VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

Get More With VR Statistics

Many of you have become pros at creating attractive emails, uploading perfectly formatted lists and launching your campaigns like clockwork. Great, except one thing may be missing. Reporting! VerticalResponse for AppExchange has great reporting resources to help you determine everything from most popular send times to your most social email. Below are some tips on how to get the most out of the VR Statistics tab in your account.

1. Compare emails- Choose any 5 emails from any time period and see a side-by-side comparison on opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes and social media likes and shares. Example: Use the compare emails feature to determine your most successful send time or best performing newsletter design.

 

2. Create a List- Use results from a recent campaign to create a targeted mailing list. Simply click the campaign name in the VR Statistics tab then the "Create Mailing List" option to build a list of recipients who clicked a link, opened the email, converted, or shared on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Example: Use the "create a list" feature to download a record of all non-responders (those who did not open the email) and send a follow-up message.

 

3. Measure Email Performance- Quickly determine the performance of a particular email over time by selecting the email in the VR Statistics tab and choosing the desired time since launch under "Activity". Example: View open and click trends from 6 hours to 2 weeks after the launch of an email to determine when response rates are the highest and schedule your next email accordingly.

Quick Tip: Don't forget to select "Update Statistics" for recent emails in order to maintain the most up-to-date statistics for your leads and contacts. Next use the "VR Email History Object" to view exactly which emails an individual Lead or Contact has received and see exactly what they did with each of those emails.

Want more on reporting? Visit our Salesforce Statistics page to access video and text tutorials or sign up for our weekly VR for Salesforce live webinar.

Snacks, Lemonade, and Peas: Why First Impressions Matter

It can often be difficult to stand out in an endless list of unopened inbox emails. An online marketing company recently sent an email with the following subject line: "Snacks, Lemonade, and Peas: Event Tips, and Beyond." Why is this particular subject line so attractive?

First of all, who doesn't love snacks and lemonade? And, while not everyone loves peas, they can certainly appreciate their nutritional value. Second of all, the email was sent at 12:19 PM, just around the time when our stomachs start grumbling and we're ready for lunch. The company applied two clever tactics, they used the right verbiage and they did it at the perfect time. They spoke to our subconscious appetites and yelled who wants snacks, lemonade, and peas?!

What can we take from this encounter with Snacks, Lemonade, and Peas in the inbox?

1. First impressions still count! In a fast paced environment of reality tv, tabloids, and twitter, we have become accustomed to being entertained, excited, and drawn in with a hook. Although we may not always have something exciting to offer, we can still offer it in an interesting way. Use attractive verbiage, find clever ways of phrasing a subject line, and be unique! 

2. Keep it above the fold. As often as we hear the phrase "you can't judge a book by its cover" the truth is, we all do, whether or not we are aware of the fact. Within seconds of seeing a subject line, title, or opening sentence of a blog post or email we decide whether or not to continue reading. So, make your first few lines count. Deliver your call to action, purpose, or message above the fold (upper half of the page). Don't make readers dig for the goods because 9 times out of 10, they won't.

3. Ask yourself, would I read this? We rely on first impressions to help us quickly determine whether or not we will find something useful and interesting much in the same way we watch a movie because of its preview or buy a magazine for its cover. There is limited time and space to draw in customers. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and ask yourself, would I find this enticing?

4. Timing is everything. When sending an email, timing can have a huge impact on open and click rates. Perform a split test or examine the reporting on your last few sends to determine the times when your emails have the highest open and click rates. Like the marketing website did with snacks, lemonade, and peas at lunchtime, coordinate subject lines and timing to optimize open rates even further.

We can spend hours creating interesting content and incredible offers but if our readers never get past the subject line, our efforts become futile. In an age where everything is animated from billboards to buttons, we have to compete to captivate our audience from the start. The first few seconds of introduction determine whether our users will remain engaged or make a dash for the delete button.

Learn more about Salesforce reporting! Learn how you can use your customer data to send relevant, timely and exciting messages with VerticalResponse. Sign-up for our weekly VerticalResponse for Salesforce live demonstration, Wednesdays at 10 AM PDT.

Savannah Stewart is the Partner Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse and blogs here about all things related to marketing and B2B communication. Connect with her on Twitter at @savannahstewart.

Think All Customers Love Fancy Graphics and Images? Think Again.

It can be fun and visually appealing to create and design emails with fancy images, elaborate tables and pretty buttons, but do customers respond positively? Not always. Particularly in B2B communications, many email recipients are more likely to respond to text emails.

Why do text emails deliver good results?

