Cakemail
Analytics

Following Up with Contacts Who Did Not Open or Click

Why this matters

A statistic is useful only if you act on it. Your campaign report tells you who opened and who clicked, so you can also tell who did not. Instead of only reviewing your results, you can send a second, targeted email to the contacts who missed the first one, for example a reminder to register for an event.

A segment based on email activity does this for you. It updates automatically: a contact who opens or clicks before your reminder is sent leaves the segment and does not get the reminder.

Before you decide: read your statistics carefully

Don't judge a campaign in the first minutes after you send it.

  • Wait a few hours. People read their email later in the day or in the evening. Some open it first on their phone, then open it again on a computer when they have time to read it. Your numbers keep updating as new activity comes in.
  • Treat open rate as approximate. An open is counted when a small, invisible tracking image (a pixel) loads in the email. Some email programs preload images, which counts an open even if nobody read the email, and others block images, which hides real opens. See Understanding open rates.
  • Prefer click rate. A click is a much better sign that a person read your content. See Understanding email click rates.
  • Watch for activity that arrives all at once. If many opens or clicks happen in the same second, right after sending, they usually come from security filters that scan every link, or from email programs that preload the email. They are not people reading your content.

Create a segment of contacts who did not open or click

  1. In the left menu, select Audience, then Contacts.

  2. Choose the list you sent the campaign to.

  3. Select the Create a segment option.

  4. Name your segment so you can recognize it later (for example, "Spring event - did not click").

  5. Add a condition based on Email activity:

    • Choose did not open to target contacts who did not open the campaign, or did not click to target contacts who did not click a link in it.
    • Select the campaign you want to follow up on.

  6. Review the number of matching contacts displayed for the segment.

  7. Click Save and exit.

When you create your reminder campaign, select this segment as the recipients. For more on building segments, see Creating dynamic segments and Segmenting by engagement.

Plan a short follow-up series

You can prepare your follow-up in advance. For example, for an invitation to an event:

  • Week 1: send the invitation to everybody on your list.
  • Week 2: send a reminder to the segment of contacts who did not click the registration link in the first email.

Because the segment updates automatically, a contact who clicks during the week is removed from the segment before the reminder goes out, and does not receive it. Keep the series short (one or two reminders) so you don't tire your contacts.

You can also automate this kind of follow-up with an automation that sends a different email depending on whether a contact opened or clicked. See Understanding email automation and Creating an automation with branching conditions.

Compare with your own baseline

Each campaign will have a few unsubscribes. What matters is a change compared with your usual results.

  • A jump in unsubscribes often follows a change in how often you send or in what you send. For example, if contacts subscribed to a monthly newsletter and you start sending every week without telling them, expect more unsubscribes. Keep the promise you made when people subscribed, and let them know before you change it.
  • If you have not sent to your list for a long time, expect more unsubscribes: some contacts no longer remember subscribing.
  • A spam complaint is worse than an unsubscribe. An unsubscribe ends the relationship; a complaint tells email providers that your email is unwanted, which harms your reputation. A high complaint rate points to a problem with your content or your list. See Understanding complaints, bounces, and unsubscribes.

Troubleshooting

My reminder segment shows zero contacts

  • Check that you selected the right campaign in the Email activity condition.
  • Make sure the campaign has been sent and that enough time has passed for activity to be recorded.
  • If everybody opened or clicked, there is nobody left to remind.

A contact who clicked still received the reminder

  • The segment reflects the activity recorded when the reminder is sent. A contact who clicks after the reminder goes out still receives it.
  • Check that you selected the segment, and not the whole list, as the recipients of the reminder.

Too many contacts appear to have opened

  • Opens that all happen in the same second usually come from security filters or preloading. Use did not click instead of did not open for a more reliable follow-up.

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