Let’s face it: interpreting your email marketing report isn’t exactly the most exciting part of marketing your business.

You like seeing people opening your emails and value the increased traffic and new business that comes from using email marketing, but you really don’t have the time to get into the nitty-gritty details.

You’re not alone.

When we surveyed 1,200 small business owners and asked what obstacles keep them from using marketing data, 49 percent say they don’t know where to begin and 40 percent say they just don’t have the time.

How will you know if email is working?

Using email reporting and analytics to your advantage doesn’t need to be a full-time job.

Getting familiar with your reports can actually help you save time, because you’ll know which marketing activities are working and which ones may not be worth your time. It will also give you the ability spot key trends, see who is responding to your messages (and who isn’t), and get inspiration for your future email marketing ideas.

In this post, you’ll learn how to interpret your email marketing results and make smarter decisions in less time.

Basic results you’ll see in your email marketing report

Here’s a list of the key email marketing terms you need to know and track:

1. All opens – the total number of times an email is opened, including repeat opens

2. Average industry rates – a benchmark for how well your email results match up to others in your industry

3. Bounce rate – the percentage of email subscribers that did not receive your message

4. Click-through rate – the percentage of clicks an email receives based on the number of contacts who opened the email

5. Delivery rate – the percentage of emails sent that were successfully delivered to your contacts’ inboxes

6. Did not opens – the number of people who have not yet opened your email

7. Sends – a complete list of contacts you sent your email to

8. Spam report – a contact on your email list receives your communication and reports it as unwanted or unsolicited

9. Unique opens – identifies each individual who opened your email and when

10. Unsubscribes/‘Opt-Outs’ – the total number of contacts who have decided to no longer receive your emails

If you’re using Constant Contact, after you send your email, you can see the report details within your Constant Contact account under the Campaigns and Reporting tabs.

email marketing metrics in Constant Contact

Now that you have a better understanding of some of the key terms and how to find reports, let’s think about what these numbers are telling you and how to address some of your problem areas.

How to use your email reports

What if my email open rate is not as high as I’d like?

Open rates let you know how many of the people who receive your emails are actually taking the next step to open and read the content you send out.

Note on open rates: Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature, which was released on September 20th, 2021, has made email open rates less reliable. While historical open rate data can still provide valuable insights, we recommend marketers focus on other email marketing metrics, like click-through rates and conversions, when measuring their success going forward.

If your open rates aren’t where you’d like them to be, there are a few things you’ll want to consider:

  • Your timing and frequency could be off: Sort your opens chronologically. Compare the average window of time people opened your email to the day/time you actually sent your email.  Then send your next email at that time when your readers are telling you they are most likely to open email. We have a tool to help you find the best time to send. Consider also if you are sending too often or not sending consistently enough.
  • It could be an issue with your subject line: Do you get to the point of the email in 4 to 7 words? Your subject line might be getting cut off, or it might not stand out enough. You should also use tools like Google Analytics to identify keywords you’ve used in successful emails, blog posts, social media, and on your website that draw your audience’s attention. Use them in your subject lines. Play around with funny subject lines or use questions — here are some ideas for strong subject lines. Rewrite your subject line and resend the email to those who did not open with a more powerful subject line.
  • The email’s content might not match up with your audience’s interests: As you review your open rate and click rate, you’re learning about what content and keywords people respond to. Use email list segmentation to create different contact groups based upon their behavior with your emails so that you can then refine your marketing using more targeted techniques designed to speak to the right people about the right things.

If you’re seeing a lot of people opening your emails, you already have an audience that wants to engage with you. But if your links aren’t getting clicked, your content is not connecting with these people as well as it should. Over time, these contacts could become less engaged and less likely to open future emails.

To avoid this problem, pay close attention to what type of content is grabbing your audience’s attention. Look back at your email results for any spikes in engagement, or see if there’s anything that’s been performing especially well on your social media channels.

