What Is The Best Way To Track Email Web Traffic?

Qubamail and the majority of self-serve email marketing tools typically provide a simple reporting interface that allows you to see delivery, open, click and bounce rates. Some also provide basic Return On Investment and onsite tracking Javascript to see where they went or how much they spent after accessing the site.

By integrating your email campaign with Google Analytics you can benefit by having more information, clearer goal/spend metrics and comparative data. The end result of which is the ability to better measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns (i.e. How many people did what you wanted them to).

By utlising Google’s campaign keyword tool you can create a new traffic source and campaign. The data farmed from this can then be accessed through traffic sources.

The tool asks for three pieces of information:

Medium: this is the type of email so would be Newsletter or Weekly Special Offers
Source: email – if you’re using different providers you may want to specify that information here e.g. Email – Qubamail
Campaign: the specific subject or date of the email e.g. “November 2009 Newsletter” or 20/6/2009

In Google Analytics this traffic source will now appear in the All Traffic Sources and Campaign report. You can start to evaluate important metrics that will open your eyes to how people are really using your site:

Bounce rate: are people expecting something else of the site or are they getting all they need from one page?
Pages/Visit: how engaging and sticky is your site, do people go for a good look around
Conversion rate: compare this against the average to determine if you email message is reaching the right people

Written by analytics, e-commerce and email black belt, Dave Sealey.