Email Tracking: How to read your audience’s mind and listen to them even when they’re not talking

So, today I’m gonna tell you about my experience with email marketing software and how tracking and analytics helped me out. But before that, let me take you back to the time when I tried email marketing for the very first time.

I spent three long days writing and designing the email, but after pressing the “send” button, all I could do was wait. And wait.

• Did the recipients open my mail?
• Did they like the content?
• Or did my mail go straight to the trash?
• Or worse, did they call it “spam”?

The results started trickling in slowly. People were opening my email. Some even unsubscribed. Some clicked on the link I had sent. My campaign did not create miracles that I had hoped for, but I think it wasn’t a disaster either.

I learned a lesson about tracking and monitoring emails. It’s important to measure the results, learn from them and improve. In this guide, I will share my mistakes and how to correct them, what email metrics to monitor and how email tracking helps a business.

So, let’s begin!

The tracking pixel – cool technology behind email tracking and analysis

Email marketing software tracks numerous metrics like open rates, receiver’s location, Click Through Rate (CTR), time of email opening, bounce rate, and more. This is achieved using tools such as the popular WordPress plugin Icegram Express, which embeds a transparent pixel image in every email. When a recipient opens the email, this image is loaded, activating the tracking pixel that relays data back to the software. This data includes the recipient’s IP address, email address, and other details, which are stored in a database for generating reports. Here are key points to remember:

• Email Tracking Technique: Uses a transparent pixel to gather data when emails are opened.
• Data Collected: Includes IP address, email address, and more.
• Reports: Detailed reports are generated from the data collected.
• Limitations: Tracking only works if images are loaded in the emails. If image loading is disabled, no data can be tracked.
• Accuracy: Email tracking is not 100% accurate but still offers valuable insights.

This system mirrors how website analytics operate and is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of email campaigns.

Why is email tracking important?

As a blogger, I use email marketing to send tailored content to different groups like prospects, customers, and subscribers via Icegram Express. Each email is customized to its audience—for example, discussing new products with customers and latest blog posts with subscribers.

Tracking these emails helps me gauge their impact by checking metrics like open rates for customer emails and click rates for blog links. Unlike the more complex Google Analytics, email marketing provides a simpler set of metrics, making it easier to analyze and improve results.

Therefore, I find tracking email performance crucial, perhaps even more so than monitoring website performance.

Let’s look at some specific examples…

How to read their minds…

How to find people who’re bored with your writing (hint: they’re not opening your emails anymore)

Thanks to email tracking in software like Icegram Express, monitoring emails doesn’t feel like rocket science anymore!

I have used this email marketing plugin for a long time now and the results are impeccable. With this email analytics solution, I can find out when and how many times the recipients opened my email.

Here’s an example screenshot of email reports in the Icegram Express plugin:

Icegram Express Dashboard

The screenshot shows 3374 active contacts on the email lists. It also says that 2416 emails were sent and 1984 were opened in the last 60 days. That makes the average email open rate 82.11%.

82% open rate is rather unbelievable actually! Standard email open rates are anywhere from 18-23% according to email marketing benchmarks by MailChimp and ConstantContact.

If your email list is above 2000 with good open rates, you’re doing great! But if your open rates are low, it could be due to inactive emails, boring content or delivery issues.

Clean up your list regularly and use Email Subscriber’s automatic list cleanup feature to remove inactive contacts. Keep an eye on open and click rates to understand your audience’s preferences and improve your content accordingly.

 Identifying paying customers (hint: observe their clicks and opens)

One thing that I have learned about writing and selling things online is that not everyone is ready to buy when I make them an offer. But there are some people who are, and making an offer only to those people who are interested saves me a lot of time and increases my revenue.

Whether you’re selling services, online courses, membership, affiliated products or digital products, you do not need to pitch paid offerings to everyone on the list. Not all leads are strong. So the question becomes: how to discover people who’re ready to buy?

The trick is to send offer-related content to your audience in a progressive manner, track open rates, and find out who is opening multiple emails. It’s akin to tracking a prospect from cold to warm to hot state based on their response to your emails. Simple metrics – email open and click rates – can give you a lot of insights when you look at open / click rates across a sequence of emails.

Here’s my friend’s story of doing exactly this, using our Icegram Express WordPress plugin.

A few days ago, my friend, who is a blogger and digital marketing coach by profession, was tracking people who opened different emails he sent. He noticed one of his subscribers has been clicking on each blog title with the keyword “growth hacking” in it. From different emails he sent, this subscriber opened and clicked on these titles:

• What is growth hacking?
• What are the steps of growth hacking?
• What are the techniques of growth hacking?

My friend quickly recognized a potential lead in this subscriber and sent a personal email with the details of his upcoming growth hacking course. And guess what? The subscriber purchased it right away.

