Email Analytics, Understanding Email Metrics, KPIs, and CASL

Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion.

Email Analytics

Email Provider Analytics

Reporting

CASL & GDPR Compliance

Email Analytics

Understanding Email Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

The Importance of Email Analytics

Email marketing is not just about sending emails; it’s about understanding how your audience interacts with your content and leveraging that knowledge to optimize future campaigns. By harnessing the power of email analytics, marketers can unlock valuable insights that drive success and ensure their campaigns resonate with recipients on a deeper level.

Discuss the alignment of email and the strategic/goal hierarchy.
Explain how email analytics allow marketers to measure the performance of their email campaigns in real-time.
Highlight how email analytics provide valuable insights into audience behavior, preferences, and interests.

The Importance of Email Analytics

Key Components

Insights: Email analytics provide insights into the performance of your email campaigns. This includes the ‘out-of-sights’ when available.

Improve Results: Understanding metrics and KPIs helps in making informed decisions to improve engagement, conversion rates, and ROI.
Optimization: It enables marketers to refine strategies, personalize content, and enhance overall campaign effectiveness.

Explore how email analytics enable marketers to test different email elements, such as subject lines, copy, images, and calls-to-action.
Emphasize the importance of measuring the return on investment (ROI) of email marketing campaigns using analytics.
Explain how email analytics enable marketers to optimize campaign performance over time through continuous monitoring and iteration.

Discuss the concept of A/B testing and how it helps marketers identify the most effective content and design variations to improve campaign performance.

The Starting Point

Need For Goals Within Email

As always, understand your goals first – then you’ll know what data to look for within email and assess whether or not you’re meeting them.

Connecting Metrics

Discuss how the metrics that really matter are what revolves around outcome-based activity
Discuss that there are metrics you watch as a marketer to optimize that may fall outside of that purview.

Clear the Clutter With WAMM

There are too many metrics. Clear through the clutter using a measurement Model

Common Email Metrics

Common Marketing Metrics

Open Rate: Percentage of recipients who opened the email.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of recipients who clicked on any link within the email.

Conversion Rate: Percentage of recipients who completed a desired action after clicking through the email (e.g., making a purchase, signing up).

Bounce Rate: Percentage of emails that were not successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes.

Unsubscribe Rate: Percentage of recipients who opted out of receiving future emails.
Forward/Share Rate: Percentage of recipients who forwarded or shared the email with others

Discuss how analytics data can guide decisions about audience targeting, content creation, timing, frequency, and segmentation to maximize campaign ROI.

Advanced Email Metrics

Additional Metrics

Email Deliverability: Measure of how successfully emails are delivered to recipients’ inboxes, taking into account factors like spam complaints and sender reputation.

List Growth Rate: Rate at which your email list is growing or shrinking over a specific period.

Engagement Metrics: Metrics like time spent reading emails, interaction with various elements (e.g., videos, buttons), and social media shares.

Revenue per Email: Average revenue generated from each email campaign.
Email Client and Device Metrics: Insights into which email clients and devices recipients use to open emails, helping optimize email design and rendering.

Explore how email analytics allow marketers to benchmark their performance against industry standards and competitors.
Discuss the value of monitoring industry trends and best practices revealed through analytics data to stay informed and competitive in the marketplace.

The Link Between Email and Other Analytics

Integrating email with other analytics provides a comprehensive, Web Analytics 2.0 understanding of user behavior across digital channels. By combining email data with web analytics, social media metrics, and CRM systems, businesses gain insights into the complete customer journey. This enables targeted campaigns, personalized content strategies, and predictive modeling for better outcomes. In short, linking email with other analytics optimizes decision-making and enhances customer experiences.

This integration enables marketers to track the entire customer journey, from the initial email open to website visits, social media interactions, and ultimately, conversions. Analyzing this interconnected data allows for more targeted and personalized email campaigns, optimized content strategies, and better understanding of customer needs and interests. Moreover, by leveraging advanced analytics techniques such as segmentation and predictive modeling, businesses can identify trends, anticipate future behavior, and tailor their email marketing efforts accordingly. Overall, linking email with other analytics tools empowers organizations to make data-driven decisions, enhance customer experiences, and drive measurable results.

Key Performance Indicators

When Does a Metric Turn Into a KPI?

A metric becomes a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) when it is specifically chosen to gauge the performance or success of a particular aspect of a business or campaign.

Common KPIs For Email

Common Business/Marketing Metrics Used as KPIs

ROI (Return on Investment): Measure of the profitability of your email marketing efforts.

Subscriber Engagement: Overall engagement levels of your email subscribers, including open rates, CTRs, and conversions.

