Chapter 6. Tracking Your E-Mail Campaign Results
In This Chapter
Navigating e-mail tracking reports
Understanding e-mail statistics
Tracking other responses
One of the most practical and valuable features of using e-mail to market your business is using e-mail tracking reports to find out what your audience is doing with your e-mails after you send them.
Most E-Mail Service Providers (ESPs) can track your e-mails and allow you to view the results in an e-mail tracking report. In this chapter, you find out how to make sense of the data in an e-mail tracking report as well as other creative ways to track responses not captured in a tracking report.
Understanding Basic E-Mail Tracking Data
You have to be an advanced HTML and database programmer to track e-mails on your own, so I recommend using an ESP to track your e-mails for you. ESPs automatically add special tracking code to the links you include in your e-mails. The tracking code is unique to each individual on your e-mail list and is also tied to each e-mail campaign. ESPs also have programs that automatically read the code from other e-mail servers when they return undeliverable e-mail so you don't have to do the hard work to determine why a particular e-mail wasn't delivered.
E-mail tracking reports are analytical summaries of the results of a given e-mail campaign that can tell you
Which e-mails bounced
Why they bounced
Who opened your e-mails
What links they clicked
Who unsubscribed from your e-mails
Who forwarded your e-mails
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