Smart Stats: 30-Day Engaged Report

by | Jul 22, 2024

Today, we are digging into some of the reports you’ll find in your Smart Stats (part of our Deliverability Dashboard App Suite).

But before we do, here is WHY you must be paying attention to the engagement of your list.

In today's world of AI spam filters, it is not about what system you use to send email or the IP address that the email is coming from, but it is your reputation as a sender.

Your reputation is predominantly built on how people are or are not engaging with your email list.

People opening, clicking, forwarding and replying to your emails is positive engagement and will boost your reputation.

People ignoring your emails and never opening them, deleting them without reading them or marking you as spam will harm your reputation.

And please, don’t take our word for it. Here's what Yahoo has to say about managing engagement.

Interestingly enough, Yahoo and the other mailbox providers view emails that are not being engaged with as spam.  

And, if you are seen as sending lots of Spam, your email reputation declines.   If your reputation declines far enough then all of your emails will eventually end up in spam.

This is what we want to help you avoid and this is exactly WHY we have created the EmailSmart suite of software, to clearly see what is happening with your email list and allow you to make improvements.

Now, let’s dive into one of the different reports you will see in Smart Stats.

30-Day Engaged Report

From the side menu, go to Smart Stats > Engaged Contacts > then scroll down to All contacts who you've sent something to within the last 30 days. It will look something like this:

This report looks at all contacts who’ve been on your list for more than 30 days and tells us how many are opening emails.

Start with the Top Line of the Report (Total)

  • Check if the total number of contacts sent to in the last 30 days looks correct
  • See what percentage have opened in the last 30 days
  • Check what percentage have never opened or haven’t opened in the last 6 months

Case Study

Looking at the above report, it shows:

  • 229,586 contacts have been emailed in the last 30 days
  • 86.6% have opened an email
  • 1.3% have never opened an email or haven’t opened an email in the last 6 months

What To Look For?

Ideally, you’re aiming for 70% or higher for contacts emailed in the last 30 days to have opened an email. 

You also want to ensure you’re not emailing anyone who has "never" opened an email after being on your list for at least 30 days. 

The reason for this is there's two points when someone is most engaged with your brand and they are…

    1. When they first sign up for your list
    2. After they have paid you money

So if they're new to your list and received 30 days of emails but never opened any of them, it's a clear sign that either:

    a) They didn't get your emails
    b) They previewed them but weren't interested
    c) They've found someone else to work with

No matter which one, continuing to mail them is an exercise in futility.

Additionally, you want to see very low numbers for emails sent to people who haven’t opened an email in over 6 months. 

Not following these rules can lead to sender reputation issues.

As you can see from this case study, they are ok but could benefit from some tightening up in list management to avoid sending to unengaged, ice-cold leads.

Now it’s time to check your report… how’s your list doing?

Here's an example showing emailing to unengaged contacts produces poor results.

The subject line has been blurred for confidentiality.

If you look at the top line, you will see respectable open rates, click-through rates and opt-out rates for a list of this size:

  • Open Rate: 55.28%

  • Click-Through Rate: 1.1%

  • Opt-Out Rate: 0.06%

But notice the drop-off between the 2nd line (contacts who have opened an email in the last 7 days prior to sending this newsletter), the 3rd line (contacts who opened an email in the last 30 days but not the last 7 days), and the 4th line (contacts who haven’t opened an email in the last 30 days).

*In this example the 30+ Segment includes people who had engaged in the last 30-60 days with a Yahoo/AOL or Microsoft email, and between 30-180 days with a Gmail email.

Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean a contact only lasts on this list for 30-days, there are contacts in the 7-day engaged audience who have been on their list for years. 

What it means is if you’re not keeping your list engaged, people won’t hang around, they may not unsubscribe, but you may never regain their attention.

That’s why it’s best to never let them go cold in the first place and the best way we know how to do that is through Email List Optimization.

If you consistently plug your engagement leaks, you will have more people’s attention for longer.

When you couple more attention with great offers that solve a person’s problem at a price they’re willing to pay, you’re going to make more sales!


Next Steps:

If you're the type of person who knows this can help their business but prefers an expert to guide you through the enitre process saving you time and effort, schedule a call with our team and we'll walk you through what it would be like to work with us.

If you’ve missed any of the EMAIL LIST OPTIMIZATION series, here’s where you can catch up: