Yuka KatoYou most likely use Gmail for personal and work-related email needs. After all, it is one of the most popular email services used in the world.
But unless you focus on Gmail email analytics, you won’t get the most out of Gmail or be able to improve your emailing workflow.
In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about analytics for Gmail, Gmail analytics tools, and more. Keep reading to boost your Gmail game and streamline your email management.
What is Gmail Analytics and Why is It Important?
Gmail analytics may sound like the name of a tool offered by Google (like Google Analytics), but it’s not. It’s just a standard term that describes the process of tracking email stats to measure how they perform.
So in other words, email analytics for Gmail is a form of data analysis. It involves the collection, comparison, and analysis of data about your email interactions for key insights into your campaign performance. Whether you’re a small business owner, a self-employed individual, or a marketer who uses Gmail for email campaigns and communication, it’s a best practice to perform regular performance analysis to stay on top of your game.
Gmail analysis will ensure that your efforts, time, and email marketing budget are not wasted. It has many benefits:
- Ensures that you can track the performance of your campaigns and do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis
- Helps you optimize and enhance the outcomes of future email campaigns
- Allows you to make data-driven email marketing decisions that yield a higher ROI (return on investment)
- Indicates audience behavior so you can use segmentation and customization for enhanced success
- Indicates the efficiency of your team in handling client emails
So, if you want to streamline your email marketing efforts, you need to buckle up and develop a Gmail analytics strategy. Email performance analysis will help you stay on track and ensure your campaigns continue to perform well in the short and long term.
Before you get started, it is essential to note that email analytics for Gmail can be categorized into two components:
1. Message Tracking
This refers to the journey of your email from your server to your recipient and logs their interactions with it. It comprises crucial details about your email, like whether it has been opened, how many times it has been opened, attachment downloads, clicks on embedded links, deliverability, and more. Message tracking is vital for analyzing the performance of your emails.
2. Message Metadata
The next component of Gmail analytics is your email metadata, which contains vital identifiable information like sender, receiver, timestamp, IP addresses, and more. Much like message tracking data, your email metadata gives you real-time insights about your email’s performance and the viability of your email management practices.
You need both message tracking and email metadata to successfully perform Gmail inbox analytics—they cover all the key performance metrics.
What Data to Analyze in Gmail
Now let’s look at the KPIs you should focus on for Gmail analysis. While email marketing in Gmail has a lot of different metrics you can analyze, the following are the most important for performing email analytics in Gmail.
1. Email Open Rates
The open rate refers to the percentage of recipients who have opened your emails. This is a key metric for Gmail performance analysis because it tells you if your email is interesting enough to make your audience open it. People receive an average of 121 emails daily, most of which will remain unopened, so open rates can indicate the effectiveness of your message.
If your email open rate is low, it could be attributed to multiple factors. Look out for:
- Poor subject lines. Subject lines should be relevant, interesting, and engaging.
- Timing of your email. The best time to send emails for marketing campaigns depends on the subject matter, so track open rates to determine the best time to send your emails.
- Preview Text. To improve your open rates, optimize your email preview and make it appealing to your target audience.
- Sender Credibility. The credibility of the sender’s email ID also makes a big difference to the fate of your messages. If you send many emails and the recipients mark them as spam, it could negatively impact your open rates.
- Email Content. Irrelevant emails always fail to impress recipients. To ensure they click on your email, draft captivating emails that are clear and add value to those who will read them.
2. Email Bounce Rates
Bounce rate is defined as the percentage of emails that don’t get delivered. For example, you have sent the same newsletter to 100 email IDs. Out of the 100, 15 emails have not been delivered. So, the bounce rate in this instance is 15%.
Depending on what happens during delivery, you can get a soft bounce or a hard bounce. A soft bounce occurs when the receiver cannot receive emails or their service provider cannot process emails. In contrast, a hard bounce is a permanent failure to deliver the email.
Hard bounce is the one to watch out for because it tells you the following:
- Whether your mailing list is updated and accurate or not. A high bounce rate could be why you need to revisit and revise your mailing list.
- Whether the ID is trusted by your recipients. If you send too many emails with spammy subject lines, that could work against you.
Mapping your bounce rate for every email campaign is important because your mailing list may vary. So, always keep an eye on this metric and adjust accordingly.
