Sending emails without tracking results is like flying a plane without GPS. You have no idea if you’re headed in the right direction or about to crash and burn. Detailed email marketing reporting is your cockpit guidance system for soaring campaigns. This comprehensive guide explores how to create reports spotlighting high-flyers and trouble areas through metrics, segmentation, visualization, and automation. Whether an analytics newbie or reporting pro, you’ll land proven insights for getting the most from your email efforts. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re about to take off into the exciting world of email marketing analytics!
Why Email Marketing Reporting is Essential
Email marketing can be an incredibly effective channel for engaging with your audience and driving conversions. But like any marketing effort, you need to closely track how your email campaigns are performing to ensure you’re getting the maximum impact.
Robust email marketing reporting is essential for several reasons:
Allows You to Track Campaign Performance and Optimize
Detailed analytics on your email campaigns let you identify what’s working well and what’s falling flat. You can see at a granular level how your subscribers are engaging with your emails.
With this data, you can optimize every element of your campaigns to boost results. Tweaks might include:
- Testing different subject lines
- Refining your content and calls-to-action
- Adjusting the time and day you send emails
- Split testing different designs and layouts
- Personalizing content for different segments
Optimization is a never-ending process in email marketing. The more data you have, the better you can refine your approach for higher open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.
Identify High Performing Campaigns and Repeat Successes
It’s likely that some of your email campaigns will be more successful than others. Detailed reporting allows you to identify your high-flyers.
You can take what’s working well in your top campaigns and replicate it in others. This might be the messaging, offer, design, timing, or segment you’re targeting.
Finding your best campaigns through reporting gives you an email marketing blueprint for repeating their success.
Spot Underperforming Areas That Need Refinement
Just as reporting shows your top performers, it also uncovers those campaigns that aren’t living up to expectations. Maybe open or click-through rates are low, or your CTA isn’t driving conversions.
Whatever the issue, reporting helps you quickly identity problem areas. You can then focus on these campaigns to diagnose why they’re missing the mark so you can make improvements.
Calculate Email Marketing ROI
Ultimately, you need to know if your email efforts are providing a return on investment. Are the costs associated with your email marketing (the platform, design, writing etc) paying off in the form of revenue generated?
Sophisticated reporting ties your email campaigns to bottom-line business growth. You can connect metrics like:
- Subscriber numbers
- Email send volume
- Open and click-through rates
- Landing page visits
- Leads generated
- Customer acquisitions
- Revenue per campaign
This complete picture allows you to confidently calculate your ROI and the value email marketing delivers to your organization.
Key Metrics to Track for Performance & ROI
To enjoy the benefits of reporting outlined above, you need to be tracking the right email marketing metrics. Key data points to capture include:
Number of Subscribers
How many people are signed up to receive your emails represents the size of your audience reach. Monitoring the number of subscribers shows list growth trends.
Sudden drops could indicate an issue with unsubscribe rates you need to address. Growing numbers show your audience acquisition efforts are paying dividends.
Open Rates
The open rate represents the percentage of your subscribers who opened a particular email campaign.
Benchmark open rates vary by industry but are typically between 15-25%. You should strive for higher than the industry averages, continually testing to push open rates up.
Click-Through Rates
The click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of subscribers who clicked on a link within your email once opened.
CTRs of 2-5% are considered decent. Anything above 5% is good, and 10%+ is excellent. High CTRs indicate your content and CTAs are resonating with your audience.
Bounce Rates
Bounces occur when your sent emails do not reach subscribers, either as a hard bounce (invalid email) or soft bounce (inbox is full).
Aim to keep bounces below 5%. High bounce rates harm your sender reputation and deliverability. Tight list hygiene is key to avoiding high bounce rates.
Unsubscribe Rates
Unsubscribe rate shows how many recipients have opted out from your email list. Having this number creep up indicates problems with relevance or email frequency.
World-class email marketers keep unsubscribes below 0.2%. A rate between 0.5-1% is more typical and still respectable. Anything above 2% should cause concern.
Website Traffic
Your emails aim to drive traffic to your website or landing pages. Connecting email sends to site visits in your reporting shows the impact of your campaigns.
Sudden traffic surges after an email likely indicate it was a hit with your audience. Analyzing traffic sources shows how much comes from email vs other channels.
Conversions
The true test of email marketing is how well it converts readers into customers. Your reports should connect emails sent to any desired outcome, such as downloads, sign-ups, purchases, or other goals.
