We analyzed the first Amazon SES email marketing campaign we sent to all our nearly 11,000 email subscribers and let’s see what the campaign reports indicate. This follows after we moved all our email lists, subscribers, from Feedburner / Feedblitz to Amazon SES.
Email Campaign Report Analysis
We sent out an email to 10893 email addresses. These included around 1500 from Feeblitz and 9500 from Feedburner. This was a 10-year-old active list. The combined email list previously was scrubbed and cleaned to remove spam emails via a Fiverr gig which helped to remove 500 emails. This was essential to prevent spam flags from Amazon SES and various ISPs.
So here are the results.
Lets study the break up.
1. A large Number of Bounces
This was a surprise. Both the lists on Feedburner and Feedblitz were active and were set up to pause emails sent to subscribers who marked the email as spam, unsubscribed or were bounced from non-available email addresses. So actually we should have seen no bounces as both lists were active. But 16.43% (1790) emails bounded and were not deliverable. They will no longer be sent any emails.
2. Very Few Unsubscribed
Both the lists were double opt-in, which means people need to fill the form and then click the confirmation link in the email. This helps to avoid spambots spamming the email list. So most people on the list wanted it. Only 20 people unsubscribed, which was a reasonable number to accept. Unsubscribed users will not be sent to the next email newsletter.
3. Rarely Marked as Spam
Most email marketing services take notice of a large number of spam complaints and can block your email lists. Only 2 people marked emails as spam which was acceptable and they will also be removed from the lists. People who buy email lists with millions of email addresses from suspicious sites are often hit by spam complaints, so remember to keep your list permission-based. Double opt-in is a tough deal but will keep your list clean.
Let’s see the other part of the report…
4. Few actually opened emails
Only 7.8% of people, that is only 713 unique people actually open the email to read what was inside it. 10180 people never bothered to open it! That was a bit disappointing as most list owners would expect a better number of people opening emails for the money they spend. Maybe as the content improves, or the headlines are more enticing, more people would be prompted to click the email open.
5. Multiple Email Opens
Of the 713 people who opened the mail, few decided to open it again totaling 862 times. This could be from multiple devices like phones, tablets, and desktop I suppose. Sometimes people start it to come back and read later.
6. Some people did click links
There were 332 unique clicks that happened to our site and of the 713 people who were engaged enough to open the email, at least half decide to click the email links. Half clicked the email migration information link and half clicked on the homepage link to see who we were (Maybe they forgot as earlier lists were ignored).
7. US users dominate
This was a new finding as the majority of people opening the emails were from the US. India users were a distant second among the people to open the list.
How can we improve the list of emails to make them more engaged and encourage you to come back and read our content? Share your thoughts and your experiences on running email campaigns. Do post a comment.