The Rundown on Campaign Stats

What stats should you be tracking to measure campaign performance?
The answer to this question can vary depending on your ultimate marketing goals. Success can take on different meanings for different people. Here we will provide you with a list of what we consider to be the most basic and important campaign tracking analytics.

Open Rate
The Open Rate represents the number of campaign emails opened divided by the total number of emails sent out. If your open rate is low, it could be either a deliverability issue or something like an ineffective subject line.

At Thrive, not only will we consult with you to create the most effective subject lines, but we also have a 3% Open Rate guarantee on all of our campaigns. If your campaign doesn’t achieve the guaranteed Open Rate, we will rerun the campaign at no extra cost until it does.

Click-Thru’s
This metric represents the number of people who actually clicked on a link in the ad itself after opening the email. If this number is low, consider revising your ad or making the offer more desirable. Often times, you simply need a clearer call-to-action. Read our other blog post about Good vs. Bad Campaign examples.

Unsubscribes
This one is important. You or the company sending out your email must collect this information. This is the first step in remaining compliant with current SPAM laws. There must be a way for recipients of every email you send out to opt out of your future mailings. Once you collect that information, you have 10 days to remove them from your mailing list. You should never send email to that address again – unless, of course, they opt back in at a future date.

At Thrive, we manage this list for every client at no extra cost. We make your suppression list available for download at the conclusion of every campaign.

Bouncebacks
There are two types of Bouncebacks – hard bounces and soft bounces.
Hard Bounces are failures due to email addresses or domains that no longer exist. This can be caused by a few things – people changing email addresses, closing accounts, changing jobs, etc… These should be removed from your mailing list as to not negatively affect deliverability rates. Read our post about keeping good list hygiene [link to Keeping Good Hygiene]

Soft Bounces can be caused by any number of things – a full inbox, ISP server issues, auto-replies, and deferrals. A soft bounce indicates an issue on the recipient’s end. This does not necessarily mean that the address does not exist.

While these basic metrics can tell you a lot about the results of your campaign, it’s important to keep in mind that these are just numbers unless you know what to do with them. If you have a low open rate, look into your deliverability or work on improving your subject lines. If your click thru’s are suffering, work on improving your email ad. More than average unsubscribes? Consider the frequency of your emails as well as the content contained therein.

If you would like to learn more about what these stats mean and how to use them to improve your email marketing campaigns, contact a Thrive Marketing Strategist by:

Calling Toll-Free – 866.673.7004
or Emailing us at inquiries@thrivemg.com

What Makes a Good Landing Page? (The Basics)

One thing everyone wants to know is how to create an effective landing page. Do not underestimate the importance of your landing page when it comes to converting visitors into sales. Here are a few hints and tips to keep in mind to create a landing page for maximum conversions.

Questions People Will Ask

In most cases, you can expect landing page visitors to ask the following questions:
1. Does it offer what I need?
2. What does it look like?
3. How much does it cost?
4. Can I trust you?

Answering the Questions

Respond to your visitors’ questions by:

1.Highlighting the Product
People are visiting your site for a very specific reason: they want to see your product. They want it to be easy to learn about that product. Showcase your product through a video, an image, etc…

2. Showing Key Features
Here is where you would include general benefits to purchasing your product or service. You’ve shown your visitors the product. Now tell them why they need it! Include the price, any information on money-back guarantees, and let them know they can trust you. This is a great place for testimonials.

3. Provide an easy way to convert
Your call to action needs to be extremely clear. One simple effectiveness test is called the “Squint Test.” Can you squint at the computer screen and still understand how to act? If not, your call to action needs to be more prominent. Showcasing your product and explaining the benefits means nothing if this step can’t be executed by your visitor easily and quickly.

Additional Tips

1. Do not overwhelm with too much information, or make the page too long
2. Start with general, broad topics at the top of the ad/landing page
3. Get more specific as you move down the length of the page
4. Place your Call to Action “Above the Fold” meaning towards the top of the page so the landing page’s visitors do not need to scroll down to view the call to action.

Best Practices: List Hygiene

How to keep your lists clean and up-to-date
Very few practices in email marketing are as important as keeping your data clean and up-to-date. Without clean, valid data, you cannot expect the good results that everyone desires.

So how can you make sure you (and your data source) are doing everything possible to maintain a good list? The following are the most basic steps we take for every client here at Thrive Marketing:

1. Maintain your Opt-out / Suppression List
- This is vital to remaining compliant with the CAN/SPAM act
- Be sure to give the recipient the option to opt-out in every email you send
- Remove every opt-out from your company’s mailing list within 10 days of the request.
At Thrive Marketing, we will supply you with your suppression list at the completion of every campaign for no extra charge.

2. Bounce Backs/ Failures
- Monitor and record your hard bounces (email address or domain no longer exist) so that you can remove them from future mailings.
- Add these to your Master List of Failures; these records should never be mailed to again.
- At Thrive, we clean our lists weekly and will never mail to or sell records that are on our Master List of Failures

3. Add new records regularly
- At Thrive Marketing, we add new records to our database daily. Over 1 million Consumer records and 250,000 Business records are added every week. It’s important to keep a steady flow of new and relevant high-quality data to utilize for your email marketing campaigns.

Why is it important?
At the most basic level, the answer is simple – it will save you a lot of headaches. Having clean data will allow you to rest easy in the fact that you are mailing to the best, and most responsive, list possible. A cleaned list will improve your deliverability rates and will also keep your reputation intact with ISPs. ISPs will actually block your emails if they see you are sending emails to a lot of non-existent addresses.

Before you start your next email marketing campaign, make sure you and your data source are practicing good list hygiene. It can be the difference between a successful and a failed campaign.