Integrating Web Analytics With Email

In this article Ryan Deutsch shares some tips and ideas to integrate web analytics with your email marketing efforts. Here are some of the takeaways:

clipped from www.emarketingandcommerce.com The following are just some of the core types of Web analytics data that should be considered and incorporated within an e-mail strategy: • shopping cart abandonment data — this data can be used to remind customers of items left in their carts, offer specials and suggest alternatives; • purchases — this data can be used to initiate cross-sell promotions; and • Web site visits — this data can be used to tailor promotions or messages based on consumer interest gauged by the number of Web site visits. For example, a customer who's signed up for online billing but hasn't initiated any transactions, or has started a few applications but hasn't completed the final steps. An e-mail can guide the customer back to the site and provide incentives to move the process forward. This puts the institution in a position to build customer loyalty and lets customers know that they're well-supported.

Comments

[Ted S]

This post may be a link off to a larger article but since you brought it up I thought it was worth elaborating...

In every case where I've seen abaondonment driven emails go out the results have been above breakeven at the very worst and most of the time are great.

While those email are becoming fairly common I still don't see them on a lot of major sites which comes as a surprise. However where I think there's a lot of opportunity is in the second idea -- purchases. Well purchases and web analytics. You don't have to wait for someone to ask for information on a product, if they've opted in and you know who they are, sending new offers or personalizing existing ones with their behavior can have huge results. This is especially true with sites that have a variety of SKUs. Nothing is more pointless in my life than an email from target with children's toys (no kids), on the other hand if they personalized to show me some new furniture (for the new place) that would be a great fit.

Thanks for the link...

[Casey]

Integrating web analytics with email is an important development for marketers, but the need for integration shouldn't exist. All the data should be captured by the ESP. Good email shouldn't cost more.
Check out Brian Deagan's post about this topic. http://lunchpail.knotice.com/2008/08/28/good-email-marketing-shouldnt-cost-more/