Unlocking the Secrets of Your Email Stats

You craft an awesome email blast. Your subject line couldn't be better. You click send. And then you check your email stats. With all of those numbers and percentages, where should you even begin?

If you log in to the back end of your email program, whether it's Aweber or Constant Contact or Infusionsoft, you're faced with a variety of different numbers and statistics.

When selecting your most recently-sent email blast, you'll be able to see your

• Open rates

• Bounces

• Clicks

• Opt-out's

• Complaints

Once you have this information, what are you supposed to do with it?

Open rates

Open rates indicate how successful your subject line was in getting someone to open your email.

The "success" of your open rate depends on the size of your list. If you have a list of 200 people and are enjoying 50% open rates, you don't have bragging rights over someone with a list of 10,000 who's getting 30% open rates.

If your open rates are consistently below 15%, check out this article about crafting the perfect subject line.

Bounces

Bounces indicate an email address that is no longer valid. If the email that bounced was from a regular customer or client, be sure to contact them personally and ask if they'd like to update their information and be re-added to your list.

Otherwise, delete bounced emails to keep your list clean.

Clicks

Your clicks or "click-through rates" indicate how many people are clicking on links you've placed within your email.

If clicks are low, it means your call to action is not strong enough and people are not enticed to leave their inbox.

Remember that your email should be creating curiosity and questions that can only be answered by clicking a link.

Opt-out's

Opt-out's are awesome! Don't be bummed when someone opts out of your email list. They are doing you a big favor by raising their hand and saying "I'm not your target market, don't waste your time on me!"

If you know a particular customer simply prefers direct marketing to email marketing, you may want to keep their contact record live. Otherwise, delete the record entirely so as not to risk emailing them accidentally.

Complaints

SPAM complaints also warrant a record deletion. While some people may have accidentally hit the "SPAM" button (or even use the SPAM button to delete emails), it's not worth the risk to keep them on your list.

Too many complaints and your email program will prevent you from sending emails altogether!

The email stats that can be found in your email program provide clues as to how to move forward in your email marketing. Use them to your advantage by checking them after each email sent, and tweaking the next email based on the data gathered.