You also have to make it easy for people to take the next step. For a high click-through rate, focus on these three things:

  • A strong call to action: Consider the wording in your call to action — is it clear? Is it telling people exactly the action they should take and do they get a sense of why it matters to them? It’s best to have a call to action near the top of your email so your readers don’t have to scroll too far down to get the main takeaway. Also, use buttons to make your calls-to-action stand out.
  • Clear and concise information: Using multimedia like images and video is a great way to boost engagement and cut down on the amount of text in your email. Use these best practices for sending highly visual emails.
  • Mobile-responsive design: Don’t forget about your subscribers who are reading your emails from a mobile device. Make it easy for them to engage with your content on a small screen by using a single column template and avoiding tiny fonts. Preview your emails on a mobile device before sending and use a mobile-friendly email template.

Try these seven things to significantly improve your click-through rate.

Here’s a chart to help you make the most of your open and click-through rate data:

opens and clicks chart

What if my emails are bouncing, being marked as spam, or receiving too many opt-outs?

Bounces, spam reports, and opt-outs are something you want to keep to a minimum. Keep an eye on these numbers, and use these tips if the numbers are higher than you’d like:

  • Bounces: There are a few different reasons why emails bounce, but often the problem is out of date contact information. If you have another way of reaching a contact, ask them for their updated information the next chance you get. Removing email addresses with ongoing issues will help you maintain a good email open rate.
  • Spam: Permission-based email marketing is the best way to avoid spam reports. Always ask your contacts before adding them to your mailing list. Be clear about what you will be sending and how often. Avoid these mistakes that could get your email marked as spam.
  • Opt-out: A few opt-outs from time-to-time are normal as your contacts’ interests change and your messages might not be as relevant as they once were. To make sure you’re on track, find out why your contacts are opting out.

Connecting your results with your goals

As you begin to bring reports and analytics into your strategy, one of the most important steps will be connecting your email analytics to your business results so you can see what’s working well and what can be improved.

Use the tips we’ve outlined in this post and make sure to check your email marketing reports after your campaign goes out. What worked? What didn’t? How can you continue to improve your results?

With these tips, you’ll be on your way to better email marketing results and more opportunities to grow your business with email marketing.

For more worksheets and information on how to track your email campaign results, download our free guide, The 5-Step Approach to Successful Email Marketing.

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from QuickBooks Online. You can learn more about our free QuickBooks integration here.

Running a small business is rewarding, but also incredibly time-consuming.

According to a recent Constant Contact survey of small business owners more than 40 percent of small business owners say they don’t take vacations, and 40 say they don’t spend enough time with family and friends.

Despite this, 84 percent of these same small business owners say if they had the choice, they would do it all over again.

Which leaves us with the constant quest to find more time. And while time travel may not be possible, there are many ways you can find more hours in the day by reducing time spent on accounting tasks.

Here are five of our favorite time-saving accounting tips for small businesses:

1. Clean up the books.

Most entrepreneurs aren’t accountants and don’t have an in-house accounting professional, so keeping the books current can become a daunting task.

But if you update your books consistently, you can save time and reduce stress. Up-to-date books, with organized record keeping:

  • Eliminate frantic searches for particular invoices or bills
  • Make invoicing and tax preparation faster
  • Deliver current financial reports, so you can make informed decisions that don’t cost you time and money

The best place to start is by bringing revenue, inventory and expense data up to date in your accounting software. Next, reconcile bank accounts. Then set a regular time each week to keep everything current. You’ll quickly notice the extra time.

2. Automate invoicing.

Month end invoicing can be a time sink, and sometimes an unpaid invoice or two can get lost in the shuffle, which costs you money.

QuickBooks Online accounting software lets you automatically generate invoices, which you can email or print. After you create the invoice, the information is fed into your accounting reports automatically, reducing data entry time.

You can also use an accounts receivable app, such as Invoice Sherpa to help automate the process.

This app sends reminder notices for unpaid invoices and handles late fees, so you get paid faster. Invoice Sherpa also helps you manage invoices by automating the accounts receivable process to send out invoices promptly and automatically.

3. Automate expense reporting.

Data entry for expense reports can also be time-consuming. According to a report by Expensify, the average employee can spend between 30-40 hours per year on expense reports.

But if you automate the process with the Expensify app for QuickBooks Online, employees will save those lost hours, and you will save time tracking down reports, coding receipts, and writing checks because the app takes care of it for you.

As a bonus, employees can snap pictures of receipts via the app instead of entering them manually. That way no one has to worry about keeping track of little pieces of paper.