Also, don’t forget to consider the time factor. If your email analytics shows that a subscriber has opened a mail 4-5 times within 48 hours, it’s a strong signal of intent. You have got yourself a lead with a high chance of a conversion. So, try following up and make a good offer to close the deal.

Are you being lousy? How to listen to your audience when they are not even telling you! (hint: how many unsubscribes do you have?)

Tracking the number of unsubscribes is crucial, even though it might seem odd. Not everyone will like your emails; some may unsubscribe. Research indicates that only 61% of people prefer receiving brand communications via email, with average unsubscribe rates between 0.10% and 0.40%.

An increase in unsubscribes can serve as vital feedback, suggesting potential issues with your content. For instance, a friend noticed a rise in her unsubscribe numbers and discovered through email analytics that she had been sending emails to the wrong subscriber lists.

Correcting this mistake helped her better manage her email strategy. Monitoring these metrics is essential to understanding and improving email campaign effectiveness, as shown in a screenshot from our email marketing plugin, Icegram Express, where the unsubscribe rate is currently low.

Always pay attention to these numbers and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Here’s an example screenshot of a contacts in our email marketing plugin:

The screenshot shows that in the last 60 days, there were 1357 subscribers and 4 unsubscribers. The rate of unsubscribers is low right now, which is good. But I would always keep an eye on that number, and even look at individual campaigns to see how they compare to my overall numbers.

Are you engaging sufficient people with your emails? (Again, track the CTRs)

I often have these self-doubts where I wonder if my emails are at all engaging! Thanks to email analytics, I can base my actions on real data – rather than pure emotions.

What I do is review various metrics from my email tracking system every alternate month. I try to understand how my Icegram Express are reacting to my emails. I look at click-through rates and see which links were clicked the most.

This exercise helps me improve my email content and strengthen relationships with my subscribers. This strategy has also helped me find out which newsletter template design, content structure and CTAs worked best. I take those lessons to my future emails and newsletters. And things keep getting better on the whole.

Here’s an example screenshot of link activity tracking:

As you can see, the blog post Why is Email Marketing a Must for Bloggers? 5 Self-realizations has received 573 total clicks and 489 unique clicks. The other blog titled 7 email marketing tips to outsell your competition has received 412 total clicks and 375 uniques.

If you notice, there is an upward trend in clicks. I would review the content of those emails once again to find subject lines, call to actions and link styling that has worked. Now my target will be to increase the number of clicks on future emails. I may even mention an older blog post in a future email to catch the attention of people who missed it initially.

Note: Want to engage visitors on your site? Download Icegram Engage for free and get access to 120+ ready-to-use onsite campaigns.

Bonus Tip: Use email tracking as part of your overall email marketing strategy!

Email tracking helps us discover useful insights, true! But as with any analytics, there are some golden rules you should follow.

• Gather enough evidence – avoid jumping to conclusions from small-sized or one-off numbers.
• 2-3 months is a good interval for reviewing email reports
• If something did not work once, it does not mean it won’t work in the future. Slight changes in language and design can possibly yield large results.
• Always use email tracking with your overall email marketing strategy – and even your content plan.

Wondering which email tracking metrics to follow?

You don’t need to track every metric that your email provider shows. Too many metrics will make it overwhelming and difficult to “connect the dots” – at least when you are getting started.

Here are the three metrics we recommend tracking…

Email Open Rate

Email open rate is the most basic email tracking KPI. In fact, many free email tracking software also offers an insight into the number of open rates. With this metric, I get an overview of how many recipients have opened my emails for a certain period of time.

Email tracking works by inserting a small, transparent image or tracking pixel into the emails that are sent, which sends back data to the email tracking software when the email is opened.

Open rates tell you the effectiveness of your email subject lines. Here are some things you may want to experiment with based on open rates:

• Should I include the recipients’ names in the subject?
• Do emojis in the mail subject line increase open rates?
• Should I use a short or long subject line?

CTR – Click Through Rate

Another email metric that I monitor is the click-through rate. This KPI estimates the percentage of recipients who have clicked links in my emails. Here are some things you can try out based on your CTR:

• Where should I place the links to increase CTR? In the middle of the email or at the end?
• Is my call-to-action text interesting enough to make the recipients click on it?
• Does repeating call-to-action link increase CTR?
• Does formatting it like a button improve results?

Keep referring to these reports in email analytics software, and aim to reach over 4% CTR.

Number of Unsubscribes

Finally, keep a tab on the overall unsubscribes within a particular period – and also assess how each email campaign performs on this metric. Unsubscribe count helps me keep track of the engagement rate of my email content from time to time.

Conclusion

We hope now you have a fair idea of how to effectively use email tracking. You may want to use our free Icegram Express plugin to track all these metrics and improve your email marketing campaigns. If you have any questions or success stories, do share in the comments below!