Review conversion rates by campaign to see your top-converting emails. Then apply their success factors (messaging, offer etc) more widely.
Presenting Your Data for Maximum Impact
Once you’re capturing all the vital email performance metrics, the data needs to be compiled into reports stakeholders can easily digest.
Avoid giant spreadsheets of endless statistics. Turn to solutions like DashThis that transform your data into dynamic dashboards with visualizations like:
- Charts plotting trends over time
- Comparison tables to benchmark against KPIs
- Leaderboards ranking top campaigns
- Maps to visualize audience engagement locations
- Custom formulas to model revenue and ROI
This visual presentation keeps recipients engaged as they quickly grasp performance insights. Interactive elements like filters let them dig into details.
Well-designed email marketing reports should focus on communicating campaign impact and areas for improvement. They allow you to spot optimization opportunities and repeat winning tactics to continually refine performance.
Key Email Marketing Metrics to Track
To get the most out of your email marketing efforts, you need to be tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs). There are a few vital email metrics that provide insight into how well your campaigns are performing.
Monitoring these email analytics regularly allows you to identify opportunities to refine your approach for improved results.
Here are the most important email marketing metrics to follow and why they matter.
Number of Subscribers
Your number of email subscribers represents the size of your audience reach. This core metric indicates how many people you can potentially connect with via your email campaigns.
Looking at the growth trend of your email list over time is insightful:
- Sudden drops in subscriber numbers likely mean you have an issue with high unsubscribe rates that needs addressing. This could indicate problems with email relevance, frequency, deliverability, or content quality.
- Steady growth is a sign your audience acquisition efforts like lead gen and email signup campaigns are succeeding. A growing list expands your audience reach.
- Flatlining subscriber growth may signal your audience acquisition tactics need a refresh to attract new signups.
Segmenting your list by demographics, interests, and other attributes can also uncover opportunities to target under-served portions of your audience.
Benchmark numbers to aim for:
- Focus on steadily growing your list month-over-month, rather than getting hung up on specific subscriber number targets.
- Look to industry data to gauge whether your list size is typical, undersized, or oversized compared to competitors.
- Set goals not just for total subscribers, but also the growth rate month-over-month and year-over-year.
Typical size: this varies tremendously based on factors like your industry and business size. As a rough guide:
- Startups: 500-5,000 subscribers
- Small business: 5,000-20,000 subscribers
- Mid-size companies: 20,000-100,000
- Enterprises: 100,000-500,000+
How to increase subscribers:
- Promote your email signups across your website, social media, and other channels
- Offer lead magnets in exchange for emails, such as discounts, content, webinars etc.
- Identify under-represented segments and develop targeted lead acquisition strategies
- Ensure high-quality, relevant content that convinces subscribers to stick around
Open Rates
Open rate shows the percentage of your email subscribers who opened a particular campaign.
For example, if you sent a campaign to 1,000 subscribers and it was opened by 500 people, the open rate is 50%.
This core email metric provides insight into how appealing your email content and subject lines are to subscribers.
Higher open rates mean your subscribers have interest in your message. Lower open rates suggest content that may not resonate.
Benchmarks to aim for:
Open rates vary significantly by industry and individual business. Benchmarks to aim for include:
- B2C: 20-50%+ open rate
- B2B: 10-25%+ open rate
- Non-profits: 25-50%+ open rate
- Ecommerce: 30-60%+ open rate
You should strive for open rates exceeding your industry averages. Anything below 15% may indicate problems grabbing audience attention.
How to improve your open rate:
- Test different subject line phrasings and emojis
- Experiment with subject line personalization using merge tags
- Tweak your email preview text
- Target under-engaged segments with more relevant content
- Send at days/times your audience is most active
- Limit emails to 2-3 per week maximum
- Ensure high-quality, useful content subscribers expect
Click-Through Rates
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of subscribers who clicked on a link or CTA within your email. This measures how compelled recipients are to take action.
For example, if you sent a campaign to 1,000 people, and 50 clicked a link in the email, the CTR is 5%.
Good CTR benchmarks:
- B2C: 2-5%+
- B2B: 0.5-2%+
- Non-profits: 1-5%+
- Ecommerce: 5-10%+
A CTR above 5% typically indicates compelling content and a strong call-to-action. Below 2% suggests your CTAs may need optimization.
How to improve CTR:
- Ensure your CTAs match your offer or content
- Stress the value readers will get by clicking
- Use action verbs like âdownload nowâ or âregister todayâ
- Make CTAs large, colorful, and image-focused
- Place CTAs strategically in your layout
- Limit CTAs to 1-2 key actions per email
- Test CTAs of varying wording and design
Bounce Rates
An email bounce occurs when your sent email does not reach its intended recipient. This damages your sender reputation.
Bounces are either:
- Hard bounces – Permanent failures with bad email addresses
- Soft bounces – Temporary failures like an overloaded inbox
Ideal bounce rate:
Strive for bounce rates under 2% for good deliverability. Rates between 2-5% are typical. Higher than 5% risks hurting sender reputation and placement in spam folders.
Causes of high bounce rates:
- Inaccurate email addresses
- Inactive or unmonitored email accounts
- Full mailboxes over quota
- Overly aggressive emailing frequency
How to reduce bounces:
- Aggressively remove hard bounces and blacklist bad emails
- Nurture soft bounces to re-engage when inboxes open up
- Perform regular list cleaning to weed out inactive emails
- Add new subscribers using double opt-in confirmation
- Limit sending frequency to avoid overwhelming recipients
Note: A high bounce rate early in a campaign may just indicate list cleaning in progress. You would expect the bounce rate to improve once bad emails are removed.
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate shows the percentage of recipients who have opted out of your email list. This measures overall subscriber satisfaction.
For example, if you have 5,000 subscribers, and 100 unsubscribe in a month, your unsubscribe rate is 2%.
Good benchmarks:
- B2C: 0.2-3%+
- B2B: 0.5-2%+
- Non-profits: 0.5-2%+
- Ecommerce: 1-5%+
Under 0.5% is excellent. 0.5-2% is good for most industries. Over 2% indicates dissatisfaction requiring attention.
Causes of high unsubscribes:
- Irrelevant or poorly targeted content
- Too many emails sent per week
- emails focused on promotional pitches over value
- Failure to segment subscribers appropriately
How to reduce unsubscribes:
- Limit send frequency to 2-3 emails per week
- Ensure relevant, personalized content tailored to segments
- Deliver strong value like insights, entertainment, discounts
- Provide an easy unsubscribe option on all emails
- Ask for unsubscribe feedback to diagnose issues
Keeping a pulse on unsubscribe rates diagnoses problems early before churn accelerates.
Website Traffic
A core goal of most email campaigns is driving traffic to your website or landing pages. Tracking this in your reports illustrates the impact of your emails.
Sudden spikes in traffic driven by email marketing indicate a particular campaign hit the mark with engagement. Lower than expected traffic highlights email content failing to entice clicks.
Connecting your email analytics to broader website data also shows the percentage of overall traffic attributable to email vs other channels. This helps you allocate marketing budget efficiently.
Typical results:
The level of traffic driven will vary widely by factors like your industry and size of your list.
As a general benchmark, each campaign should aim to drive 100+ click-throughs at a minimum for small lists, and 500+ for larger lists of over 50k subscribers.
How to increase traffic:
- Ensure your content tees up natural click opportunities
- Use urgency and exclusivity to incentivize clicks
- Place CTAs strategically in easy-to-scan locations
- Send when audiences are actively engaging with email
- Test whether image or text-based CTAs perform better
Website traffic metrics demonstrate the direct impact of your email program. Analyze this data to continuously improve email-driven clicks.
Conversions
The true indicator of email success is how well it converts clicks into business outcomes. This might be:
- Downloads
- Signups
- Lead generation
- Purchases
- Customers acquired
- Or other goals unique to you
Typical benchmarks:
Your conversion rate will vary based on factors like your industry and type of campaign. As a general guide:
- Lead gen: 2-5% conversion rate
- Ecommerce promo: 0.5-2% purchase rate
- Content upgrade: 5-15%+ download rate
Zero in on the targets most relevant to your goals. Avoid vanity metrics like opens and focus on the conversions that impact revenue.
How to boost conversions:
- Ensure your CTAs and landing pages align seamlessly with your promo
- Only target engaged segments likely to convert
- Stress the value readers will receive by taking action
- Limit choices – offer a single CTA focused on your best offer
- Send follow-up emails to re-engage non-converters
Tracking email marketing impact on conversions shows how this channel is contributing to your organization’s bottom line.
Open Rates In-Depth
Now that weâve covered the essential high-level metrics you should track, letâs do a deeper dive on some of the most important KPIs for optimization.
Weâll start with arguably the single most insightful email metric – the open rate.
Definition
Open rate shows the percentage of your recipients who opened a specific email campaign.
For example, if you sent a campaign to 1,000 subscribers, and 500 of them opened it, your open rate is 50%.
It provides immediate feedback on how appealing your subject line and preview text is to your audience. Higher open rates mean youâre grabbing attention.
Typical Benchmarks
Open rate benchmarks vary widely by industry. Here are typical ranges you can aim for:
- B2C: 20-50%+
- B2B: 10-25%+
- Non-profits: 25-50%+
- Ecommerce: 30-60%+
Review competitor and industry averages to identify an aggressive yet realistic target for your business.
How it’s Calculated
Most email services track opens by injecting a tiny invisible tracking pixel into your email body. When a subscriber opens the email, their device downloads this pixel, allowing the open action to be logged.
The precise way this tracking occurs can vary by email platform. But the effect is largely the same.
There are also external factors impacting opens like seasonality, economic conditions, and audience moods. But you can’t control those!
Click-Through Rates In-Depth
Once a subscriber opens your email, the next milestone is getting them to click through to your site or offers. Letâs explore optimizations for the click-through rate metric.
Definition
Click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of opened emails that drive a click to your links.
For example, if you send a campaign to 1,000 subscribers, and itâs opened by 500 people, with 50 clicks, your CTR is 10%.
It indicates how compelling your CTAs and content are at motivating action.
Good vs. Bad CTR
As a general benchmark:
â B2C: 2-5%+ is decent, 10%+ is excellent
â B2B: 0.5-2%+ is average, 5%+ is very good
â Non-profits: 1-5%+ is good
â Ecommerce: 5%+ is average, 10%+ is very strong
CTR below 2% suggests your content or CTA may need adjustment to drive action.
Bounce Rates In-Depth
Now letâs explore bounce rates, including strategies for keeping this email KPI as low as possible.
What is a Bounce?
A bounced email is any sent email that fails to reach the intended recipient’s inbox.
There are two main types:
Hard Bounces: Permanent failures due to things like invalid email addresses. These emails should be removed from your list.
Soft Bounces: Temporary failures such as full inboxes. These may deliver at a future date.
Ideal Bounce Rate
For good deliverability, aim for bounce rates under 2%. Rates between 2-5% are common for most email programs.
Higher than 5% risks damaging your sender reputation and placement in spam.
Causes of High Bounce Rates
Common causes include:
- Inaccurate, misspelled, or false email addresses
- Inactive email accounts no longer monitored
- Overloaded mailboxes over capacity
- Overly aggressive email send frequency
- Cloud service outages impacting the recipient’s domain
Creating an Email Marketing Report
Now that we’ve covered the essential metrics to track, it’s time to pull this all together into a complete email marketing report.
This consolidated view allows you to regularly analyze performance and identify opportunities. You can create email reports manually or use automation tools to save time.
Automated Reporting Tools
While you can use Excel or Google Sheets, it takes significant effort to manually pull data from your email platform into these spreadsheets.
Dedicated reporting tools automate this process to build beautiful, visual reports with just a few clicks. They connect to your email provider and other data sources like Google Analytics to feed real-time data into customizable templates.
Here are some top tools to explore:
DashThis
- Drag and drop custom report builder
- Connects 30+ marketing platforms
- Library of templates including email
- Scheduled report delivery via email
- White label reporting
PorterMetrics
- Pulls email data into Google Data Studio
- 80+ templates for reports and dashboards
- Automated syncing to data sources
- Custom branding and formatting
- Email and PDF distribution
Actiondesk
- Connects databases, CRMs, marketing platforms
- Live spreadsheet builder
- Library of templates by role
- Automated report updates
- Custom formulas and formatting
Databox
- Unified dashboard for all marketing data
- Customizable email reporting templates
- Automated data imports and exports
- Custom formulas and filtering
- Scheduled reports and alerts
Tableau
- Powerful interactive data visualization
- Connects databases, spreadsheets, APIs
- Custom email reports and dashboards
- Cross-channel marketing analytics
- Data preparation tools to refine metrics
Whichever platform you select, ensure it connects your email marketing account and makes reporting intuitive.
Spreadsheet Solutions
You can also create email reports directly in spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets through manual data exports from your email platform.
The benefit is you likely already have these tools and are comfortable using them. Drag and drop charts, pivot tables, formulas, and filtering allow fairly robust analysis and formatting.
