Email nerd, argument winner, acrylic painter, wife and mom.
Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) is my jam. Whenever I’m trying to win a disagreement with my husband (who is changing the most diapers, who wins the most at ping pong, etc.) I collect data and create a handy time series comparison chart. You just can’t argue with solid facts, and Looker Studio lets me present those facts in a strong and visually pleasing format. I win every time.
In all seriousness, this email marketing nerd loves to use data to visually tell the story behind your email send metrics. An ongoing buzzword in the email industry is A/B testing, the more granular the better. We’re told to change one word in the subject line, “Try using SAVE instead of SALE!” and spend hours analyzing the results. Try sending at 10:05 am instead of 10:00 am! I’m of the opinion that there are way too many variables in human behavior to really believe these results matter. I had a colleague who mistakenly sent out the exact same email, at the same time, with the same subject line to a random split of 50/50. One of the emails had an overwhelming win in open and click rates. Pure coincidence?
Isn’t every campaign some sort of test in itself? Why not continuously look at the big picture of what your data is telling you? Let’s take the email quality score metric for example. Quality score is calculated like this: 1 — (Unsubscribes / Responders). It shows you how many of your subscribers are happily engaged versus how many are annoyed at you. Let’s say your subject lines and content are usually upbeat with a ton of cheery action verbs, and these emails consistently have a quality score of 80% or higher. A rogue VP steps in and demands a monthly campaign is sent with more aggressive sales verbiage. They may still have an acceptable open and click rate, but the quality score falls to 79%, 78%, then 75% due to higher unsubscribes. The difference in metrics may be subtle, but over time it becomes clear that your audience does not respond well to the change in tone.
I built a free Looker Studio email reporting dashboard template that uses quality score as a primary metric. Learn more about the template and get the link to it here: avagate.com/resources/reporting/. This template is just the tip of the iceberg. We have built several custom dashboards for our clients depending on their needs; automated comparisons of SMFC journey versions is one example. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn if you’re looking for a custom solution, or if you just want to use my diaper changing time series chart.