Understanding Your Aweber Analytics and Stats

by Nicole Munoz

One of the best parts about Aweber email web analytics is that you don’t have to install complicated tracking codes. Your basic data is right there at your fingertips – or will be, as soon as your list starts to grow.

Step 1. Where to Find Information about Your Subscribers

As soon as you log into Aweber, you’ll see instant stats for all your recent broadcast emails.

You can see:

What percentage of emails were opened
The percentage of clicks
What percentage bounced
Total percentage of complaints

What’s a good rate of opens? Well, obviously, we’d all like 100% — but realistically, for lists containing 1000+ subscribers, 12.2% is the industry average open rate, according to Mailermailer.com’s most recent Emarketing Metrics Report.

Open rates do vary by industry. For example…

The 2012 average open rate for both the Small Business and Consulting industries was 15.9%
The 2012 average open rate for the Marketing industry was 8.6%

Lowest open rate in a list of 19 industries surveyed by Mailermailer.com? The medical industry with 6.5%. This means that Marketing broadcasts with 9.2% and 11.5% open rates respectively suddenly change from being slightly below average to above average for that industry.

This is the sort of judgment that Aweber’s statistics will help you quickly develop.

This example also reminds us that all statistics are fluid; and one of the most important skills to master lies in knowing what other hidden factors are likely to influence or change our perception of results.

So if you are new to email marketing statistics, you now know a whole lot more than you did five minutes ago – and those figures of 9.2% and 11.5% actually mean something specific to you. That’s the difference between seeing statistics – and knowing how to apply the knowledge.

Step 2. Getting Specific

But there are many more stats we can analyze and tests we can set up for each campaign. Let’s start by looking at the stats for these particular two lists.

Click on the “View Stats” link:

A new page opens and, at first, all you see is general stats…

The green number indicates that there were 138 “unique opens”. This refers to the number of people who opened your email in HTML template form.

Notice that there were actually 169 total opens: The 31 that can’t be measured most likely opened the email in plain text format.

But there’s one other explanation for some or all of the 31: The “unique open” also discounts multiple opens by the same person. As you can see when we scroll further down the page (a) you can see exactly who did and did not open your list (b) how many times each person opened them.

(Press the arrow to scroll through the complete list.)

What to look for:

One of the quickest ways not only to get a handle on analyzing your statistics but to correct a problem is to look for trends that are unusual.

For example, say it was extremely unusual to have nothing but $0 sales – this particular list usually brings you at least a 3.4% conversion rate. You might want to then view your message to see if there is anything in it that could have:

Caused the email to open improperly
Resulted in a broken link
Repelled the reader

The first thing you need to do is see if there is anything you can do about your disappointing and unusual result.

The quickest way to view the message tied to the stats above: Scroll a little further down and click View Your Message!

When you click the button, your message opens up in a lightbox (links, graphics and all) exactly as it appeared to your subscriber.

You can perform actions such as check the links, change the graphic or headline and date – and split-test to see if using a different graphic, headline or call to action will result in a response rate. (Just use the second button to copy that particular message into a new broadcast, so you can work with it.)

You can also export your data (once you have closed the lightbox) by clicking on the button also on this page:

The biggest advantage of exporting your data: You can see all your subscribers at one go. There is no clicking a side arrow and waiting for pages to open.

The final action you can perform on this page: Enable or disable Social Sharing.

But we can do even more with Aweber statistics…

Step 3. Setting Up your Analytics

One of the first actions you’ll want to take, once your Aweber lists are all set up and populated: Setting up your Aweber analytics.

There are just three simple steps to take:

1. Hover your mouse over the Reports tab and select “Settings”.

2. Copy and paste the JavaScript snippet in the window into your website HTML on every page you would like to track.

Once you have copied and pasted your JavaScript code into your website pages, proceed to Step 2 in Aweber.

3. Enter the main URL of your website (the one where you placed your JavaScript code). You don’t have to do this for every page containing code: Your main index file will do.

Press the green “+” button, once you have entered your URL.

You have now set up your Aweber analytics. (For even more advanced options such as Sales Tracking, CPM and CPC, visit Aweber’s Advanced Analytics Help Section.)

Step 4. Getting to Know Your Aweber Reports

If you simply click on the Reports tab, or hover over it and select “Reports”, you’ll be taken to a page that offers even more stats, with well over a dozen links you can click.

Each link you click on offers a wealth of data; and you can also export .CSV Excel files that will give you spreadsheets containing even more data about your subscribers. (There’s no need for guesswork, when your Excel spreadsheet shows you data such as where they live; what was delivered and what was not; follow up percentages and more.