The downside is the manual effort of continuous data exports and imports each reporting period to keep your sheet updated. This can become time-consuming at scale.
Spreadsheets work well for smaller brands starting out but become cumbersome as you grow. The risk of errors through manual processes also increases over time.
Essential Report Sections
Whatever reporting tool you select, your email report should include:
Overview Dashboard
This initial dashboard gives a high-level view of all key email metrics in one glance using charts, graphs, and tables. Include subscriber growth, open rates, CTRs, bounces, unsubscribes, traffic, revenue, and conversions here.
Campaign Segmentation
Slice your data by individual campaign to view performance. Look at opens, CTRs, conversions, revenue, and engagement metrics for each one.
Link Analysis
See which links are driving the most clicks in your emails. Identify underperforming links that need updated CTAs.
Geography
Visualize roughly where your email opens and clicks are coming from on a map. See if certain regions respond better.
Email and List Trends
Plot your open rates, CTRs, bounces, traffic etc over time to identify trends and anomalies.
Feedback and Errors
Track bounces, spam complaints, blocked IPs etc to nip deliverability issues in the bud.
Unsubscribe Analysis
Review unsubscribe rates by campaign and for certain demographic segments that have higher churn.
Web Traffic Source
See what percentage of your web traffic is attributable to email vs other channels.
Conversions by Campaign
Connect your email analytics to broader business metrics like signups, leads, and revenue generated.
Visualizing Data
Simply compiling rows and rows of metrics into giant data tables does little to convey insights.
Effective email reports transform this raw data into engaging visualizations that bring your analysis to life.
Dynamic charts allow you to easily spot trends and outliers. Comparison tables benchmark key metrics against goals. Segmentation divides data for deeper analysis.
Some helpful visualizations include:
Time-Series Charts
Plot performance over time to view trends – e.g. a monthly view of revenue driven by your email program.
Comparison Tables
Easily benchmark metrics against past performance or KPI targets – e.g. current subscriber count vs. past year.
Breakdown Charts
Compare segments – e.g. open rates by audience demographic or by campaign type.
Leaderboards
Rank top campaigns by opens, CTR, revenue etc – e.g. top 10 promos by conversion rate.
Conversion Funnels
Visualize how subscribers flow through your conversion funnel from open to click to conversion. Identify drop-off points.
Maps
Plot opens, clicks, and other interactions by geography to see regional engagement variances.
Revenue Charts
Connect email performance to business growth metrics like revenue over time.
Prioritize visual components that allow you to grasp performance at a glance. Avoid walls of text and statistics.
Report Frequency
Deciding how often you need reports comes down to your goals. Monthly cadence is ideal for regular email campaign analysis.
Monthly
Monthly reporting provides a regular snapshot to evaluate campaign performance. It’s frequent enough to spot issues and maintain accountability. But not so frequent that results get fragmented.
Monthly allows reasonable time windows to compile data, segment audiences, identify trends, and test new approaches. It’s the sweet spot for comprehensive email analysis.
Weekly
For focused email blasts around promotional events, new product launches, or campaigns with short time horizons, you may want weekly tracking. It provides a tighter feedback loop to gauge immediate impacts while agilely optimizing.
Quarterly
For executives and stakeholders needing just high-level trend monitoring, quarterly reporting on email performance could suffice. It reduces noise while still providing enough visibility to ensure priorities are met.
Annually
Yearly reports are primarily useful as a recap of aggregated performance. They confirm long-term growth aligned to targets. Short-term optimization is limited at this cadence.
Choose the frequency that aligns to your use cases. Often a multi-tiered approach works best. Monthly for regular analysis, supplemented with weekly for ad hoc campaigns, and quarterly or annually for stakeholders.
Just ensure you are capturing sufficient data to support meaningful improvement while avoiding data overload. Ongoing refinement of reports is key to their long-term value.
Successful Email Marketing Campaign Analysis
Robust email reports give you the data. But turning these metrics into insights requires thorough analysis and segmentation.
Approaching your data with a critical eye helps you spot optimization opportunities and repeat your successes.
Here are key areas to focus your email marketing campaign analysis.
Segment Your Data
One of the biggest mistakes in email reporting is looking solely at overall averages. This generalized view hides what’s working and what’s not.
You need to divide your data into segments to spot variances. Campaign performance often differs significantly based on factors like:
Campaign Type
Compare the metrics for specific types of email campaigns you send – welcome series, promotions, newsletters, cart abandonment etc.
