Email Web Analytics: 2 New Segmenting and Targeting Options

Inbox Ideas | Email Marketing Tips by AWeber

Posted by Justin Premick

Web Page Visited and No Opens Search Options Ever wanted to know which of your subscribers aren’t responding to your emails?

Or which parts of your website subscribers are interested in?

This week, we added two new segmentation and targeting options to our Email Web Analytics tools to help answer those questions.

With them, you can identify people who have stopped paying attention to your emails (or never did).

And for those people who are still engaged, you now can segment them by what pages they’re visiting – even if those visits don’t originate from an email you send!

Segment and Target Subscribers Who Haven’t Responded To ANY Recent Message

Do you sometimes feel like you’re talking to your subscribers, but only half of them are listening?

Ever wanted to check in with the half that has “checked out” and ask if there’s anything you can do to help?

With the new “No Opens” search option, now you can. Here’s how:

On the “Leads” page, choose “No Opens” from the list search criteria.

Then, choose a date that you want to start your search from. You’ll see that this makes the search read “No Opens Since (Date).”

Once you’ve completed your search, you can save that group of subscribers and broadcast to them.

Quick tip: when you use this search option, combine it with a search by “Date Added” to make sure you’re only looking through people who have been on your list for a while.

You wouldn’t want to group a new subscriber (who just got your first email but hasn’t had time to open it) in with someone who signed up to your list a year ago and hasn’t opened any emails in 6 months.

What If I Send Plain Text Emails?

If you’re using our Email Web Analytics tools to track clickthroughs, we’ll infer an open whenever someone clicks a link in your emails – even if you send only plain text emails.

So this “No Opens” search is essentially a “No Clicks” search for you guys.

Possible Uses of The “No Opens” Criteria

Run a “reactivation” campaign
Create a few broadcasts to try to get non-engaged subscribers to start responding again.

Many retailers use coupons/discounts to try to re-engage email subscribers. You could do this, or offer a free report or some other compelling incentive to get them clicking again.
Remove non-responsive subscribers (if they don’t respond to your reactivation campaign).
No sense in having someone on your list who doesn’t want to be there.
Send them a questionnaire to learn why they’ve lost interest.
Did they go with a competitor? Do they no longer need your services? Is there anything else you can do to help them?

What other ideas do you have for contacting non-responsive subscribers? Share them below!

Segment and Target Subscribers Based on What Web Pages They Visit

The original Email Web Analytics release included options to segment subscribers based on which links they click in your emails.

They’re helpful to see what content subscribers are interested in.

But what about what those subscribers do after the initial click, or on a later visit to your site that doesn’t start out with an email click?

The new “Web Page Visited” search option segments subscribers based on where they’re going on your site.

Here’s how to use it:

On the “Leads” page, choose “Web Page Visited” from the list search criteria.

In the box to the right, start typing out the web page you want to search by.

We’ll auto-suggest pages to you as you type.

As with the “No Opens” criteria, you can save that group of subscribers and broadcast to them.

Possible Uses of The “Web Page Visited” Criteria For Different Groups

Here are a few possible uses, pulled from the top of my head:

Product and service providers: identify which products, features, benefits, etc. your prospects are especially interested in.
Create more targeted messages about those products/features/benefits and send them to the appropriate groups.
Affiliate marketers – identify people interested in certain products (or categories of product) you’re promoting.
Use that knowledge to decide what other products to introduce to those groups.
Bloggers – identify who is most interested in particular topics, products, etc. you blog about.
Use that knowledge to create posts, products, reports, etc. that will appeal to those groups.
Real Estate Agents – identify what properties various subscribers are viewing on your site.
Then, get in touch with them about those properties.

I’m sure you have your own ideas for how knowing who is going to what pages of your website could help you grow your business – share your ideas and suggestions below!

Tags: email web analytics, New Features, targeting

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13 Responses

Karin H.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:29 am

This is getting better and better, targeted and targeted!

It is really what I call taking permission marketing a whole leap forward.
Codrut Turcanu
August 8th, 2008 at 6:33 am

I wonder how you track these ‘no response’ leads, is it from a cookie on their computer, or how?

I want to know what should I expect from this tracking accuracy..

Maybe I did not read carefully your analytics explanation, so please clarify this to me now and here.

Is it true that only the upgrades provide such a tracking option?

P.S. If I own a 10k-lead AWEBER account already, and want to upgrade, how much should I expect to invest on a monthly basis to keep this account upgrade-active?
Justin Premick
August 8th, 2008 at 8:42 am

Codrut,

The "no opens" segmentation is based on tracking opens (and for inferred opens, clicks).