4. Reduce time spent entering transaction data.

QuickBooks Online users who use the Square merchant services device can connect the Sync with Square app to their QuickBooks account.

Square will automatically import transaction data into your QuickBooks on a daily basis without you spending hours at the keyboard. Depending on how many transactions you have per month, this can save hours of data entry time.

5. Evaluate past due invoices and credit policies.

Collecting on past due invoices can be unpleasant as well as cost you time. Re-evaluate your credit policies. Consider how to enable payment when the service or sale is made, instead of thirty days later.

An accountant or bookkeeper may be able to help you find a better credit policy for your business. If delinquent accounts are an issue, you may also want to consider turning the worst offenders over to a collection agency.

Get time back for your business.

With a little planning, organization, and help from technology, you’ll be able to find more time in your business day.

Use these tips to free up some time, so you can get back to doing what you do best. Or use that newfound time to take a well-deserved break from your business. The choice is yours!

If you need a good accountant or bookkeeper, Intuit has a searchable list of ProAdvisors who support their clients on QuickBooks.  Sometimes bringing in help for your accounting can be a great way to save time.

“For us, the most important result of email marketing is getting people to our website,” says marketing technology manager for Robert Paul Properties, Autumn Boles.

“We want to get people to our website, deliver a quality experience, and ultimately convert them to clients that buy or sell a house with us. We know a significant percentage of our website traffic comes from our emails.”

Since starting their real estate firm in 2009, Robert Kinlin and Paul Grover knew email marketing would play an important role in growing their business.

That’s when they first brought on Autumn Boles to manage their real estate email marketing.

We make it easy for you to have a growing and connected client base with all the marketing tools you need, synced to the tools you’re already using.

Seven years later — with ten offices spread throughout Boston, Cambridge, Cape Cod and coastal Massachusetts — Robert Paul Properties continues to drive website traffic with email marketing, and convert prospects into happy homebuyers.

Constant Contact email example -- Robert Paul Properties

Let’s take a look at Autumn’s strategy:

1. Grow an engaged email list

Successful email marketing starts with quality contacts. Autumn practices permission-based email marketing, meaning she never adds a contact to an email list unless they’ve opted-in to receive her communications.

“Our emails are totally subscription-based,” Autumn says. “People will sign up for our Just Listed and Open House emails, so we know our list only includes people that are interested in what we’re selling. Then we have to include content that people care enough about to click-through and read.”

With this approach, email marketing not only drives website traffic — it increases repeat visits from quality leads.

Tip: Need help growing your email list? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Growing a Massive Email List.

2. Organize contacts based on interest

To share content people want to read, Robert Paul Properties pays close attention to their audience’s interests.

Their website sign-up form allows subscribers to check off the listing areas they are interested in, so they only receive relevant information.

Constant Contact web sign-up form example

“Our subscribers tell us the area they are interested in seeing new listings for,” says Autumn. “For the open houses, we also have six different areas so we know people will enjoy getting those emails.”

Based on their location preference, Autumn organizes contacts into separate email lists. Each week, when she sends a Just Listed or Open House email, she includes only those who have expressed interest in that specific area.

For example, the email below was sent to the people looking for information on properties on the Upper Cape.

list segmentation example
3. Optimize your experience for mobile readers

Relevant content is only useful if it’s in a format that your readers can easily consume. Autumn uses a responsive email template, which is designed to adapt to whatever size screen they’re viewed on.

“We like that we can start tracking within Constant Contact how many people are opening on phones versus desktop,” says Autumn. “And we’re thrilled that Constant Contact has the responsive emails because more and more people are reading on mobile. “

In the recent email below, 56 percent of subscribers opened on a mobile device, compared to the 44 percent that opened on a desktop.

Constant Contact open rate example

Robert Paul Properties also recently updated the company website to deliver a better experience to their mobile visitors.

“I think one of the most important changes we’ve made is moving to a mobile responsive website. It’s incredibly important that they see things in a nice format, from our email straight through to the website.”

4. Be concise with your content

A recent study from Constant Contact showed that emails with about 20 lines of text and three images or less get the highest engagement.

Additionally, Autumn has noticed an additional benefit of shorter emails — her audience is more likely to click-through to her website to view additional details.