Maybe promotions convert well but your newsletters have low engagement? Identify which campaign formats resonate so you can adjust your mix accordingly.
Audience
Divide your data by audience segments – perhaps by demographics like industry, geography, age groups etc.
Doing so may reveal certain segments with low open rates that need specialized content. Or high-value segments driving conversions you should nurture.
Send Day and Time
Look at performance by day and time of send. Do Monday morning or Friday afternoon emails garner higher click rates?
The “right” send time can vary for different segments. Optimize these delivery times for maximum impact.
Email Purpose
Group campaigns sent for a specific purpose – like lead gen, engagement, re-activation etc.
See if emails aligned to each purpose are furthering your goals as expected. If not, refine your approach.
Topic/Content
Compare broad content themes and topics. Perhaps product update emails drive traffic while industry tips engage longer?
Align future content to match high-performing areas.
Analyzing metrics by these segmentations spotlights your best-performing subgroups and where more refinement is needed.
Segment Strategically
You can segment data endlessly but it’s important to remain focused. Start by analyzing groups that support key business goals like:
- Identifying your high-value customers
- Figuring out which campaign types or topics resonate most
- Determining the best send days/times
- Seeing if certain content underperforms with a segment
- Finding which segments drive the most conversions
Let business priorities guide your segmentation. Avoid data overkill causing confusion.
Compare and Learn
The power of segmentation analysis lies in comparison. Look for notable variances between segments that inform strategy like:
- Significant open or click-through rate differences
- Changes in conversion rates or revenue per segment
- Unexpected trends around days, times, frequency etc
- Changes in engagement over time
Uncovering these insights then guides decisions:
- Tailor content and creative per segment
- Shift budget and sends toward high-performing segments
- Refine poor performing elements like subject lines
- Adjust cadence based on frequency engagement peaks
- Test new segments that indicate opportunity
Use segmentation to continually refine who you target, how, and when you engage them.
Benchmark Against Past Performance
While an isolated snapshot of campaign metrics is helpful, the trends over time provide greater context.
Comparing against past performance unveils the trajectory you’re on.
Month-on-Month
A simple but powerful benchmark is tracking performance month-by-month.
Look at core metrics like open rate, CTR, conversions etc and see if you’re improving, declining, or stagnant.
This quickly shows the impact of changes you’ve made and helps you course correct if needed.
Year-Over-Year
Compare performance on a year-over-year basis to factor out any monthly seasonality.
Look at metrics for an individual month and see if they’ve grown over the same month last year.
This illuminates the long-term trajectory of your email program and whether innovations are moving the needle.
Lagging Metrics?
If certain metrics lag despite your efforts, look deeper:
- Are you targeting disengaged segments that dilute overall performance?
- Does the subscriber list need refreshing to remove inactive emails?
- Are you sending at low-response days or times for segments?
- Has engagement dropped against competing channels like social media?
- Are audiences overwhelmed by send frequency or content irrelevance?
- Are technical issues impacting deliverability and placement in spam?
Use benchmarking to diagnose issues holding performance back.
Leading Metrics?
If major metrics have suddenly popped, look at potential reasons:
- Did you activate new high-converting segments?
- Have you expanded relevant content themes that resonate?
- Are promotions or exclusives incentivizing action?
- Has tight list hygiene expanded reach to more qualified emails?
- Are shifts in send times/days aligning with audience behaviors?
Understand what’s fueling wins so it can be amplified.
Benchmarking provides the context needed to make smarter optimization decisions.
Analyze Trends and Changes
Beyond isolated metrics and period-over-period comparisons, analyzing trends over time is invaluable.
You spot patterns that highlight what’s working along with anomalies needing correction.
Here are some of the key trend analyses to incorporate:
Changes in Engagement Rates
Plot open and click-through rates on a rolling basis. Look for any upward or downward trajectory.
Rising rates signal you’re honing your messaging and segments. Falling can mean fatigue from oversending or decreased relevance.
Major shifts up or down for a specific campaign can highlight areas to double down on or re-evaluate.
Traffic Peaks and Troughs
Graph your website traffic driven by email over time. Look for any peaks or valleys.
Spikes likely indicate a successful promotion or hot content area. Valleys can signal potential issues around relevance, deliverability, or engagement.
Traffic trends show how email is impacting broader company goals.
Changes in Conversion Rates
View email conversions rates over time encompassing sales, leads, sign-ups etc. Rising rates show gains in email effectiveness.