List Growth Rate: Indicates the health of your email list and the effectiveness of your acquisition and retention strategies.

Conversion Rate: Measure of how effectively your emails are driving desired actions, such as purchases or sign-ups.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Predicted revenue a customer will generate over their entire relationship with your brand, influenced by email marketing efforts.

Email execution is the phase where strategic planning transforms into actionable and impactful campaigns, involving the actual creation, delivery, and management of emails.

Integration with Overall Marketing Strategy:

Reinforcing the importance of aligning email execution with broader marketing initiatives for a cohesive and synchronized approach across various channels.
Consistency in Branding:
Ensuring that email execution maintains consistency in branding, messaging, and visual elements to reinforce the brand identity throughout the customer experience.
Adaptability and Responsiveness:
Emphasizing the need for adaptability in email execution to respond to changing market dynamics, customer preferences, and emerging trends.

Best Practices For Email Analytics

Goals: Establish clear goals and objectives for your email campaigns that align with higher goals.
Segmentation: Segment your email list based on demographics, behaviors, or preferences for actionable insights.
Test: A/B test different elements of your emails to identify what resonates best with your audience.
Monitor: Regularly monitor and analyze email metrics to identify trends and areas for improvement.
Optimize: Continuously optimize your email campaigns based on insights gained from analytics.

Emphasize the iterative nature of email marketing optimization and the importance of continuous improvement based on analytics data.
Encourage students to develop a mindset of experimentation and iteration, testing new ideas and strategies to refine and optimize campaign performance over time.

Email Analytics

Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing channels, but success requires careful analysis of various metrics.

Email Provider Analytics

Email Service Provider Analytics

Email provider analytics refers to the data and insights provided by email service providers (ESPs) or email marketing platforms regarding the performance of email campaigns. These analytics offer valuable information to marketers, enabling them to assess the effectiveness of their email marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions to optimize future campaigns.

ESP Common Metrics

Marketing Focused

Delivery Metrics
Engagement Metrics
Device and Client Metrics
Geolocation Metrics

Business Focused

Conversion Metrics
Subscriber Metrics
Behavioural Metrics
Qualitative Feedback

ESP Common Metrics

Delivery Metrics: These metrics provide insights into the delivery of emails, including delivery rates, bounce rates (both hard and soft bounces), and inbox placement rates. They help marketers understand how many emails were successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes.

Engagement Metrics: Engagement metrics measure how recipients interact with emails. Key engagement metrics include open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates. These metrics indicate the effectiveness of email subject lines, content, and calls-to-action.

Subscriber Metrics: Subscriber metrics provide information about the health of the email list, such as subscriber growth rate, churn rate (unsubscribe rate), and list growth sources. These metrics help marketers assess the quality of their subscriber base and the effectiveness of acquisition and retention strategies.

Behavioural Metrics: Behavioural metrics track recipients’ actions within emails, such as time spent reading emails, interaction with different elements (e.g., links, images), and social media shares. These metrics offer insights into recipients’ interests and preferences, enabling marketers to tailor content and messaging accordingly.

Conversion Metrics: Conversion metrics measure the outcomes of email campaigns, such as the number of purchases, sign-ups, or other desired actions taken by recipients. These metrics help assess the overall effectiveness of email campaigns in driving desired results and return on investment (ROI).

Device and Client Metrics: These metrics provide information about the devices and email clients used by recipients to open emails. Understanding device and client preferences helps optimize email design and rendering for better user experience.
Geolocation Metrics: Geolocation metrics show where recipients are located when they engage with emails. This information can be valuable for segmenting audiences based on location and targeting campaigns accordingly.

Dashboard Types

Performance Dashboards: This type of dashboard focuses on key performance metrics related to email campaigns
Engagement Dashboards: This dashboard delves deeper into subscriber engagement metrics
Audience Dashboards: This type of dashboard allows you to segment your email audience based on various criteria
Deliverability Dashboards: This dashboard focuses on email deliverability metrics
Revenue and Conversion Dashboards: This dashboard tracks the revenue generated from email campaigns and conversion metrics
Testing Dashboards: This dashboard allows you to track the results of A/B tests conducted

Dashboard Types

Performance Dashboard: This type of dashboard focuses on key performance metrics related to email campaigns, such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates. It provides a quick overview of how well your emails are performing and allows you to track trends over time.

Engagement Dashboard: This dashboard delves deeper into subscriber engagement metrics, including metrics like email interactions (opens, clicks), time spent reading emails, email forwarding rates, and social media sharing. It helps you understand how engaged your audience is with your email content and identify opportunities for improvement.

