Email campaign – So, you are in the trenches of e-mail marketing and you are developing content, accompanying that content with great imagery, collecting contacts, importing them into the system and sending out your e-mails on schedule. Bravo! Now, how often are you reviewing your reports and digging into the data from your campaigns?
Immediately after your send a campaign little helpers begin to collect data like who opened your email, when they opened it, what links were clicked and what email contacts bounced. Generally speaking a few hours after you send your email a picture begins to develop – one that showcases the success or failure of your campaign.
Generally speaking I like to check my campaign sometime during the day it was sent just to see how things are going, but I don’t pull a full report until 48 hours after the email was sent. Why 48 hours you ask? Well, after years of preparing and scheduling emails I find that 48 hours provides adequate time for your campaign to run it’s course –your contacts open the email, click on the links, forward to a friend and the data is collected.
If you own one of the millions of smartphones in the US today you probably know that everything you do online is being tracked. When you visit a web site on your phone, open an app or simply travel with your phone in your pocket – you are creating data – but did you know that your GPS data is also being collected?
This microdata or better yet empirical data is extraordinarily valuable to an advertiser. Empirical data can be used to help understand the habits not only for the individual consumer but a group of consumers. This greatly increases the potential of an advertisement achieving its goal.
Target is a great example of retail brick and mortar business that is also reaching out digitally to its consumers. Target’s mobile app for smartphone Cartwheel allows consumers to choose or scan a product and save money based on your purchases. Cartwheel is unique as its focus is to get you to turn on the app while you are in the store and use it during your shopping. While utilizing this app data is being collected – your purchases, things you scan but don’t purchase – even the path you walk through the store.