Email analytics is a method used to analyze email behavior. It is often leveraged by email marketers who want a more in-depth analysis of how recipients are interacting with their message. Offering many of the same advantages of web analytics, it can help a marketer pinpoint what is, and what is not, working in an email campaign. An analytical solution that offers great potential, some businesses attest that email analytics is one of the most effective ways to increase return on investment (ROI), and to fine-tune campaign performance.
Email marketers can use email analytics to view a detailed analysis of a campaign, by domain and target segments. The basic tool will reveal information on parameters, such as delivery, open rates, click through rates, conversion rates, forwards, and bouncing mail, among others. These details often provide insight that allows the marketer to better engage a specific demographic, and follow the subscriber’s activity through to conversion. If no conversion is made, email analytics can help the marketer understand where a potential customer was lost.
Some of the more advanced email analytics tools allow marketers to analyze any individual targeted in the campaign. These solutions generally provide graphical representations of all mail received and sent by that particular individual. It is not uncommon for analytics software to offer multiple views that provide the campaign manager with more flexibility on how they choose to dissect the details. Luxuries such as these are typically provided by an analytics company that offers a managed service.
Urchin Analytics&trade is a popular choice for email analytics. It requires users to insert a snippet of code into a designated web page, and add parameters to URLs in each message. These parameters denote the visitors that have arrived as a result of the marketing campaign. By using Urchin Analytics&trade, campaign managers have the ability to monitor inbound traffic for all destination URLs. This could be a landing page, product page, or any other web page the campaign directed the email recipient to. Provided by Google®, Urchin Analytics is free to use.
The extensive reporting tools provided by an email analytics solution can help a marketer accurately visualize the information behind their campaign. This practice is being rapidly adopted to help businesses identify key trends and anomalies that can improve the overall efficiency of their marketing endeavors. With the proper solution, email marketers have the opportunity to spend less time crunching data, and more time responding to it.