The scope of this guide is too narrow to allow us to explore every link in detail, but explore them yourself, download .CSV files, and you will quickly decide what data is important to you.

One time-saving tip it’s important to know, however:

Get into the habit of using your Dashboard

Your Dashboard performs a really useful function.

a.    Click on a report you’d like to access (#1)
b.    Click on the little Detail tab at the top right of your report (#2)
c.    When the area expands, click on “Add to Dashboard”

Your Dashboard will then display all the data you need from specific reports – all on one central page.

You will be able to see your most relevant graphs and charts at a glance – and that will really help you towards a focused overview.

Step 5. Create a Broadcast Split Test

This report wouldn’t be complete without letting you in on how to quickly and easily create a Split Test for your Broadcast.

A “Split Test” means that you send out half your emails with Version A of one element in your broadcast (e.g. a Headline, a graphic, a color scheme, a provocative line of text, etc.)… And the other half, you send out with Version B of the same element

Four facts you need to know before you begin your Split Test:

1.    The most important rule of Split Testing: ONLY test one element at a time, per Split Test.
2.    Lists should have at least 100 subscribers before you Split Test. (The results won’t be accurate enough with less than that figure.)
3.    Aweber splits your list at random. You can’t assign specific segments.
4.    Split Tests only work per list. (You can’t use the “Send to Multiple Lists” feature.)

If you change more than that – even two elements – you will never know which of the two made the big difference (providing there is one, of course) to the new variation.

Example:

Kindle Kwikky Broadcast Headline “A”	Kindle Kwikky Broadcast Headline “B”
{!firstname_fix}, what do you say to your own kindle eBook?	Hey, {!firstname_fix} – Ever thought of writing a Kindle eBook?

Split Tests are one of the best ways to learn what your unique bunch of subscribers love – and hate.

For example, you could discover that your click-through rates went way up with a particular graphic… or way down!

As you track everything, it becomes easy to see trends. For example, you could discover that whenever you put a negative graphic (even a humorous one), your click rates plummet – or soar. Sometimes, the results can be surprising. You think you know your subscribers well and all of a sudden, you are learning more and more about them.

How to Create Broadcast Split Tests

1. Go to your Messages tab and select “Broadcasts”

2. Scroll down until you find the “Split Test Broadcast” button.

3.    Choose what percentages you’d like to split your list into (you can divide the test components 2-4 times, providing your total adds up to 100%.) When you are finished assigning percentages for the Split, click on Create New Split Test.

4.    You will then see the correct number of Broadcasts to edit, and your subscriber list will be split into random groups to fit those percentages.
5.    When you are returned to your Broadcasts page, edit each broadcast within the Split Test you have just created.

If you don’t have any broadcasts scheduled, your Split Test will still be created, but you will see the following prompt to create a Broadcast. Once you have done so, you can apply your test percentages.

6. Schedule your Broadcast

And you’re done!

The more you pay attention to and use your Aweber statistics, reports and analytics, the better you will come to understand them and how they can help you fine tune your business and increase your profits directly because of your email campaigns.

How to Give Sneak Peeks into Your Product with Box Shot King

by Nicole Munoz

You can use Box Shot King to create professional looking sneak peeks into any finished digital product you are planning to market. Here’s how…

Step 1. Prepare your .PDF

Use your favorite .PDF creator to convert your book from its word processing file to finished .PDF format. Most people use Adobe Acrobat, but you can also use products that are free – or offer a free trial period – such as Nitro Pro 8, which has not only gathered favorable reviews but offers simple, clear documentation and instructions.

We are going to use Nitro Pro 8 for this demonstration, but if you own Adobe Acrobat, you can follow specific instructions for that program in Box Shot King’s “How to” video section.

(The principles are the same for both.)

Once you have created your report or eBook in .PDF format using Nitro Pro 8, go through the finished result to find pages with images you would like to include in your sneak peek.

If possible, choose pages adjacent to each other (e.g. pages 4 and 5), since you are going to create an “open book” view for people to “peek” at.

Step 2. Select Your Pages

Select the facing-page-display option from the icons in the bottom right menu bar – or press CTRL + 5 – to view your .PDF in a two-page format.

Grab the slider button in the Zoom Slider and drag until you can see both pages.

You are now looking at a double-page display.

Scroll down until you find a double-page spread you think looks particularly impressive, and take a screen snapshot.

Step 3. Taking a Screen Snapshot

There are several ways to take a screenshot on your computer. Pressing “PrtScrn” will take a shot of your entire browser display in Windows. You have more options using Command-Ctrl key combinations if you are using a MAC. The best way is to use a highly-responsive, easy screen capture program such as TechSmith’s Snagit ($49.95 at time of writing, but there is a free trial period). Or use the totally free Jing (also from TechSmith).

Once you have your screenshot selected and captured, save it to your desktop for easy access.

Step 4. Creating Your Sneak Peek

Next, log into Box Shot King and click anywhere in the “Create” graphic window (or click the “Click here” anchor text).

1. Click the “Create” menu tab

2. Slide down through all the display types until you find “Open Report”. Select it.

3. Box Shot King will immediately show you the backgrounds page. Choose “Upload Your Own”.

4. If your image isn’t already uploaded to Box Shot King (i.e. you don’t see it in the display that opens up), click on the “Choose File” button and upload your screenshot from the location where you saved it.

5. When your image opens up in Box Shot King, click and grab the corner of the bounding box and drag until you have selected the area you want to display in the Open Report (your two pages).

Be as exact as you can, when matching the edges of the bounding box to the “page” edges: This will make the report display center properly in your Open Report.

6. When your Open Report displays properly in the little, top-right, double display, press “Select and continue”.

7. Press the “Finalize” button in the right-hand corner of your top-horizontal menu.

8. The moving bars will run across your screen display to let you know that your final Open Report display is being generated.

9. Finally, you will see your finished Open Report view. (Be sure to check the “Transparent Background” radio box!)

10. Download your Open Report file and save it.

Step 5. Editing Your File

You can still edit your file, if there is anything you’d like to tweak.

If the center spine of your “open book” looks off-kilter, this means you were out a couple of pixels in dragging your display area corners. If it’s out just a pixel or two, don’t worry about it; but if it is obviously off-center, simply edit it and re-drag the corners of your display.

If you want to make your Report image smaller or larger within the display, grab the Resize arrow and drag the image to the size you want.

And if you want to select only part of your canvas area, use the “Crop” button.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to use “Open Report” to create your double page spread. There are other options, such as “Open Book”.

Scan through all the different display options to pick the perfect one for your particular project.

You can also select a wonderful variety of other display formats to use in your “sneak peek” graphics.

Just be sure to choose the formats that best suit your digital product – and your viewer’s tastes!

Troubleshooting Color Selection

Box Shot King is incredibly easy to use, but there is one area where its functionality falls short: And that is in precise color selection for text elements.

When using the “Color Style” tab within your “Insert Text” tab, you cannot simply click on a color and magically have the code appear in the textarea box. You need to know specific color codes in advance if you want to use precise ones – which can be a problem if you have a specific color in mind but don’t know the exact HEX code for your HTML.

However, there are many online color pickers that will let you find HEX codes, so if you are looking for a custom text shade – one, perhaps, that contrasts strongly with your background color – do this first.

For example, open another browser tab and locate and choose your exact text HEX color code at w3schools.com’s online Color Picker.

First, choose the general color.
Then in the column on the right hand side, you can adjust that color increment by increment to darker or lighter tones.

Another option: If you don’t know the hex codes for text and background colors on your own website, but you want to find out your own color HEX codes for branding purposes, open your website page and do one of the following:

Right-click anywhere within your web page. A pop-up menu will appear. Select “View Source”. See if you can spot the appropriate HEX color codes within the HTML.
Open up your WordPress dashboard and find your CSS sheet in the Themes editor. Select your HEX codes.

Many people find the final option to be both quickest and easiest:

Install and use the Colorzilla color picker bookmarklet in your browser. (Colorzilla works with either Firefox or Chrome.) To use it, simply click your little Colorzilla eye-dropper bookmarklet in your browser bar, and then choose one of the options in the popup that opens.

Note that you can simply choose Colorzilla’s “Webpage Color Analyzer” to instantly get a read-out of all colors used on any particular web page.

If you click on any color box, you will be shown (a) its RGB value (b) the HEX code (c) exactly where the color was selected from in the style sheet.

The only thing you will need is the exact HEX code. So, for example, if you wanted the particular shade of orange we’ve selected in the example above, you would copy “#FFA500” and insert it into your Box Shot King HEX textarea box.

Most of the time, Box Shot King’s color selection options are perfectly adequate – but for those times when you need to know specific HEX color codes for matching purposes, this is the best way to find out.