1. They tend to be more direct and to the point making busy B2B customers more likely to read the content and respond.
2. Calls to action and links are more apparent in text emails. The visual distractions presented in graphical emails may take attention from key email points.
3. Text emails are more personal and professional and give off a less "mass email" feel.

The VR for AppEx team recently conducted a test with its B2B audience to see if customers were more likely to respond and interact with a graphical email (containing images and graphics) or a text email. The results may surprise you!

Text example on the left, image email on the right.

 

 

We found the text email had both higher open and click rates!

Curious whether your customers will respond better to graphical or text email messages?

Use the VR for AppExchange reporting tools to test the two types of emails. Split your list in two, send one list the graphical email and the other group the text email to measure differences in open and click rates. Remember, you can only track opens with HTML emails so be sure to keep the HTML version in the mostly text email. It's also a good idea to adhere to the 20% images and 80% text rule. You can do this by including a button or two along with your company logo for branding. Happy testing!

Check out our online guide on Designing Your Email for Delivery & Response or view our How To Do Everything Salesforce page for more guides and resources.

Want more? Attend our weekly VR for AppExchange live demonstration, Wednesdays at 10AM Pacific.

Sharing Stats Across Your Org with the VR Stats Tab:Update Early, Update Often

One User Account, Data Access for Everyone

VerticalResponse for AppExchange is a powerful tool for creating, sending and measuring email marketing campaigns from your organization.  While creating and sending emails with VerticalResponse should be managed from one salesforce.com user account, any of the information that results from your mailings can be easily shared across your entire organization.  Your Salesforce users can then leverage that information to create reports, to generate call-down lists or to follow up with recipients of your campaign to close more sales.

The VR Stats Tab: Update Early, Update Often

Once you've created and sent a VerticalResponse email campaign from your account, you can watch the results roll in on the "VR Statistics" tab in your salesforce view:

Review open and click results in real-time after your emails are sent, then watch them grow.  You can even see purchase conversions if you have activated Click-to-Conversion Tracking in your VR account.  Once your results are tracking, update your stats to everyone in your organization by selecting the mailing you wish to update in the checkbox, and clicking the "Update Statistics" button:


If you have other users in your org who rely on this information regularly, be sure to update these stats often. Here at VR, as Salesforce users ourselves, we routinely update the stats of our new email campaigns several times a week, if not daily. As time goes on and the results slow, we update them on-demand as we know our team members need them for their
reports.

Share Data, Share Insights, Share the Advantage

Once these email stats are pushed back up to your salesforce accounts they become available in your organization's 'VR Email History' reports, or can be used as part of a custom lead or contact report that any of your users can generate.  Any user in your organization who has installed the VR for AppExchange package should now have these custom reports pre-loaded in their report folders.  See the example at right for how to access packaged reports.

Once these reports get your data, they include individual contact information for email recipients, as well email behavior information such as bounces, unsubscribes, opens and clicks for each user.
 
Some great examples of how to use this data include:

• Follow up with bounced prospects to make sure their contact information is still current
• Send more detailed information to prospects based on which links they clicked
• Create a follow-up call list of all recipients who opened and clicked on your emails to accelerate your closed sales.

See More About Working with Stats in VR for AppExchange

Resolved: Stats Update Issue for VR Email History Object

Late last week we fixed an issue affecting stats updates back into Salesforce.com for VerticalResponse campaigns. This issue was reported by our customers and our technical team worked to identify the source of the problem as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, it was a difficult problem to solve and the fix took longer than initially anticipated to uncover.

Things are now back on track and the reporting updates are working correctly. No reporting data was lost and you can simply click the "Update Salesforce" link within your account to re-run the stats updates.

Campaigns sent during the last 2 weeks in May would have been the ones most likely impacted by this stats update failure, but again if you re-run the updates now you'll see all the relevant email stats in the VR Email History objects for both Leads and Contacts.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Support Team.
Support is available weekdays from 6am - 5pm PST and weekends from 8:30am - 5pm PST.  Call us at 1-866-6VERTICAL (866-683-7842), or launch a Live Chat from our support pages during those hours.

Thanks for your patience while we addressed this issue and we're very sorry for this hassle.

Look Beyond the Click With Our Google Analytics Integration

In a previous post from several months ago, I briefly discussed some of the more advanced reporting options provided by VerticalResponse.  One of the advanced options I mentioned was our free Google Analytics Integration.  

If you're using Google Analytics to track website traffic, this integration will allow you to take your email tracking past the click to see what your email clickers are doing once they reach your website.  This provides an extra layer of analysis to further measure the success of your emails.

And did I mention that it's free?

