I’ve spoken with a few clients about the reporting we provide after you have sent an email newsletter, so I thought it would be a good idea to share that information with you all.
Reporting
A few days after you have sent your email newsletter, log back into your account, go to VerticalResponse, hover over Emails, then click on Sent Emails. Then click on the name of the email you have sent. You will then see an overview of the stats relating to that newsletter.
Open rate
This is the number of people who have opened your newsletter. NOTE: This does not count everyone who has opened your newsletter; it only counts those who have opened it and who are displaying images. The actual number is higher than the number reported.
Here are average open found by VerticalResponse from all their clients:
- Prospect mailings 11% to 13%
- B2B client mailings opens average around 22%
- B2C client mailings opens average between 15% – 20%
- Non-profit opens average around 15%
We find that most of our clients are within these ranges. However, your actual open rate will depend on the quality of your list. If it’s a list of people who do not know you well, the rate will be lower. If it is a list of people who know you very well, the rate will be higher.
We always tell people not to be discouraged if these numbers seem lower than you were hoping. The figure you should care about is the impact on your business over the long term. (As an example, my own rate for prospects is 15%, but I am happy with that, as I always get new clients when I sent out a newsletter to them.)
Click rate
This is the number of people who have clicked on a link in their newsletter. We often find this number is quite low because not many people put many links back to their website.
You can raise your click rate by putting more links in your newsletter back to relevant parts of your website. We can keep some links permanently in your newsletter, in certain places. Contact Mayna for information on how we can help you.
Bounce rate
This is the number of emails that bounced, mainly because the address is bad. We find that people who mail for the first time after not mailing their clients for a long period get a high bounce rate – over 10%. If you have a high bounce rate, it will negatively affect your open rate and click rate. From time to time, there are emails that bounced temporarily. If you see an email that has bounced but you believe it to be a good address, it can be marked as mailable again.
Unsubscribe rate
This is the number of people who have unsubscribed from your newsletter. This number should be quite low, but if you are mailing for the first time to people who do not know you well, this number will be higher.
For more explanation on this data, click here to download this report from VerticalResponse.
Who did what?
You are able to download the list of people who received your newsletter to see what each of them did or didn’t do. Go to the Download Lists link and save the file to your computer. When you open it, you can see what each person did, including which links they clicked on. This will help you see which are your most active clients and prospects.
If you need help with any of this, please contact Mayna at 877-976-6368, then press 2. She will be glad to help you. She can also be reached at help@readytogonewsletters.com.
