How to Build a Customizable Email Reporting Template

If you’re using email strategy as part of your marketing efforts, then this blog post is for you. That’s because reporting on what you’re sending is a crucial step in a successful email marketing strategy. If you’re not already building email reports, you could be missing out on opportunities for the optimization of your campaigns.

With that said, the first step you’ll have to take is to build a template for your email reports. These email reporting templates should be based on your marketing goals—whether that be clicks, opens, forwards, etc. And while there aren’t one-size-fits-all reporting templates for email campaigns, there are ways to templatize email reports to create efficiencies.

When building email reporting templates for our clients, what we look for in reviewing email campaign performance varies based on campaign goals. When campaign objectives change, so should the information you report on to determine its effectiveness. For example, KPIs for a newsletter would be engagement-based (open %, click %, CTR, CTV rate, top links clicked, time on site, etc.) to monitor how subscribers are interacting with the articles and information shared, while an offer email would have additional KPIs that are more transaction-based (conversion rate, site traffic, revenue generated, etc.). You also may not need the same level of detail on every report – particularly if a performance snapshot is all that’s requested.

How to Build an Email Reporting Template

Since it’s helpful to have a starting point, we typically use both a document and a spreadsheet, depending on the clients’ reporting needs:

• The Email Reporting Template (download an example here) gives an overview of important KPIs to keep an eye on when evaluating the performance of a single email campaign. It also poses questions to help you articulate reporting summaries.
• The spreadsheet is helpful for summarizing and comparing how multiple campaigns performed, including all monthly email campaigns or individual segments of a single campaign (i.e. segments for an A/B split test), against benchmark data. You will want to insert your own historical and/or industry benchmark data as well as current metrics.

Need a place to start?
Download our email reporting template here.

You may also find it helpful to include a preview of the actual email(s) on your report. We recommend including that as well with your reporting for additional context. If heavy personalization was used, include previews of a few variations.

Topics to Include in your Email Report

If you’re starting from scratch, we recommend including the following items in your report:

Campaign Results

• Total Sent
• Unique and Total Open Rate
• Unique and Total Clickthrough Rate
• Clicks-to-Views Rate
• Bounce Rate
• Unsubscribe Rate
• Complaint Rate

Observations/Highlights

• How does the open, click and clicks-to-views rate compare to historical and/or industry averages?
• Was the bounce, unsubscribe or complaint rate higher than usual?
• Were any deliverability issues detected?
• How many conversions and associated revenue can be attributed to this email campaign?
• Overall, what was successful in this campaign? What are the takeaways to improve future campaigns?

Link Reporting

• Which links received the most clicks?

Device Reporting

• What is the percentage of clicks and opens on desktop vs. mobile devices?
• What was the most popular email client used to engage with the email?

Domain Reporting

• How does subscriber engagement vary by domain?
• Are there any warning signs for potential deliverability issues?
  • Compared to other domains and/or historical performance: does any domain stand out as having a significantly low open rate (an indication that the message was sent to Junk or went missing) or high soft bounce rate (which could tell you you’re getting blocked by spam filters)?

Deliverability

• What was the overall inbox placement rate? How does that compare to previous sends?
• Are there any mailbox providers reporting a lower rate of inbox placement?
  • If there are any known deliverability issues, what steps can be taken to improve inbox placement?

Website Traffic Behavior

• How many website visits were generated from this campaign?
• Can any revenue be attributed to this campaign?
• How did email traffic perform against other traffic source and medium combinations in terms of driving conversions and engagement?

For questions on these templates, or to review your email reporting with an emfluence expert, email us or call us at 816-472-4455.