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Integrating with Google Analytics – The Manual Way

February 1st, 2010

We have discussed the importance of analyzing email metrics in order to make meaningful improvements to your program. Every email platform will give you insights on email-side performance (opens/clicks etc) but it is also key to track your email efforts in your analytics platform. This allows you to have much more drilled-down data on subscribers that click through to your site.

For this post, we’ll focus on Google Analytics. Some email platforms will have turn-key integration which makes things effortless on your end as every URL in every email will automatically be appended with tracking parameters specific to your account and send.

However, many email service providers don’t provide integration with Google Analytics, but you can still get the same tracking with a few extra steps:

1. Visit the Google URL Builder

2. Enter in information that is specific to your email program and campaigns (this can be fairly top-level or get drilled down).

3. Generate the URL and copy the appending variables. Example: ?utm_source=ESP1&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=TextLinkA&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_campaign=Feb15thNewsletter

4. Add your tracking code to the end of all links in your email (starting with the ?utm_source=…)

To make it simple, you can create 1 tracking URL to use on every link in a given email send. For a more detailed approach, you can create a different tracking URL for EACH link you have. While this may take some extra time, it can give you some helpful insights on your email efforts.

The much easier solution, however, is to use an ESP (email service provider) that supports integration with Google Analytics. In future posts we will be discussing various ESPs and suggestions for what to look for.

Cheers,

Forest

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Posted in Email Marketing Strategy, Metrics

Do You Know Your Domain Breakdown?

August 6th, 2009

We talk a lot about knowing our customers; developing targeted content; and implementing a rifle or blow dart approach with our email communications. These items and more are all key for an optimal program.

One area often overlooked is having a breakdown of your subscriber’s email domains. Knowing this information can be quite helpful when developing your creative. If you find a large portion on one domain, it may justify segmenting them and developing a separate creative optimized specifically for that domain.

Some email platforms will give you a quick graphic breakdown. If not, you can always do a sort in Excel and manually determine your ratios.

Below are breakdowns from 3 different clients I work with

Here we see some differing stats. In the 1st and 3rd example, Yahoo represents 5.6% at max, while the 2nd client has over 25% of subscribers with Yahoo addresses. We can also see that in the 3rd example at least 22% is represented by education or government addresses.

Looking at these three, I was surprised at the low amount of gmail addresses. We see 9.3% in the 2nd example, but none in the 1st and 3rd!

Takeaways

1. Every list will be different and it’s helpful to know how YOUR list breaks down

2. Knowing this breakdown will aid in testing your email creative on different domains. You should be testing on more than your breakdown, but this can provide priority.

3. If you find a large portion on one domain (25%+), it may justify putting resources into segmenting those users and providing creative optimized specifically for that domain. If you’re list is very small, this will be overkill.

4. Also consider segmenting by domain and testing deliverability. (Note – some email platforms will do this automatically).

Cheers,

Forest

Questions or inputs? Feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

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Posted in B2B, B2C, Design, Email Marketing Strategy, Metrics, Segmentation

Email Testing Equilibrium

July 7th, 2009

We talk a lot about the great benefits of implementing testing strategies with our email efforts. I’ve made multiple references in various posts, and so far have had two dedicated posts on the topic: A/B Subject Line Testing and Email Marketing Testing . Marketers (not just email) LOVE testing. Combine with some juicy analytics and we’re entertained for a long time.

Nothing has changed with the fact that testing should be implemented and will inevitably improve your email marketing efforts. I do feel, however, that there can be a risk of over-testing, or ‘testing burnout,’ if you will. This mostly comes down to available resources a company has and the expected return on marginal testing programs. If we put 10X more resources into testing and only realize an x% increase in sales, our testing program could be producing negative returns.

This has a more costly effect on smaller companies, as the scale of return is much smaller. [The marginal return from an x% increase in open or click rate is much larger for a big company with a list size of 5,000,000 vs. a small company with a list size of 5,000.]

For that small company, testing is indeed important. They need to make improvements to their email marketing efforts and increase sales just like every other company. But at some point a negative return is realized.

Example

Let’s say a small e-commerce site selling backpacks has a list size of 15,000. Their monthly promotional email brings in $1,350 on average. [25% open, 12% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]
This company creates a testing plan that will require an additional 3 hours per month of company resources.
After the test, they increase their metrics to: [28% open, 15% click, 5% conversion, $60 average order]. In this case we see a $540 increase in revenue. Perhaps a decent result for the small e-tailer. Their gross testing return was $180/hour.
Now let’s say they create a testing plan that is more robust and requires an additional 30 hours of company resources each month. (compared to no testing)
After the new testing program, they increase their metrics to: [30% open, 19% click, 6% conversion, $62 average order]. In this case we see an $1,830 increase in revenue. Their gross testing return was $61/hour. Depending on their margins and several other unknown factors, this may or may not be a profitable scenario

These same metrics with a big competitor would have a much different result. e.g. If another company had a list size of 750,000, their marginal return on the last scenario would be $91,530 with a $3,051/hour testing return. Probably quite favorable.

So where do you find that testing equilibrium? It comes down to the unique situation of each business. Regardless of size, start small with your testing program and work up from there. Pay close attention not only to the increased results of your tests, but the amount of resources that go into your various testing programs. Time for different content, designers, approval, segmentation, deployment, review & analysis etc, can add up when you are introducing complex testing strategies.

In the end, you should test to see what testing portfolio is optimal for your email efforts.

Cheers,

Forest Bronzan

Questions or thoughts? Leave a comment or feel free to shoot me an email

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Posted in B2B, B2C, Email Marketing Strategy, Email ROI, Metrics

Email Marketing Testing

June 12th, 2009

In a previous post we talked about a simple approach to A/B Subject Line Testing. Here we take a sample of our list, test 2 (or more) subject lines, and roll out the winning subject line to the remainder of the list. If you have the right email platform, this process can be automated and should be implemented on most sends.

There are of course several other elements besides the subject line that you can be testing. But first, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Why Test?: To get better results. If you are not testing, you are not fully leveraging the email channel and not getting the best return on your efforts. Testing allows us to make incremental improvements to our email metrics. Below is a simplified visual description of the email funnel, where every metric counts. In this example, an additional 3% click through rate would result in 28 additional sales.

2. Be Structured: select a variable to test and keep other variables as constants. You will want to isolate your variable in order to test each variable independently.

3. Create a Plan: Don’t just go in and start testing. Create a structured plan of how you are going to implement your tests and keep detailed records of metrics so you can use the data to make meaningful adjustments to your program.

Some Elements to Test

Subject Line
From Line
Content
Creative
Number of Links
Promotion
HTML vs. Plain Text
Frequency
Time of Day
Day of Week
Pre-Header Content
Text to Image Ratio
Landing Pages
Location of Images
Personalization

With the availability of tools to help us execute our testing strategy, there is no reason email marketers should not have a testing plan in place. Proper testing can help us make key incremental improvements to our marketing programs. If you’re starting out, start small and simple and build up from there. If you are running a sophisticated program, make sure you have a road map in place and system for accountability and measurement.