of content they’d prefer to see via an embedded survey. Or, forgo asking and simply give readers the option to select their preferred content by providing options for segmentation. As of January 2018, Constant Contact implemented a click segmenting feature that adds contacts to designated interest lists based on their engagements with your email. For example, if you provide three articles with the topics of policy updates, organization news and industry news, readers that select the article about policy updates will simultaneously be added to a policy updates interest list.
Tip: Refining your contact list is important to maintaining the integrity of your email marketing efforts. If the aforementioned methods still don’t resonate with a group of contacts, ask whether they would like to continue receiving your emails via a confirmed opt-in campaign. If a contact doesn’t respond to or open your email, remove him or her from your contact list.
Encourage readers to engage with your content.
Social media channels can be leveraged to create additional buzz around email campaigns. You can encourage audience engagement beyond an email by providing a call-to-action to be taken on social media. In the case of promoting an event, ask readers to let you know whether they plan to attend via Facebook or Twitter. And when trying to broaden the reach of your content, link or embed the article or social media post into your email and ask readers to share, like, comment or retweet it.
The data offered by an email marketing service such as Constant Contact can paint a picture of your audience’s interests and their user habits. Don’t overlook the details by only looking at open and click-through rates. Instead, take the full spectrum of insights into account–they can help you build your next successful email marketing campaign.
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