Here's how to turn the integration on and access the extra reports:

Activate the Integration

1. Go to the VR Email Tab.
2. Click the Account Information link in the upper right hand corner.  
3. Select Analytics Settings.
4. Check the Add Domains box found in the Google Analytics section.
5. Enter the domains you’re tracking with Google.  Like onlyinsanfrancisco.com or visitlondon.com. 
6. Click the Submit Changes button.  The integration is now active and will be ready to go when you launch your next email.

With the integration turned on you’ll now see a Google Analytics box directly above the launch button for every email you send out.  This box includes a drop down menu from where you can choose which identifying piece of data (like email address) from your records you’d like to see integrated with your Google Analytics account should someone click a link in your email and go to your site.  The individual “clickers” will be identified using this data. 

If you don’t have an Google Analytics account, then you can easily get one from here.  Google will walk you through the setup process and provide you with a snippet of HTML code that must be added to every page on your site that you’d like to track.

Access Your Reports

The integration adds “VerticalResponse / Email” as a source of traffic in Google Analytics and identifies all those people who clicked a link and made their way to your website. 

To find the VerticalResponse / Email as a Traffic Source report within Google Analytics go to:

1. Traffic Sources.
2. Click on All Traffic Sources.
3. From here you can compare your VerticalResponse emails to any of your website’s other sources of traffic.

To Identify Website Visitors

1. Go to Traffic Sources.
2. Click on Ad Versions
3. The Site Usage tab will list everyone who has visited your site via a VerticalResponse email link, how many pages they visited, and how much time they spent on the site.  Individual people are identified according to the selection you made in the Google Analytics box found on your email launch tab (which is described earlier in this post).

Both these reports can help you calculate the actual value you’re getting from your VerticalResponse email campaigns and see if those people who click a link in your email actually spend time on your website following that click.  You could even use this info to see if people who click certain links in the email are more likely to take action / spend time on the site than people who are clicking other links.

Let me know if you have questions via comments!

A Detailed Look at Our New Reporting Features

As you may or may not have already seen, VerticalResponse released a major update to our reporting dashboard.  This update does not change our approach to pushing data back into Salesforce.  You still click the Update Statistics button found under VR Email or VR Statistics to push email statistics back to your Salesforce Reports tab and to your Lead & Contact records.

But what this update does do is bring some welcome updates to the functionality and usability of the reporting found within our own application.  Plus it's prettier than the old dashboard, and there's certainly nothing wrong with looking good.  Let’s take a look at the improvements.

New Campaign Dashboard

Improved Graphs - The new graphs display both the percentages and the total number of opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes.  And the response activity timeline graph is now interactive, allowing you to change the displayed range from six hours to up to two weeks.  The old graph showed only the first 24 hours.

Lists Ranked by Performance - If you send your email out to more than one list, we’ll rank each list according to how it performed.  You can also see the response statistics for each individual list - this data was not previously tracked.

Links Ranked by Performance - Though we’ve always tracked the number of clicks each link in your email receives, we did not previously display the links in the order of how they performed.  Now we rank them, with the top performing links appearing at the top.

Recent Email Comparisons - The dashboard displays a series of graphs comparing the performance of this email to your four other most recent messages.

Export Data - You can print the dashboard (using the provided Print link) and export it to both a PDF and Spreadsheet (CSV) file.  This is a nice way to share this data with people who are not using VerticalResponse.  

Detailed Reports

We also provide access to more detailed reports that show what’s driving the data you see on the dashboard itself.  These reports can be accessed by clicking the appropriate link under most sections of the dashboard or by simply clicking the reports link at the top of the dashboard.

All Events – This section compares the response stats for your email to your account’s lifetime average.  You can customize this view to show only the stats you’re interested in (i.e. opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, forwards, conversions and non responders).

Click-Through Performance – View the total number of clicks and click-through percentage for all links within your email.  This data can be filtered to display clicks from just the HTML version of your message, just the text version, or both, and can show total clicks vs. unique clicks.

Lists Mailed - Much like the dashboard itself, this section ranks all the lists to which you sent your email by performance.  The difference being that the dashboard only shows up to five lists while this section displays them all.

Compare Campaigns – Select any of your previously sent emails (up to 5) and evaluate their performance in, well, comparison to each other. You can select to view this data over time (i.e. first 24 hours) or view the summary totals for Opens, Clicks, Bounces and Unsubscribes.

In addition, each email you send out is archived and you can copy it to use as a template for a new email by clicking the copy link found on the left hand side of the main dashboard page.  Sent emails have always been archived and copyable, but a lot of folks don’t realize this so I thought it was worth a mention.  When you copy an email, you can find it by going to VR Email > Quickstart Menu > View Drafts.