Audience Segmentation Dashboard: This type of dashboard allows you to segment your email audience based on various criteria such as demographics, behavior, preferences, and purchase history. It helps you tailor your email campaigns to specific audience segments for better targeting and personalization.

Deliverability Dashboard: This dashboard focuses on email deliverability metrics, including inbox placement rates, spam complaint rates, and email authentication status (e.g., SPF, DKIM, DMARC). It helps you monitor and improve the deliverability of your email campaigns to ensure they reach subscribers’ inboxes.

- Revenue and Conversion Dashboard: This dashboard tracks the revenue generated from email campaigns and conversion metrics such as conversion rates, average order value, and return on investment (ROI). It helps you measure the impact of your email marketing efforts on overall business goals and optimize for better results.

A/B Testing Dashboard: This dashboard allows you to track the results of A/B tests conducted on different elements of your email campaigns, such as subject lines, content, calls-to-action, and send times. It helps you identify which variations perform best and make data-driven decisions to improve future campaigns.

Individual Email Dashboards

An individual email dashboard offers a focused view of a specific email campaign’s performance metrics and engagement data.

This dashboard enables marketers to assess the effectiveness of their email content, design, and targeting strategies on a granular level, facilitating iterative improvements and optimizations for future campaigns.

Examples

A few example dashboards from Mailchimp, Looker Studio, and more.

Examples

Email A/B test

Examples

Dashboard

What We Get From All This?

By analyzing these email provider analytics, marketers can gain valuable insights into the performance of their email campaigns, identify areas for improvement, and optimize strategies to enhance engagement, conversion rates, and overall campaign effectiveness

Reporting

Email Reporting

Reporting options for email campaigns vary depending on the email service provider (ESP) or email marketing platform used. However, most platforms offer a range of reporting features to help marketers analyze the performance of their email campaigns effectively.

Here are some common reporting options available:

Email Reporting

Here are some common reporting options available:

Dashboard Overview: Many email marketing platforms provide a dashboard overview that summarizes key metrics at a glance. This includes metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, delivery rates, and more.
Campaign Performance Reports: Detailed campaign performance reports offer insights into the performance of individual email campaigns. These reports typically include metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and overall engagement metrics.

A/B Testing Reports: For campaigns that utilize A/B testing, reporting options often include comparative analysis between different variations of the email. This allows marketers to see which version performed better based on key metrics.

List Growth and Management Reports: Reports on list growth and management provide insights into the health of the email list. This includes metrics such as subscriber growth rate, churn rate, list segmentation performance, and sources of list growth.

Engagement Reports: Engagement reports offer insights into how recipients interact with email content. This includes metrics such as time spent reading emails, interaction with different elements (e.g., links, images), social media shares, and forward/share rates.

Conversion Tracking Reports: Conversion tracking reports measure the outcomes of email campaigns, such as the number of conversions (e.g., purchases, sign-ups) attributed to email campaigns. These reports help assess the effectiveness of campaigns in driving desired actions.

Device and Client Reports: Device and client reports provide information about the devices and email clients used by recipients to open emails. This helps marketers optimize email design and rendering for better user experience across different devices and platforms.

Geolocation Reports: Geolocation reports show where recipients are located when they engage with emails. This information can be valuable for segmenting audiences based on location and targeting campaigns accordingly.

Custom Reports: Some email marketing platforms offer the ability to create custom reports tailored to specific metrics and KPIs relevant to your business goals. This allows for more in-depth analysis and customization of reporting options.

Reporting Option 1

Generic and custom reports are available directly from each email provider. This can cover individual emails, audience data, or account data in aggregate.

Reporting Option 2

Data from emails can be exported from the email service provider and used in various forms. This can be brought into excel reports, analytics reporting tools, or other for full customization

Reporting Option 3

Data from email providers can be connected to tools such as Looker Studio, Power BI, or CRM tools (i.e. HubSpot) to buildout reports.

Reporting Option 4

Combining data from email providers with your other important information from website data to create custom reports to specifications of your organization.

CASL & GDPR Compliance

Understanding Compliance

CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliance both entail adhering to specific regulations governing electronic communication and data privacy. Here’s what compliance with each regulation generally entails:

Protecting user privacy
Avoiding legal penalties and fines
Building trust with customers

CASL

Canada’s anti-spam legislation

Enacted in 2014, CASL regulates commercial electronic messages (CEMs) in Canada. It requires consent for sending CEMs and specifies requirements for identification and contact information within these messages. Additionally, CASL mandates clear unsubscribe mechanisms to ensure recipients have the option to opt-out of further communications.

