Now that you’ve created the ideal email sequence, what next? Sending an email blast to test it, right?
You’re half right. Yes, you’ll drive traffic back to your site and (hopefully) convert that traffic into leads and customers. But how can you tell which of your email campaigns was successful?
Do you really know what happens after those emails are sent? Did it end up in the recipient’s inbox or spam folder? Did they open it and click on any links? If you are focused on your email numbers i.e. open rates and click-throughs, most email service providers can give you that data.
If you want to know a bit more about how the recipient interacts with your email, use your Google Analytics. Last week, we showed you how to generate tracking codes using GA’s UTM feature. The Google URL builder allows you build UTM codes that you can append to different email elements to test their efficacy. Using the UTM feature, webmasters can track their campaigns, leading to a better understanding of which methods work, which don’t and which to tweak.
The Google Analytics dashboard allows webmasters label and organize their email campaigns, making it easier to analyse marketing results. Webmasters can measure the impact of their email campaigns in one of three ways.
With an email campaign deployed and allowed to run for a week or two, it’s time for a quick analysis.
1. Log into your Analytics dashboard, go to Acquisition → Campaigns.
The table shows how many visits the campaign delivered to selected pages, how long visitors stayed, how many pages visitors visited and the bounce rate. This high level view can help spot failing campaigns quickly.
2. Another way to spot your winning campaigns is to check the conversions thus far. In the lower right of your Campaigns page, there’s a Conversions dropdown box. Select which goal you’d like to measure, e.g. newsletter subscribers, purchases, contact form submissions etc.
The selected goal will be displayed as a separate column in the GA dashboard. This information can also be used to track which blog posts visitors interact the most with, and spot your winners.
3. Webmasters can use the Advanced Segment filter in GA to further organize visitor data across all standard Analytics reports.
- In the Audience Overview window, click on the Add Segment box in the top right.
- Create a filter based on the information you want to see.
- Name the campaign medium of the new segment – Email
- In the left menu, select Traffic Sources → Medium → Exactly Matches → type ’email’.
- Save the filter and apply it to your reports.
This filter ensures that every report showing visitor stats has a section, showing how many of them came through an email campaign.
Note: When using the Advanced Segment option, always set the medium to ’email’.
Now, with Campaign Tracking (via UTMs) and email traffic set up as an Advanced Segment, you can examine any report in Google Analytics to see the effect your email marketing. Three of the best reports to help you understand this are:
The Real Time Report: – After sending an email to your list, you can watch visitors start to click through your site in real time. To access this option, in the Reporting Tab, select Real-Time then Traffic Sources and Email.
The report generated shows how many visitors are on the site that came through the email campaigns specified.
The Campaign Report:- This allows you compare campaigns with one another, helping you weed out non-performing ones. It displays campaigns by how many visits (sessions) and visitors(users) they generate.
- To access this report, turn on the Advanced Segment filter (with campaign medium set to email) → Acquisition.
- Select Campaigns.
- Sort the table generated by clicking the Campaigns link above it. This sorts the table by the highest to lowest performing campaigns.
Using the Overview Report, webmasters can also compare the impact of email campaigns versus other marketing efforts. With the Advanced Segment filter set to display the campaign medium as email, select Audience → Overview.
In the view generated, you can see how many visits and uniques were delivered. You can compare this to the metrics of other mediums like social or search, using more Advanced Search filters.
Linking Google Analytics to marketing efforts provides a 10,000 foot view of what works.
By comparing different email campaigns, different elements, different marketing channels, businesses can find which marketing their ideal audience responds to. Knowing what works even before a campaign starts is an invaluable tool inn any marketing arsenal, wouldn’t you agree?
Curious to know what works for YOUR market? Let Search and More dig into your Analytics and help you understand what drives people to your site. We can help your business tap into the full power of Google Analytics, if you contact us today.