Check out the two videos below to see the new reporting in action:

Dashboard

Detailed Reports

Have any thoughts or questions about the new reporting?  Let us know in the comments!

Using the Custom Email History Object

I’m writing this blog post while eating turkey and mashed potatoes, so my apologies in advance if I accidentally drop any food into the article.

As noted in my last blog post, VerticalResponse tracks opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes.  And you can easily access all this data through your VR Email or VR Statistics tabs.  But did you know you can also see this info on your individual lead & contact records?  We provide Custom Email History Objects that display every single email an individual has received along with the details on exactly what they did with that email.  If you click on the name of the email, we’ll even show the content.  The custom object should look like this:

But as nice as this object is, it’s unfortunately not visible by default within your Salesforce account.  So if you (or your admin) didn’t know this reporting was available and haven’t made the object visible on your Lead / Contact page layouts, then you are missing out on one of the most useful tools available with the integration between VerticalResponse and Salesforce. 

How can you make the Lead / Contact Email History Object visible within your page layouts if don’t already see it in your records?

1.  Click Setup within Salesforce.  Note that you must be an admin to make the changes noted here.

2.  Expand the Customize menu under App Setup.

3.  Expand Leads.

4.  Select Page Layouts.

5.  Select which layouts you’d like to alter:  the layouts for everyone in your Org or layouts for specific groups you’ve created within your Org.  Click Edit.

6.  This will open up Edit Page Layout.  Scroll to the bottom of this page.

7.  Now you should see the Related List Section on the left of this page and a "View" drop down menu with Lead Fields selected on the right. 

8.  Use the "View" drop down menu to choose Lead Related Lists. 

9.  Click & Drag the VR Email History Lead box from Lead Related Lists to the Related List Section. 

10.  Click on VR Email History Lead now that it’s in the Related List Section.  Then click the Edit Properties button. 

11.  This will open the Edit Related List dialog box.  Use the Add button to move Available  Fields you’d like to display to the Selected Fields column.  We recommend adding Email Name, Sent, Opened, Clicked, Clicked Links, Bounced, Unsubscribed and Mail Date. 

But you can add whatever you like since you can always come back and change it later.

Click OK when you’re done.

12.  Click the Save button on Edit Page Layout.

Now you should see the info packed Email History Object as part of your Lead Records.  To add this object to your Contact Page Layouts, just go to Setup > App Setup > Customize > Contacts > Page Layouts and follow the same steps shown above. 

And note to push data to these Email History Objects, you should select the emails whose stats you want to see updated from the VR Statistics tab and then click the Update Statistics button.

For more help adding this Object to your page layouts, watch this short help video:

Richard Huffaker, Education & Training Manager

Take Advantage of Advanced Reporting

If you’re a VerticalResponse user, you’re probably already well aware that we track the  opens, link click-throughs, bounces and unsubscribes for any email sent out through our service.  What you may not be aware of is that we offer even more advanced (and free) tracking options that need to be activated before you can use them.

These advanced options are Click to Conversion, Click to Sale, and Google Analytics Integration.  What are some of the reasons you’d use these options and how can you activate them?

Click to Conversion

With Click to Conversion tracking, VerticalResponse provides a snippet of HTML code that you can add to any page on your website.  If someone clicks a link in an email you send out and then makes their way to a page that contains this code, then they’ll be tracked within your account as a Conversion. 

This code is perfect for a thank you / confirmation page that follows a purchase, a white paper download, an event registration or anything else along the same lines.  In this way if you send an invitation out regarding an event, for example, you’ll see exactly how well that invitation performed based on the number and percentage of people who clicked a link in your email, filled out the registration and made it to the thank you page.  They successfully registered for your event and so therefore have “converted” by doing what you wanted them to do.

To activate Click to Conversion tracking, go within your account to VR Email > Account Information > Analytics Settings > Click-to-Conversion.  Then use the Enable drop down menu to select the Click-to-Conversion option.  Now simply add the tracking code that appears beneath this drop-down menu to any page (or pages) on your site.  Anyone who clicks an email link and makes their way to a page that includes this code will be tracked as a conversion.  Be sure to click the Submit Changes button before leaving this page.

Click to Sale

Click to Sale tracking allows you to see how much revenue is generated from people who make a purchase on your site after clicking a link in an email.  It also includes a Return On Investment calculator (which can be found within the reporting for each email campaign under VR Statistics) that compares generated revenue against the amount of money you spent on the email campaign itself.

