Can You Check Exactly Who Opened Your Emails With Aweber?

21 replies
Hey Warriors,

I'm getting around 20-30% open rates for my emails and I was wondering if you can tell exactly WHO opened the email.

I'm curious b/c I feel like some people will open every email and others will never open them. Obviously, it'd be better to work with people who like your emails so I was wondering if I could distill that info from the service.

Thanks for sharing,

Cheers,

Brad Spencer
#aweber #check #emails #opened
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
    Brad,

    Yep. You can do that. You have to use the click-tracking feature to get the info.


    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author Takuya Hikichi
      I thought this was one of the features available only when you upgrade to that more expensive version of aweber.
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      • Profile picture of the author leekhinc
        I don't think you can track who opened your email.

        I wish there is such a feature in aweber so I can target those people only. I am getting like 10% open rate :<

        Do you know that aweber charged you by the number of subscribers including unsubscribers?

        So I don't think aweber will want to include such feature.
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon1
    Banned
    My open rate is about 20% ~ 30%, if I use negative title such as "bad news", "My ranking dropped..." or anything negative, open rate is around 40%~50%!
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    • Profile picture of the author Paxton
      I was wondering about this as I was getting a much lower open rate than I thought for some of my lists. The particular list was offering some free advice on a particular software application and when I made the offer, my inbox was hammered.

      When I setup the list I only got around 70% open rate, which seemed low. People had been clamoring to get on the list and I had assumed they would all open the emails.

      Quick way to check who is opening - worked for me.

      In your next email, add in a couple of questions and ask for answers to be emailed back to you.

      I did that and I now know who is opening my emails.

      Doubt this will work for all lists, but it suited my needs.


      Thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author Chris Lockwood
        Originally Posted by Paxton View Post

        I
        In your next email, add in a couple of questions and ask for answers to be emailed back to you.

        I did that and I now know who is opening my emails.
        No, you just know who responded that one time. Certainly not everyone who opened the email bothered to reply.
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        • Profile picture of the author Paxton
          Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood View Post

          No, you just know who responded that one time. Certainly not everyone who opened the email bothered to reply.
          I know who opened the specific email, which is what the exercise was about.

          I did mention the parameters of the particular list and for those parameters, it worked.

          Not a solve-all, but got the specific job done
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          • Profile picture of the author JustinPremick
            Originally Posted by Brad Spencer View Post

            I was wondering if you can tell exactly WHO opened the email.
            If you're using our Email Web Analytics tools* you can see who is or is not
            opening your emails and clicking your links (as well as a few other measures
            of "response"). One place to see this is under the "Broadcast Totals" or
            "Followup Totals" reports in your account.

            You can also segment and email your responsive and non-responsive
            subscribers (see the "Message Opened," "Link Clicked" search options
            on your account's "Leads" page.)

            Originally Posted by melanied View Post

            No, both my email client and my web-based reader have no images by default, I have to click a button to show the images.
            Excellent point, as reinforced by a couple people here.

            Most email programs have images turned off by default. Subscribers can
            typically have images enabled for your emails by adding you to their address
            books or "safe senders" lists (the specifics vary somewhat across different
            email providers but overall this is a good rule of thumb).

            So if you're not already asking subscribers to add you to their address books,
            you should

            Hope this helps! Contact our team or PM me if you have any questions about
            using the segmentation tools.

            * Email Web Analytics tools are automatically included for accounts opened
            since May 20th, those who opened their accounts before have the option to
            upgrade by contacting us.
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          • Profile picture of the author Chris Lockwood
            Originally Posted by Paxton View Post

            I know who opened the specific email, which is what the exercise was about.

            I did mention the parameters of the particular list and for those parameters, it worked.

            Not a solve-all, but got the specific job done
            OK, how do you know someone opened the email if they did not respond to your questions?

            My point was that you don't, not equating an open with a response.
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            • Profile picture of the author Paxton
              Yeah Chris, I'm not saying this is the best solution - you can even argue it's not a solution more of a "band-aid" for a very specific situation.

              I simply wanted to see if there were people on the specific list who were not doing what they had signed up to do and the questions sort of solved that for me.

              Totally agree - it's not the best solution in the world, but it served it's purpose and as that ain't a bad result.
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon1
    Banned
    Thanks for sharing, Paxton. 70% is impressive, consider some email client like outlook will filter the open rate, congratulation!
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    • Profile picture of the author Paxton
      I do simple, old fashioned newsletter style broadcasts.

      AWeber has a ton of templates that come out very nicely when sent to your email subscribers.

      Do one, then for the next issue, copy the previous in Aweber and change the content. That way the feel of the newsletter stays the same.

      You can add links on most of the templates outside the main content, so it won't look stuffed with links - something I hate personally and don't do to my subscribers.


      Thanks
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      Never undersell yourself - SEO is a skill clients are prepared to pay big money for
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      • Profile picture of the author Brad Spencer
        @Everyone

        Thanks for all the tips. I ask for feedback all the time and usually I get it. I'm working on building a deeper relationship with my list. Kind of taking a different approach to list building. Too many people are disconnected from their list. I want to know them, know their weaknesses, and have them know me. I feel like that connection will get them to spend money with me for the long term.

        An offer email, email "content", an offer email....that model doesn't work. People want to buy off those they like.

        Plain and simple!

        Cheers,


        Brad Spencer
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        • Profile picture of the author naruq
          Create curiosity in your subject line by asking a provocative question
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          • Profile picture of the author Dmitry
            There actually might be a way for you to accomplish this...

            If you send your broadcast in HTML and you include a 1x1 pixels image (just like aweber and all other list services I know of do) and you include ?email=[[awebers-email-variable]] after the image's source URL then by going through your website's logs you'll be able to see which emails have "requested" so to speak your image.

            If there are enough people interested I could easily craft a script for keeping track of this that could also export all the emails in a text file instead of you going through your logs. But you would have to manually remove them from Aweber... that I believe I cannot help you with unless Aweber have some API that would allow an outside script to manage the emails, but it is kind of a security issue so it might actually be for the better that you have to manually do it.
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            • Profile picture of the author Nonny
              Originally Posted by Dmitry View Post

              There actually might be a way for you to accomplish this...

              If you send your broadcast in HTML and you include a 1x1 pixels image (just like aweber and all other list services I know of do) and you include ?email=[[awebers-email-variable]] after the image's source URL then by going through your website's logs you'll be able to see which emails have "requested" so to speak your image.
              If this is the method people use it must appear that I never open any emails, since my mail program only loads images if I chose to do so manually, and I rarely do. I assumed that most people were like me - no images loaded by default - am I incorrect in thinking this?
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              • Profile picture of the author melanied
                No, both my email client and my web-based reader have no images by default, I have to click a button to show the images.
                Signature
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                • Profile picture of the author Dmitry
                  Then you're not opening any emails (at least not in a direct fashion) to any of the people you're subscribed to. Or there's something I don't know.
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  • Profile picture of the author Meanna Blog
    You can with graphicmail. It also tells you who clicked on what within your email.
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