The From Line
Sending, Managing & Monetizing Email
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(409 words)
Integrating Web Analytics with Email Campaigns
I know it has been a while since I posted something (we all had such a busy summer) and I've been meaning to update this with thoughts on how clients can improve their campaigns. I'll continue to share my ideas here. This particular post is about Google Analytics -- something that is simple to set up, free, and enhances your investment in email marketing programs.
After conducting some research it became apparent that many emarketers are using web analytics for their websites, but few are integrating it with email. It really is a shame -- Google Analytics is free and it provides great insight into your email campaigns effectiveness.
If you’re not using web analytics with email you might find the info below very helpful. If you are, kudos to you! Let me know if I missed anything below.
In order to get the most out of email/web analytics you need to move beyond basic visits, page views, and other standard measures and customize your reporting to generate a better understanding of subscriber behavior and how it leads to revenue.
Here are some questions to consider:
1. Where are my subscribers located and which ones are making reservations?
To answer this question you must implement conversion tracking, an easy to do task with Google Analytics. Subscriber location coupled with reservation activity you can come up with a retargeting plan and better segmentation.
2. What are the most popular paths subscribers take from your email through your site and which ones generate reservations?
If you planned correctly, you’re probably directing subscribers to landing pages that are possibly ecommerce enabled. If this is the case you should add tracking and conversion code to these pages as well. Your entry page will not be your homepage.
3. How do I know which email campaigns contributed most to my website reservations?
Google Analytics allows you to tag all email campaigns under the “campaign” variable. If your campaigns can be placed into larger categories, make sure that category is inserted into the campaign tag along with the name of the campaign such as Discounts-Fall Promotion. From there Google will report the conversions attributed to each campaign.
To answer this question you must implement conversion tracking, an easy to do task with Google Analytics. Subscriber location coupled with reservation activity you can come up with a retargeting plan and better segmentation.
2. What are the most popular paths subscribers take from your email through your site and which ones generate reservations?
If you planned correctly, you’re probably directing subscribers to landing pages that are possibly ecommerce enabled. If this is the case you should add tracking and conversion code to these pages as well. Your entry page will not be your homepage.
3. How do I know which email campaigns contributed most to my website reservations?
Google Analytics allows you to tag all email campaigns under the “campaign” variable. If your campaigns can be placed into larger categories, make sure that category is inserted into the campaign tag along with the name of the campaign such as Discounts-Fall Promotion. From there Google will report the conversions attributed to each campaign.
Gold Lasso's eLoop allows users to integrate Google Analytics with campaigns. First, sign up for a free Google Analytics account and follow our simple instructions (We emailed the steps to all eLoop users a few months ago. Let us know if you have any questions about how to do it.)
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