To activate Click to Sale tracking, go within your account to VR Email > Account Information > Analytics Settings > Click-to-Conversion.  Then use the Enable drop down menu to select the Click-to-Conversion + ROI Calculator option.  You’ll then need to add the provided tracking code to the thank you or confirmation page that follows a purchase on your site and set things up so that the total purchase amount can be inserted into the code where we’ve written the words PURCHASE AMOUNT.  This is not too complicated, but is more advanced than Click-to-Conversion, so it will require more work on your end to set this up.  Also, be sure to click the Submit Changes button before leaving this page.

Since people can (and do) block cookies occasionally, this will not necessarily show you all the money that was spent by folks who clicked a link in your email.  The same issue applies to Click-to-Conversion tracking.  Both are simply additional tools you can use to gain a better understanding of an email campaign’s success. 

Google Analytics Integration

Our Google Analytics Integration takes your tracking past the initial email link click.  With this integration activated, you’ll be able to log into your Google account and see exactly what each of the specific people who’ve clicked a link in your email have gone on to do on your website.  We’ll automatically add the necessary Google tracking code to your links and let you choose what information about each individual clicker you’d like to see merged over to your Google account (you’ll be given this option right above the Launch button for every email you send out).   

To use this option you must have a Google Analytics account and have already added the Google provided tracking code to your website.  Accounts are free and are a great way to track activity on your website (we use Google here at VR).  You can learn more about Google Analytics here:

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Activate Google Analytics Integration by going within your account to VR Email > Account Information > Analytics Settings > Google Analytics.  If you already have a Google Analytics account, skip directly to Step 3 and check the Add Domains box.  Enter any domains you’re tracking via Google and click the Submit Changes button in the lower right hand corner.  After this is done, you’re all set.

As noted above, these “more advanced” tracking options are free to use.  The only real limitation is that none of these three tools currently integrate directly into your Salesforce reporting.  You’ll only see this data within your VR Statistics area and, in the case of the Analytics integration, within your Google account.

Are you having success with any of these tools?  Do you need help?  Let us know in the comments!

How to Create a Cross Object Report

As advanced as Cross Object Reporting might sound, it’s actually a fairly simple concept.  All that’s involved is setting up a custom report type - which I’ll describe how to do later in this post - that can pull data from multiple Salesforce objects (Campaigns, Opportunities, VR Email History, etc.).  By default, Salesforce reporting only pulls data from a single object, so expanding a report’s search across multiple objects can be a great way to dig deeper into your data.

To understand  how custom reporting can be used to take a closer look at your email success, you need to create a Cross Object Report that connects your VR Email History to your Contacts and Opportunities.  This allows you to measure the impact any emails sent out through VerticalResponse has on your opportunities’ purchasing decisions.

Here’s how a Salesforce Administrator can setup this type of Cross Object Report:

1.  Start by going to Setup > App Setup > Create > Report Types.  You may or may not see a “What is a Custom Report Type” page here.  If you do see this page, give it a read and continue on past.

2.  Click New Custom Report Type.

3.  Now you’ll choose your Primary Object.  What is the Primary Object?  Salesforce has written a fairly good description in their help area, so I’ll let them explain:

The primary object you choose determines the views available to users creating or running reports from your custom report type. For example, if you select Accounts as the primary object for your custom report type, then users can view their report results by All Accounts or My Accounts from the View drop-down list on the Select Criteria page of the report wizard or on the Report Options of the report.

Select "Opportunities" as your Primary Object if you want to create the example report I referenced above.

4.  Enter a name and description for this report type.

5.  Choose the category where you’d like to store this cross object report.  The category you choose will determine where this report will appear in the “Select the type of data you wish to report on” drop-down menu in the Salesforce report wizard.  “Other Reports” or “Opportunities” would be a good choice here.

6.  Select whether you want this Custom Report type to be “In Development” or “Deployed.”  If you select the Deployed option, then this custom report type will be immediately available for your users to access from within the report wizard.

7.  Click Next.

8.  Now you’re going to create a relationship between the primary object (Opportunities) and the VR Email History Object.  In option B, use the drop down menu to select “Contact Roles.”  Then, in Option C, select the VR Email History Contact.  You’ll also want to ensure you’ve selected the options requiring “Each A record to have at least one related B record” and “Each B record to have at least one related C record” - this ensures any custom report built from this Cross Object Report will bring back only results that are directly relevant to emails influencing your opportunities.

After you click the Save button, you and users will be able to access this new Report Type through Reports > Create New Custom report. 

Anyone have great success with Cross Object Reports? Share your experiences in the comments.