“I think, in the beginning, we used to include too much information in an email,” she says. “Sometimes less is more. The people who are really interested will click-through and then you know who those people are.”

By tweaking her technique slightly, Autumn has boosted her click-through rate by over seven percent in the last three months. While the industry standard for real estate click-through rates hovers around 7.2 percent, Robert Paul Properties soared to over 23 percent in the past three months.

Constant Contact metrics example

“We recently started including the name of the town, a picture, and a short description of each property — but not the actual address,” Autumn explains. “We’re hoping they’ll click-through to find out where exactly it’s located. We’re always trying to do more things to make it an active experience and give them a reason to visit the site.”

5. Track your email and website analytics

Strong open and click rates are good indications that your emails are being well received. You should also look for opportunities to go a step further and think about how your emails are affecting your business goals.

When it comes to website traffic, Google Analytics is one of the best tools available for a more in-depth look at your visitor interests and behavior.

“We use Google Analytics to see how much traffic is coming through to our site when we send the emails out,” Autumn says. “Then we look at how much time they’re spending on the site, and how many pages they’re visiting.”

Tip: New to website analytics? Check out our Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics.

6. Extend the reach of your emails on social media

Look for ways to use social media to increase the reach of your emails. In addition to sharing resources for home buying and selling, Robert Paul Properties uses their social media channels as avenues to promote their latest emails.

With Constant Contact’s Social Share feature, you can easily schedule social posts for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn right from your account. Additionally, our tool for Facebook Advertising can help you get your email in front of a whole new audience.

7. Focus on consistency

Once you have the basics down, the most important thing you can do is be reliable for your audience. Autumn sends out her Just Listed email every Tuesday afternoon around the same time each week. This encourages subscribers to look forward to her emails whenever she hits send.

“My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you’re consistent,” she says. “Occasional emails will never work as well as consistency over time.”

Tip: Stick to a regular email marketing schedule by creating an email marketing plan for your business. We have tools to help you do it, 15 minutes at a time.

Drive traffic to property you own

There you have it — your step-by-step look at how you can drive website traffic with email marketing.

By encouraging your audience to visit your website, you’re helping your business appear higher in search engine rankings.

Soon you’ll be the lucky owner of an online property that helps you build relationships and do more business.

If you’re looking to find the best time to post on Facebook, the first place to start is Facebook Insights.

Facebook Insights is a valuable tool to help you improve your Facebook marketing. And Facebook’s made them even better with some recent updates.

You can find Facebook Insights for your own business page by navigating to the dropdown in the top right of your Facebook Page.

facebook insights image

In this post, I’ll discuss key metrics you should look for in Facebook Insights and the updates you should know about as a marketer.

1. View when your fans are online

Within the Posts tab, you’ll discover two graphs that illustrate the average number of fans who saw any posts on Facebook by day of the week and the average number of fans who saw any posts in an hour. It’s important to note that these metrics do not indicate how many fans actually see your content, but rather how many people are on Facebook at a given time.

It’s important to note that these metrics do not indicate how many fans actually see your content, but rather how many people are on Facebook at a given time.

facebook insights image 2

This tab can help answer the one question so many page managers speculate about: when is the best time to post on Facebook?

But these two graphs are not the definitive solution to discovering the optimal posting time just yet. Yes, aiming to schedule your Facebook Page’s content when the majority of your fans are online is important for increasing engagement, but the peak fan rate may not be the optimal time.

You should try to find your engagement sweet spot by determining the intersection of time when the majority of your audience is on Facebook and the time when the least overall posting is occurring.

2. View reach and engagement of posts

After you’ve started to look at the best time to post, Facebook Insights’ other sections will help you determine the best content to post.

Start with the “All Posts Published” analytics in the Posts tab. This section shows your posts in reverse chronological order and enables you to get a good look at your posts’ reach and engagement.

facebook insights all posts published

You can filter reach by:

  • Reach (overall)
  • Reach: Organic/Paid
  • Impressions: Organic/Paid
  • Reach: Fans/Non-Fans
  • Post Clicks/Reactions, Comments & Shares
  • Reactions/Comments/Shares
  • Post Hides, Hides of All Posts, Reports of Spam, Unlikes of Page
  • Engagement Rate

The Engagement Rate helps you to understand the success of your individual posts. Facebook calculates the official Engagement Rate as the percentage of people who saw a post that reacted to, shared, clicked, or commented on it.

The outcome illustrates the portion of your audience that is engaged with your content, consequently indicating the quality and success of your posts.

If one post is reaching a significant amount of people, but not producing much engagement, the News Feed Algorithm marks the post as low quality. Too many low-quality posts hurt your chances of appearing in your fans News Feed in the future. By regularly reviewing the metrics related to the posts you publish, you can begin to understand what content your audience is most responsive to and work toward creating quality, engaging content.

By regularly reviewing the metrics related to the posts you publish, you can begin to understand what content your audience is most responsive to and work toward creating quality, engaging content.

One recently-introduced feature to note is the addition of Facebook Reactions in the Insights engagement metrics.

Tracking Reactions to your posts enables you to get more information on sentiment, or what your followers think about the posts you’re sharing. If you see a post with Reactions activity, click on the post in the “All Posts Published” list to open up a window that calculates how many people used the six different reactions.

3. Find your best post type

This section within the Posts tab, called “Post Types,”  displays the type of content that produces the highest reach and average engagement for your page.

facebook insights post types

The type of post you publish matters when it comes to creating better Facebook content. Depending on your social media marketing goals, use this data to understand which type of post will help you succeed.

Facebook is placing a larger emphasis on video content with the introduction of its Facebook Live livestreaming feature, so it’s important to keep an eye on how your video content is performing versus other types in order to discover what your audience engages with the most.

Tip: Brand new to Facebook Live? Read the 10 Lessons We Learned From Our First Facebook Live. 

4. Videos tab

You can dig deeper into your video metrics with Facebook’s most recent video Insights updates that rolled out in early 2016. The Videos tab shows you the number of video views, number of views for 10-seconds or more, and a list of top videos.

These metrics can be filtered by Organic vs. Paid, Auto-Played vs. Clicked-to-Play, and Unique vs. Repeat.

facebook insights video type

Click on one of the top videos — or access other videos by clicking the Video Library button — and you’ll see a daily breakdown for a specific video of how many minutes it was viewed, the number of unique viewers, total video views, 10-second views, and the average percent of viewing completion. Clicking on any of those stats will open up a graph with additional information.

facebook insights video metrics

The daily breakdown will give you more details on the performance of your videos that you can use to improve your video content strategy.

5. Facebook Live analytics

Facebook recently rolled out its live streaming video feature to Facebook pages, along with a new set of metrics.

When you click on the video of one of your Facebook Live posts through Facebook Insights or your Video Library, you’ll see information on the size of your live broadcast audience, the number of total minutes viewed, unique viewers, views, 10-second views, and the average percent of viewing completion.

facebook live analytics image

Use these metrics to find out what live videos your fans are interested in and create more live streaming videos to share with your audience.

6. Know your audience demographics

Under the People tab, navigate to “People Engaged” to find three sets of demographics, including an overview of your fans, the fans you’ve reached, and engaged fans.

These analytics allow you to view who engages with your content by gender, age, location, and language. The interactive graphs within all these sets of demographics allow you to hover over the segments to display more information.

Facebook insight image demographics

It’s important to review the demographics of your page to get a better understanding of who your audience is to improve your Facebook marketing strategy. You do not need to monitor these insights as frequently as the success metrics for your content, but it is important to be aware of these insights.

7. Actions on Page tab

Facebook Pages can activate a Call-to-Action button that encourages visitors to complete one of 11 different actions, including signing up for their emails, booking appointments, calling the business, or purchasing a product.

facebook insights actions on page

In the Actions on Page tab, you can find out how many people clicked on your Call-to-Action button, the demographics of people who took that action, and whether they used a smartphone or computer when they clicked the button. Try switching your call to action, and then check your Insights to find out what types of actions people are interested in.

Use Facebook Insights to be a smarter Facebook marketer

Take advantage of Facebook Insights and its recent upgrades to find the best time to post on Facebook, better understand your audience, and create the best Facebook content for them.

Want to learn more?

For more Facebook resources, visit our Facebook 101 Page.