The open tracking uses a 1×1 tracking image (which is unique for each message & subscriber). When the image is loaded we record an open for that message and subscriber.

Click tracking is similar - when you send a link in your emails, the link that each subscriber receives in your email is slightly different. That way, we can tell who clicked which links in which emails.

While you can track opens and clicks without using the Email Web Analytics tools, in order to track uniques, and segment based on that activity (as in the examples in this post), you would need to use the Email Web Analytics tools.

If you opened your account before we released the Email Web Analytics tools (May 20, 2008), and you haven’t upgraded, you would need to do so in order to get these features.

The pricing page has a breakdown on it. From 5001-10000 subscribers it’s $69/mo. For 10,001-25,000 subscribers it’s $149/mo. I’ll take a look at your account to get an exact subscriber count & drop you an email to let you know what your cost would be.
G.
August 8th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

Yes, great!
Targeted is important!

Thanks!
joan
August 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

I am already a subscriber, but sorry, I can’t see it anywhere in my reports. I went to the leads tab, but it is not in the toggle for the drop down menu.
Thanks!
Marc David
August 10th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Aweber does it again! They release another great, eye-opening feature… but this time it could be the best feature yet and the most depressing.

What if you run this new search and find 50% of your list hasn’t opened an e-mail since the beginning of the year?

That might be a sign that all you’d want to do is:

1) Re-confirm subscriptions
2) Ask them why they aren’t reading (although if they aren’t reading why would they read now)
3) Just setup an autoresponder over a long period of time and forget broadcasting live.

I find that after 20 or so messages, I rarely read anymore myself. Even on lists where I like the person who’s sending!
Codrut Turcanu
August 11th, 2008 at 8:08 am

# Marc - if that happens, and I know the feeling, then it means your list is not that targeted. You’d better change its focus from a general list into a sub-niche targeted, more specific topic.

Also, putting a "real" value on whatever you’re offering via your list is a great way to boost CR and staying in touch with your leads regularly (e.g. weekly, at least) is a good system to AVOID the non responsiveness of your list.
Justin Premick
August 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am

Marc,

That’s a possible finding - and like you say, a real eye-opener (I personally think there are a lot of lists that fit that profile, and whose owners may have no idea).

As for what to do…

I like your first 2 ideas, but I would likely combine them into a sort of "fact finding" email campaign.

In other words, try to find out why they’re not reading, and try to get them to demonstrate their continued interest, without:

* Overtly telling them you know they’re not reading (that might have a "Big Brother" feel and make readers uncomfortable)

* Asking them only to confirm that they still want email (I want the ones still interested to click a link and tell me they’re still interested, but I also want to find out why they stopped responding to my emails before so that I can better address their needs and keep them from "checking out" again).

If any of our readers happen to create such a reactivation campaign, we’d all love to hear about it! Share your experience below (or if you prefer, use our contact form to get in touch with me directly).
Justin Premick
August 11th, 2008 at 1:29 pm

Joan,

If you aren’t seeing those segmenting options on your "Search Leads" page, give our Customer Solutions Team a call or livechat and they’ll help you out.
Marc David
August 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm

@Justin - I see how I can add a remove web or unsubscribe link in my message but how would I insert an additional confirmation or opt-in link?

I’m thinking I’ll send out a message to the non-readers asking them to re-confirm their subscriptions or if they aren’t interested, they can remove themselves.

Asking them why they stopped reading or letting me know in the unsubscribe box seems like a quick and simple idea. Let them get off the list if they even bother to read that message and give them a chance to tell me why.
Justin Premick
August 12th, 2008 at 9:41 am

Marc,

There’s not a "re-confirm" link in AWeber, but here’s an easy and highly customizable workaround:

1) Create an email with 2 links: one that goes to a page of your site (this is your "confirm" link) and one that is your unsubscribe link (you can use the {!remove_web} variable to do this).

2) On the page of your site, put up an appropriate message for the folks who confirm.

3) Send the email asking people to confirm their interest in staying subscribed.

4) After a certain amount of time (whatever you deem appropriate) search your list for the people who did not click your "confirm" link, and remove them.
Marc David
August 13th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

@Justin -

I’ve got a video setup and a short e-mail for my Reactivation Campaign. I tried contacting you thru Support but they kept telling me it’s not possible to re-send the confirmation link.

Not exactly what I’m trying to do.

I’ve volunteering to try this out… after 30 days of sending it, I will re-run the report again and remove all those who don’t have an open rate in the past 120 days.

If you can contact me Justin, I’d like to feedback on my e-mail and corresponding video before I try this. And to give you some stats as well of course!
Justin Premick
August 14th, 2008 at 9:13 am

Marc,

Sent you an email. Thanks for offering to share your results!