3. Link Clicks or Click-Through Rates (CTRs)
Click-through rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links in the email compared to people who just opened it. Unlike open rate, CTR is a surefire indicator of how many people opened and actively engaged with your message.
CTR is important because it’s the key performance metric that tells you whether your emails are relevant to your target audience. A good CTR indicates a high interest level, while a low CTR implies that your emails are getting ignored.
Several factors can impact your CTR. These include:
- Relevance of your email. If the content of your email is useful, informative, and qualifies as a value-add, recipients will click on your links. Just another cookie-cutter promotional email that lacks creativity and innovation will fail.
- Your Call to Action (CTA). The CTA of your email should be persuasive and definitive. It should prompt your recipient to take immediate action.
- Design and copy. The email you create must be easy on the eye and easier to read. Convincing copy and user-friendly design work in tandem to enhance the appeal of emails.
As long as you draft a good email, you can rest assured of a good CTR. You can also perform A/B testing for your email copy to see what type of content works better for your target audience.
4. Answered and Unanswered Emails
You should also monitor your customers’ responses to your emails. Respond quickly when your customers reply, and be vigilant about sending a follow-up if your recipient has not responded. A lack of response indicates oversight or a hard pass on your target audience’s behalf; neither is good for your email campaign.
5. Attached Document Analytics
Many prefer sending PDFs, images, or other attachments over embedding links in the body of an email. In such instances, it is important to monitor the activity of your attachments. Any activity or lack thereof can indicate the effectiveness of your email campaign.
While tracking the attached document is possible by requesting a read receipt, it’s not always useful. Getting a Gmail extension like Mailsuite that lets you track unique activity in your attachments could be rather helpful. You will know when the document was accessed, how many times it was accessed, how many times it was viewed, and more.
6. Email Productivity Reports
Lastly, email productivity reports should be part of your Gmail analysis. A productivity report should give you an overview of your emails’ performance. It covers the key metrics discussed above, but further analyzing your email productivity report can tell you if you have chosen the correct service for your needs.
You can assess your email management practices by studying the insights in your productivity report and making improvements wherever required. In the long run, this will help improve overall email management and make it you more efficient.
The Best Tools to Track Analytics in Gmail
When it comes to data analytics, you need to invest in tools that can help you get on track. Since there are no native Google tools for Gmail analytics, you can use a reputable third-party solution. Any good Gmail analytics tool can save you time, money, and effort that you would otherwise spend on making these reports.
Depending on your needs, these are your best options:
Mailsuite (Best Overall Tool)
Mailsuite is a dedicated extension for Gmail and the best overall tool for email analytics. This feature-rich solution has been specially designed to ensure solopreneurs and small businesses can cultivate and sustain meaningful relationships via email.
With Mailsuite, you can effortlessly track your emails, supervise your campaigns, perform email document analysis, and monitor your email productivity. Here’s a quick overview of what Mailsuite offers:
- Track clicks on embedded links to monitor recipient behavior
- Monitor the activity of individual recipients in a campaign and get delivery certificates
- Get real-time desktop notifications every time someone opens your email
- Get on-time follow-up and no-reply alerts
Hiver (Best for Support Teams)
Choose Hiver if your customer support team uses Gmail as the main channel of communication and query resolution. Hiver enables users to track customer emails by tagging them with unique IDs and converting them into actionable tasks. You can also sync all your customer channels to prioritize customer service around the clock. Hiver lets you:
- Optimize customer email management with automations
- Track relevant customer email management metrics in real-time
- Make use of multi-channel support with a dashboard
- Streamline customer email management with a diverse set of API integrations
Gmelius (Best for Collaboration)
Gmelius is also a Gmail extension that can be used with Workspace accounts. This AI-driven email management tool boosts operational efficiency by enhancing collaboration among teams. From managing email exchanges between team members to streamlining overall business processes, Gmelius lets you utilize your Workspace accounts as a CRM platform. With Gmelius, you can:
- Monitor and organize emails by metadata
- Automate email management
- Collaborate with shared inboxes
- Speed up response times and make productivity gains
Take Control of Your Inbox by Tracking Analytics in Gmail
You must make Gmail analytics part of your email management practices to ensure you are making optimal use of the service and making the most of your budget. You can reap long-term benefits when you make data-driven decisions for your email campaigns.
Mailsuite has everything you need to monitor and analyze your bulk Gmail campaigns. Visit the website to sign up for a package that suits your budget and requirements to experience the Mailsuite difference today!
