Email Tracking Guide: 3 Benefits, Tips and How AI Can Help

Email marketing is a process that involves sending emails containing marketing materials to leads and past customers. These people may be subscribers, although there are also email lists that businesses may purchase.

Marketing emails aim to engage the reader, inform them about a product, service, event, or policy change, and then convert leads to sales.

How Email Tracking Works

Email tracking can help you understand when emails are being sent, opened, closed, unsubscribed from, and more. Tracking your marketing emails can help you stay apprised of the changes you need to make to get a higher conversion rate.

What is Email Tracking?

Email tracking is a process of monitoring an email through its lifecycle. Initially, that means monitoring the email to see if it gets opened or clicked on. Other key performance indicators (KPIs) are used to track bounce rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates.

Overview of Tracking Mechanisms

Email trackers generally work as extensions on your browser. Each time you send an email, a 1×1 pixel image (the tracker) is added to the body. When someone opens the email, their browser will ask to get the image. When that occurs, you’ll be notified that the email was opened.

This process isn’t particularly complicated, and it’s extremely helpful if you want to try following up with people who opened an email, but didn’t click through or respond.. Sometimes, people simply forget to respond to an email, and other times they need reminders about why they opened the last email to begin with.

Email Marketing KPIs (Open rates, Click-throughs, Etc.)

Common email marketing KPIs include:

• Delivery rate: The percentage of emails delivered.
• Clicks by link/URL: The number of clicks per link or URL within an email.
• Click-through rate: The percentage of clicks through the email after it has been opened.
• Event lag: The length of time between the email’s delivery and the click to open it.
• Bounce rate: The percentage of messages rejected by the client in some way.
• Web traffic/conversion rates: The number of email recipients who convert to buyers.
• Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of people unsubscribe from the email list per delivery.

These email tracker KPIs help you get a better understanding of what is or is not working in your marketing emails. You want not only a high number of email opens, but also to see sales email conversions.

3 Benefits of Email Tracking

Companies that track their emails say several benefits make it worthwhile for many reasons, including:

Improved Email Campaign Effectiveness

Email campaigns are more effective when you know what works. You gain context and insight when you see which emails get opened and which are thrown into the user’s trash. Over time, you’ll gather information to determine the kinds of emails your target audience wants to see, the time of day that works best, and other factors that can help you improve click-through and conversion rates.

Personalized User Experience

Building customer relationships and a more personalized experience is simpler when you’re sending your subscribers the kinds of sales emails they want to see. When reviewing emails sent, you can determine which emails they interacted with most and which ones missed the mark. For example, if you’re seeing lots of read receipts but few conversions, you know something didn’t sit well with the subscribers and can go back to the drawing board.

Analytics for Optimization

Analytics help you make strong, data-driven decisions. Data-driven marketing campaigns let you segment your audience, optimize your email schedule, and, ultimately, convert more readers to buyers.

With email tracking, you can gather key insights that help you build customer profiles and learn more about what works for your brand. For example, if you send an email and notice a sharp drop in subscriptions, you can take that information and brainstorm to find the problem. Similarly, if you have a sudden increase in clicks, you’ll know that something in your email blast was attractive and on-trend, helping you stay in line with your subscribers’ wants and needs.

AI in Email Tracking

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool for email automation. It uses predefined rules to send emails (which may also be personalized) to your subscribers. Trying to personalize every email yourself would be tedious (at best), so having an AI tool at your disposal that can handle that process is a fantastic way to speed up your email marketing process.

Best Email Trackers in 2024

From welcome emails for new subscribers to follow-up emails after a big purchase, there are all kinds of emails you need to send out to keep your business running smoothly. But, not all emails are created equal.

If you’re ready to track emails and find out more about your subscribers, you can try one of these helpful tracking tools:

EmailAnalytics

EmailAnalytics is a web app that helps you see all email activity across your entire team. It’s a visual program that gives you an easy-to-use dashboard to review Outlook and Gmail activity. You’ll be able to note how often emails go out, how many emails are coming in, and other important statistics. Additionally, you can receive daily and weekly activity reports to track productivity. After a two-week trial, this helpful tool’s monthly prices start at just $15.

Right Inbox

Right Inbox creates a click-tracking opportunity. Its tracking tools give you insight into who clicks into and reads your emails. It can also help you with scheduling and email reminders, among other features. As an added perk, there is a free version of this tool. If you pay annually, it works out to around $7.95 for the paid plan.

SalesHandy

SalesHandy is a Gmail tracking tool that lets you track an unlimited number of emails. You can also use SalesHandy to schedule emails and send out cold email blasts automatically, letting you reach out to new prospects on demand.

If you opt for a paid version, you can use the tool on Outlook and integrate email insight with your current CRM. For a starter plan, you can expect to pay around $36 per month.

Mailsuite

If you like to use Google Chrome extensions, Mailsuite, previously known as Mailtrack, could be the right tool for you. It is designed for Gmail and Outlook, and it can also work on mobile devices (both iOS and Android).

On its dashboard, you can see KPIs such as click-through rates and the time spent on each page. Additionally, it offers support with campaigns and “mail merge,” a way of personalizing emails from data on a Google Sheet.

Mailsuite is another email tracker that offers a free tier, a great option for small businesses on a budget. You can upgrade to the Pro tier, too; you’ll pay $9.99 per month to unlock all the best features.

Streak

Streak is customer relationship management (CRM) software that lets you do a little bit of everything in your email. From managing leads to sorting data or identifying bottlenecks in your daily workflows, Streak can do it all. It offers mail merge to help you send personalized emails to target groups, a thread splitter option, view tracking, and other beneficial tools.

Working as another Google Chrome extension, Streak is a good choice for those looking for a free email tracking system. If you do want to upgrade, though, you can. Paid tiers start as low as $59 per user each month, but your total contacts will be limited.

MailTag

If you want to boost your sales, working with MailTag is an option. MailTag offers email tracking that lets you know everything that happens after you send out an email blast. You’ll receive read receipts, support with link tracking, and KPI details such as link-click rates and open rates. As an added bonus, you’ll not only be notified in your inbox but also on your desktop.

Trying MailTag is free for 14 days. Then, you can choose a monthly or annual payment. It’s $12.99 for each user on a monthly schedule, or you can pay $9.99 per user each month when you pay annually.

HubSpot

HubSpot Sales Hub says it “supercharges” your sales process with a straightforward CRM that includes email tracking. Other benefits include prospecting, reporting, and pipeline management.

With this all-in-one option, you might think you’ll spend a fortune, but there is actually a free version. To upgrade, you can choose the Starter tier at $20 per seat/month, the Professional tier at $100 per seat/month, and the Enterprise tier at $150 per seat/month.

Email Marketing Automation with Podium

Email marketing helps you reach your target audience and, hopefully, turn those leads into users who convert. But, it’s difficult to know exactly which emails work (and which don’t) when you don’t use email trackers.

You don’t have to limit your options or fight with a program you don’t understand. With Podium, you can automate your text and email marketing campaigns, create personalized emails, and track how users engage with your content.

Incorporating text and email marketing automation into your processes will help you improve communication, track customer engagement, and learn more about what makes your business grow. Ready to get started? Check out everything you can do with automation or get a demo today.