Look for changes tied to impactful segmentation or content then amplify those approaches.
Engagement by Segment
Zero in on open, click-through, complaint rates etc for each of your core segments.
Watch for segments disengaging that need tailored re-activation campaigns.
Introducing New Segments
Pay attention to how new segments you activate perform over time.
Give new segments time to optimize results before drawing final conclusions.
Performance by Send Time
Watch open, click and conversion rates by the days and times you send. Detect any trends around days seeing lower engagement that could influence future delivery.
Bounce Rate Fluctuations
Look at your bounce rates over time, by segment, and after sends. Spikes warn of potential deliverability issues or inactive subscribers reaching thresholds triggering bounces.
Complaint Rate Changes
Keep an eye on spam complaints over time and after specific sends. Rising complaints suggest refinements needed to avoid overly promotional content.
Unsubscribe Rate Shifts
Graph unsubscribe rates over time. Look for any upward trend which can be an early indicator of disengagement you need to counter through more relevant communication.
Careful trend analysis provides rich clues on how to further optimize every facet of your email approach. The insights uncovered are gold for continually improving performance.
Presenting Reports to Stakeholders
You’ve compiled all the data and run your analysis. Now it’s time to package it into a polished report to share with stakeholders.
Avoid simply dumping spreadsheets of metrics on them. With thoughtful formatting and distribution, your reports become an asset driving strategy aligned to business goals.
Here are tips for presenting email reports effectively.
Opt for Dynamic Dashboards Over Static Reports
Giant tables of data or pages of printed reports have limited impact. They are laborious to navigate with insights buried.
For maximum impact, transform your email data into interactive dashboards. Solutions like DashThis, Tableau, Google Data Studio and more compile your metrics into customizable dashboards with dynamic visualizations.
Benefits of interactive dashboards include:
Easier Data Consumption
Charts, graphs, maps etc allow users to grasp performance faster than scanning tabular data.
Segmentation and Filtering
Slice data on the fly by segments or date ranges for ad hoc analysis.
Drill-Down Capabilities
Click into charts to explore underlying data driving visualizations.
Custom Formatting
Tailor branding, color schemes, layouts and more to match internal tools.
Access Control
Limit visibility through role-based permissions to only those that need it.
Real-Time Updates
Data stays current via automated syncing rather than static snapshots.
Distribution
Seamlessly share or schedule report delivery to users.
The interactivity empowers users to self-serve insights on demand.
Make Metrics Visual
Even interactive dashboards overloaded with dense tables lose impact. Maximizing visual components keeps stakeholders engaged in the data.
Charts Over Tables
Graphs and charts better illustrate trends, outliers, and segmentation. Tables support drilling deeper.
Comparison Graphics
Easily contrast metrics against goals, past performance, or other benchmarks.
Segment Variances Visually
Use color coded graphs to highlight performance differences across segments for easy digestion.
Map Geographical Performance
Plots by region allow rapid performance diagnosis by geography.
Plot Impact Over Time
Timelines bring traffic, revenue, and engagement fluctuations to light.
Prioritize Key Drivers
Keep visual focus on 2-3 most critical metrics aligned to goals vs. full data overload.
The optimal balance of visuals, tables, and explanatory text simplifies analysis.
Match Branding for Custom Reports
For agencies or internal teams, apply custom branding so reports match internal standards and styles. This might entail:
Color Schemes
Use brand color codes for charts, backgrounds etc to align with style guides.
Logo Placement
Insert company or client logos into headers to reinforce brands.
Custom Templates
Leverage report templates matching branding as a starting point.
Font Selection
Apply brand fonts and typography for cohesive look.
Report Naming
Give reports titles that resonate internally vs. vendor defaults.
Consistent branding increases familiarity and perceptions of accuracy while embedding reports into workflows.
Schedule for Convenience
Rather than one-off distribution or forcing stakeholders to login to tools, scheduled report automation is ideal.
Options like DashThis, Tableau, and Data Studio allow one-click emailing of reports on daily, weekly, or monthly cadence.
Benefits include:
Push vs Pull Access
Reports come to users automatically rather than requiring portal login.
One-time Setup
Set schedules then relax as reports are pushed on cue without ongoing work.
Limit Ad Hoc Requests
Automation reduces random requests as data is reliably delivered.
Flexibility
Schedule different reports for different users on customized schedules based on needs.
Set, and occasionally revisit, automated schedules that align to internal processes for efficiency.