Explain that CASL is designed to combat spam, protect the privacy and security of electronic communications, and promote trust and confidence in the online marketplace.
Discuss the scope of CASL, which applies to any CEM sent to or from Canada, regardless of where the sender is located.

CASL Compliance

Consent: Obtaining explicit consent before sending commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to Canadian recipients. Consent must be clear, freely given, and easily revocable.

Identification: Including accurate identification information, such as the sender’s name and contact details, in all CEMs.

Unsubscribe Mechanism: Providing recipients with a clear and easily accessible unsubscribe mechanism in every CEM. Once a recipient opts out, their request must be honored promptly.

Content Requirements: Ensuring that all CEMs contain clear and accurate information about the purpose of the message and any offers or promotions being advertised.
Record-Keeping: Maintaining records of consent, including how and when it was obtained, to demonstrate compliance if requested.

Highlight the importance of obtaining consent before sending CEMs under CASL.
Explain that CASL requires senders to obtain express or implied consent from recipients before sending commercial messages, and that consent must be documented and verifiable.
In some instances, consent can be expressed for a short period of two years.
Provide guidance on how businesses can comply with CASL and avoid violations.

CASL Penalties

Non-compliance with CASL can lead to significant penalties. Individuals and businesses may face fines of up to $1 million and $10 million, respectively. Moreover, there is potential for personal liability among directors and officers, underscoring the importance of understanding and adhering to CASL regulations to avoid legal repercussions.

Discuss the enforcement mechanisms and penalties for non-compliance with CASL.
Explain that violations of CASL can result in significant fines and penalties for individuals and organizations, including fines of up to $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses.

GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enforced in 2018, is a comprehensive data privacy regulation applicable to organizations processing personal data of individuals within the European Union (EU). GDPR mandates lawful, fair, and transparent processing of data, requiring organizations to obtain valid consent and provide clear information about data processing activities. It grants individuals robust rights over their personal data, including the right to access, rectify, and erase data.

Explain that the GDPR was designed to enhance data protection and privacy rights for individuals within the EU and European Economic Area (EEA).
Discuss the broad scope of the GDPR, which applies to the processing of personal data by businesses and organizations operating within the EU/EEA, as well as those outside the region that offer goods or services to EU/EEA residents or monitor their behavior.
Highlight the key principles of the GDPR, including lawfulness, fairness, and transparency in data processing; purpose limitation; data minimization; accuracy; storage limitation; integrity and confidentiality; and accountability.

GDPR Compliance

Lawful Basis for Processing: Ensuring that there is a legitimate reason (lawful basis) for processing personal data of individuals within the European Union (EU). This may include obtaining consent, fulfilling a contract, complying with legal obligations, protecting vital interests, performing tasks carried out in the public interest, or pursuing legitimate interests.

Transparency and Fairness: Providing individuals with clear and understandable information about how their personal data will be processed, including purposes, legal basis, and rights. This information should be communicated through easily accessible privacy notices or statements.

Data Subject Rights: Respecting the rights of individuals regarding their personal data, including the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, object to processing, data portability, and not be subject to automated decision-making.

Data Security and Minimization: Implementing appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of personal data and minimize the collection and storage of unnecessary data.
Data Breach Notification: Notifying relevant supervisory authorities and affected individuals without undue delay in the event of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Discuss the lawful bases for processing personal data under the GDPR, including consent, contract performance, legal obligation, vital interests, public task, and legitimate interests.
Discuss the data protection measures required by the GDPR, including data protection impact assessments (DPIAs), data protection by design and by default, data breach notification requirements, and the appointment of data protection officers (DPOs) in certain cases.
Explain that organizations must implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of personal data.

GDPR

GDPR imposes strict data security requirements, necessitating measures to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal data. Failure to comply with GDPR can result in severe penalties, including fines of up to €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is higher. Additionally, non-compliance may lead to reputational damage and loss of customer trust, emphasizing the critical importance of GDPR compliance for organizations handling EU citizens’ data.

Explain that organizations must have a lawful basis for processing personal data and that consent must be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.
1. Discuss the enforcement mechanisms and penalties for non-compliance with the GDPR.
2. Explain that violations of the GDPR can result in significant fines and penalties, including fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover, whichever is higher.

In Closing

In closing, email analytics are crucial for maximizing the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. By understanding key metrics and KPIs, marketers can refine strategies, enhance engagement, and drive better results. Remember to consistently analyze data, test new approaches, and adapt strategies to meet the evolving needs and preferences of your audience. Ensuring that you are following the legal compliance for email will help you to stay within the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable practice and help you avoid any potential pitfalls.