Issue #176 All About Email

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #176 of All About Email!

Last week, we continued our mini-series, “Taming the Email Beast,” by discussing tips for “building consistency” in email marketing.

This week, we look at “measuring performance”, and it’s a deeper dive as we have no “Weekly News & Tips” (more on that later).

Let’s go! 👇

A Context for Measuring Performance

There is a wealth of data that you can report on depending on:

• The ESP you use.

• The integrations you use with that ESP.

• Your business goals for each email.

But ultimately, reporting is about:

• What you can measure

• What you can improve

Data Everywhere

OK, we can have a lot of data, and that’s great!

But is there anything we should be aware of?

• Always have in mind, what is the goal of each email?

• Reporting is not perfect and we need to be aware of factors impacting reports (e.g. iOS 15, iOS 17 and GA4).

• All reports are not created equal, some ESPs reporting is better than others.

• Some ESPs limit reporting by the pricing tiers.

• You may have to use 3rd-party reporting tools to have a better view of your reports.

So what key data should we be analysing, no matter what industry?

Email marketing deliverability is essential for maximising your budget and effort, and a good email deliverability rate begins with monitoring 👇

1. Delivery rate: the percentage of emails the internet service provider’s (ISP) servers did not return or bounce.

2. Bounce rate: the percentage of emails with temporary or permanent unsuccessful delivery.

3. Spam complaint rate: the percentage of your audience who mark an email as spam.

4. Open rate: the percentage of your delivered emails that subscribers opened. *

5. Click-through rate (CTR): the percentage of how many people click on a call-to-action in your email.

6. Unsubscribe rate: measures how many people opt out of your emails.

7. Inbox placement rate (IPR): the percentage of your emails that make it to the inbox and not the spam folder.

8. Sender reputation: a mix of factors that inbox service providers (ISPs) use to gauge whether you’re a trustworthy sender.

But what else should I look for?

This isn’t an extensive list, and it will depend on your industry and business goals, but many eCommerce campaigns would look for it. 👇

🧠 Whilst we reached a level of normalisation about two years ago, there are still some things you should be aware of when it comes to the impact of iOS 15 and, to a lesser extent, iOS 17.

iOS 15

This is what was impacted 👇

• IP Blocking

• Open Rates

• Click Rates

• Campaign Impact (e.g. Dynamic Content)

• Spam & Deliverability

• Revenue Attribution

• …and more!

(I’ve covered this in extensive detail at the time, and if you wish, you can read more in the Further Reading section towards the bottom of this email.)

iOS 17

Introduced LTP - “Link Tracking Protection”.

Link Tracking Protection (LTP) works by stripping various URL parameters in Safari (automatically in private mode and as an opt-in in default browsing mode) and when opening links from Apple Mail and messages.

There will be some impact on email click tracking and the ability to tie an anonymous website visit (from a newsletter) to a customer profile.

AI Prompt for Reporting

If your ESP reporting isn’t doing it for you, try AI and this prompt:

Further Reading

📰 As part of our mini-series, each topic covered might include additional reading resources for building the workshops and these emails.

This week’s resources on “Measuring Performance“ are:

• Bloomreach Email Marketing Metrics.

• Litmus - ROI of Email

• Polar Analytics or Triple Whale.

• Looker Studio can use CSVs to visualise data, or you can use 3rd party connectors like Supermetrics to automate this for you.

• Litmus - Email Deliverability: What it is and how to improve it.

• Bounce Reason - Sender Score.

• Bot or Not: Understanding Email Bot Clicks.

• iOS 15 - My slide presentation for the Chimposium online conference.

• iOS 15 - Full documentation.

• iOS 17 - Detailed article on what it is and its potential impact.

• We’ve been having fun with Apple since iOS 14.5

That’s it for this week 👋

🏕️ I’m currently on holiday (the kids are off for half-term).

This newsletter has gone out as usual, except for the News & Tips section below.

I curate the News & Tips weekly and can’t do this while on holiday.

⏭️ Next week’s topic will be “Accessibility“.

See you next week! 😀

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