1. An Introduction to E-mail Tracking February 20, 2009

2. Why we track To learn more about our audience To see what techniques work As part of an end-to-end tracking tactic to measure success To make decisions that improve communications

3. How do we make decisions with the data? The data can be compared with similar communications to other groups –How does the communication stack up against others? For publications, or varied communications to the same group, look longitudinally –What trends are identifiable over time?

4. What decisions might we make? Content changes Design changes Frequency changes Add or drop a publication or channel

5. Consider that… Audience engagement drops over time Audiences themselves change over time List hygiene can help

6. What is tracked Links, or “clickthrough tracking” Message opens

7. Clickthrough tracking Clickthrough tracking changes links Links take the recipient/clicker to another system That system records the click The system redirects the user to their final destination

8. Clickthrough example We want users to visit umn.edu We enable clickthrough tracking The system produces a different URL Lyris might produce http://ecommunication.umn.edu/t/93781/4795559/41608/0/

9. Clickthrough data Total clicks Unique clicks – number of links clicked by different recipients (the same user clicking a link repeatedly is only one unique click) Click rate – unique/#recipients Total, unique, and rate also done by URL

10. Open tracking Opens are tracked by an invisible image The image is given a unique URL to identify the recipient who opened the message A clickthrough implies the message was opened

11. Open tracking’s shortcoming Recipients must load images (or click a tracked link) to be counted as having opened a message Most e-mail clients won’t automatically load images from senders that are not recognized The text part of the message doesn’t contain images; Mail users

12. Open data Total opens Unique opens – a recipient opening the message more than once isn’t counted repeatedly Open rate - unique/#recipients

13. What to use? Clickthrough tracking is a better measure Clickthroughs measure ‘real’ action on the part of recipients Open tracking is useful for trends over time

14. Varied messages, varied results How you craft your message impacts clicks If the message enumerates everything recipients need to know, why would someone click? There’s a middle ground (e.g., U of M Brief) Is the audience opt-in or opt-out? Who is the audience? What day and time was it sent?

15. What is a good clickthrough rate? No single standard Opt-in vs. opt-out groups vary greatly –Opt-in is preferred We don’t have good data internally One source * showed 1 st half of 2008 data with mean click rates varying from 0.78% for one industry to 6.66% for another * mailer mailer Email Marketing Metric Report 1H 2008 http://www.mailermailer.com/metrics.rwp

16. To summarize Don’t just send, track, analyze, improve Look at your data Make decisions based on your data

17. What are you doing? Speakers, questions, discussion Laura Johnson, Marketing Communications, University Relations Adam Overland and Matt Sumera, Internal Communications, University Relations Others? (feel free)

18. U of M Brief tracking data