The following information is recorded for every eNudge email campaign:
Number of Opens
Number of Clicks on a URL
Number of Forwards
Number of Social Media Shares
Number of Bounces
Number of Unsubscribes
We will now explain each of these measures, but first a quick note about HTML vs text format emails
HTML vs text emails
The HTML format enables you to design your emails so that they complement your corporate image, are easy to read and provide visual impact. Unfortunately because it is possible for viruses and the like to be distributed via images inside an email, some of your contacts will switch off automatic download & display of such images, although they will still benefit from colours, tables and special fonts introduced by the HTML format.
However, some people choose to only view email in text format, in which case they will just see completely plain text – no colours, tables, special fonts etc. They may choose this option because it is easier for them to read text emails especially if they are vision impaired and are getting help via a screen reader, or because they are trying to reduce the size of their data downloads.
Email standards require that HTML emails are also sent in text format in order to support text only viewing.
Consequently, eNudge sends your email messages in both HTML format and in plain text format, unless your contact has specifically requested to receive only the text version. Your contact’s email program will then display the message either in HTML format or the text version, depending on the program settings, and will only display images included in the HTML version automatically, if that feature is not switched off. In the text only version of your email, the URL links are still be included.
After your email has been delivered
Using eNudge provides you with the ability to track what happens to your emails after they are sent; some of the tracking measures are only possible when your contacts receive and read your email in HTML format, and even then, the statistics may not be 100% accurate particularly with regard to opens. Accordingly, the statistics eNudge provides should only be used as a guide, and are most useful as trend indicators with respect to your contact’s interaction with your messages over a period of time.
Email opened
eNudge knows when your contact has opened an email when they download the images within your email. If the recipient has automatic download of images turned off within the settings of their email program, they will be prompted to download images in order to see them within your email. If you have used the eNudge logo feature, your logo will already visible and will remain visible even if the user says ‘no’ to downloading images. This is possible because eNudge embeds your logo image, rather than treating it as an attachment, thus ensuring your logo can be included without threat to your contact’s security.
To increase the likelihood that your contact downloads images into your email (thus allowing eNudge to record the open event) we strongly recommend that you include at least one image other than your logo within the body of the email – the closer to the top of the email the better. Even if you don’t include such an image, eNudge still knows that your email has been opened via the download of the light grey image at the bottom of every eNudge email.
Statistics suggest that approximately 65% of people automatically download and display images in their email messages. More recipients will accept images if they are comfortable that the source of the email is trustworthy.
The remaining people will not download images, and there eNudge will not know that they have opened the email unless they interact with your email in some other way (click on a tracked URL, forward the message, update their preferences, unsubscribe or share it in social).
The number of opens shown for a particular campaign equates to the number of individual contacts who have opened your email at least once.
URL clicked
If you have switched on URL tracking for your eNudge email (choose ‘Track All URLs’ in the Campaign Settings screen) eNudge automatically record when your contact clicks of any URL in your email message including the date it was clicked.
The number of clicks shown for each URL equates to the number of individual contacts who have clicked on the particular link.
Number of Forwards
eNudge also automatically tracks the number of times your message is forwarded to other people using the eNudge Forward to a Friend link which is automatically included in the bottom of each email. You can also include a tracked ‘forward this email’ link within the body of your email using the personalisation field for this purpose.
The number shown is the total number of times that it has been forwarded by all contacts, so if one person forwarded the message to 3 other people and another person forwarded the message to 2 other people, the total number of forwards reported will be 5. You can see exactly who forwarded your message how many times, by looking at the View Campaign Contacts and Activity screen.
NB: This does not include the number of times that your contacts forwarded your message by clicking on the Forward button in their email program.
Social Media Shares
eNudge tracks the number of times people view your email because it was shared via social media (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn). If contact A shared your email in Facebook, and 10 people viewed your message through that link, then eNudge will show that your email was shared 10 times in social media by contact A.
The total number of social media shares is the total of all people who viewed your email via a social sharing link.
Bounced Emails
The main reason emails sent through eNudge bounce is because the destination email address does not exist. Bouncing may be instant, but it may also take several days to work its way back to eNudge. Some email gateways are not set up to correctly follow email standards, and therefore do not send a bounce message back to eNudge – in such a case, eNudge is unable to record the bounce. This however is becoming increasingly rare.
A bounce message may be generated by the mail gateway between your contact and eNudge for many reasons other than “email address does not exist”. Other reasons include that the mailbox is full, or temporarily suspended. eNudge only bounces email addresses that report a permanent failure. The reason for the bounce can be seen in the Bounced Email report.
Unsubscribe
A contact can unsubscribe from receiving your emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link automatically included at the bottom of your emails. After a contact has unsubscribed you can no longer email them from eNudge, and you cannot override this.
If someone unsubscribes, do not follow up with further mass marketing emails outside of eNudge. This is an illegal practice which may subject you to prosecution, large fines and even a jail sentence. It may also result in your domain being blacklisted, thus impacting all emails you send out.