Implement Access Controls
For sensitive data, limit report access through access controls and permissioning. There are a few options available:
User Role Permissions
Assign report access to specific user roles like executives, managers, analysts etc.
Report-Level Controls
On dashboards supporting it, restrict access to only designated reports.
User Management
Designate specific named users able to view reports while limiting all others.
Password Protection
Add passwords for sensitive reports to further restrict visibility.
Applied thoughtfully, these options carefully control visibility of confidential data.
Reporting Tool Comparison
When selecting tools to build reports and dashboards, explore platforms offering:
DashThis
- Hundreds of pre-built report templates
- Drag and drop customization
- Scheduled email delivery
- Access permissions
- Connects all marketing data
Tableau
- Interactive data visualization
- Automated syncing to various data sources
- Role-based dashboard permissions
- Custom branding and formatting
- Filters, drill-downs, and other controls
Google Data Studio
- Pulls data from Google products (GA, Ads etc)
- Connects to other databases and APIs
- Build custom dashboards
- Email PDFs or set access permissions
- Free to use
Geckoboard
- TV dashboard visualizations
- Custom widgets and templates
- Access controls and user management
- Refresh data automatically
- Integrates CRM, analytics, and marketing data
Explore all options to find the right fit based on data sources, customization needs, and team access considerations.
Key Takeaways
- Email marketing reporting provides visibility into campaign performance to drive optimization. Key metrics to track include opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, traffic, and conversions.
- Robust segmentation is essential to divide data by campaign type, audience, content topics, send times, and other cuts. This reveals variances to inform targeting and personalization.
- Regularly benchmark against past performance to gauge the trajectory of your efforts month-over-month and year-over-year.
- Carefully analyze trends in engagement, traffic, conversions, and bounce rates over time to identify opportunities as well as potential issues.
- Consolidate your metrics into dynamic, visual dashboards leveraging charts, graphs, leaderboards, and geographical maps for stakeholder reporting.
- Automate report delivery through scheduled emails to provide data consistently without ongoing work. Apply custom branding and access controls to match internal needs.
- Thorough email marketing reporting eliminates guesswork through data-driven insights that support audience segmentation, engagement optimization, and maximizing ROI.
Robust analytics help move email marketing from a spray-and-pray approach to a laser-focused strategy tailored to business goals. Detailed tracking and rigorous analysis transforms email into a high-impact channel driving measurable growth. Use these reporting best practices to unlock email’s full potential.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the key email marketing metrics I should track?
The most important metrics to track are: opens, click-through rate, bounces, unsubscribes, website traffic, and conversions. Segmenting these by campaign type, audience, and other cuts provides deeper insights.
How often should I create email reports?
Monthly reporting cadence is best for regular optimization. Weekly reports can support short special promotions. Quarterly or annual reporting provides high-level performance trends.
What should I include in my email reports?
Reports should cover open rates, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, traffic, revenue, conversions, segmentation, benchmarking, trends, and optimization opportunities. Focus on actionable insights over data overload.
How do I create email reports?
Use automated reporting tools like DashThis, Tableau, or Google Data Studio to quickly transform metrics into visual reports. Or export data from your email platform into Excel or Google Sheets for manual analysis.
How do I present email reports to stakeholders?
Share interactive dashboards featuring visualizations like charts and graphs. Schedule automated report delivery via email. Apply custom branding and access controls.
How do I improve low open or click rates?
Test different subject lines, content topics, designs, calls-to-action, and send times. Ensure targeted, relevant messaging for each subscriber segment. Address deliverability issues impacting inbox placement.
How do I reduce high bounce rates?
Continuously remove hard bounces and blacklist bad emails. Watch for unusual spikes indiciating deliverablity issues after sends. Throttle send frequency and nurture soft bounces. Tighten list hygiene.
Why are my unsubscribe rates increasing?
High unsubscribe rates often mean irrevelant content or overly promotional emails. Ensure targeted content for each subscriber segment. Limit send frequency to 2-3 emails weekly at most. Communicate value in every email.
How do I calculate the ROI of my email marketing program?
Connect email volume, costs, open and click rates to leads generated, customers acquired, and revenue attributed. Factor in performance by segment. Baseline against other marketing channels.
How can I improve email deliverability?
Carefully manage list hygiene. Throttle send frequency. Monitor and address complaints quickly. Ensure quality content subscribers expect. Authenticate your domain including SPF/DKIM.