Once an automation is running, it is easy to forget about it. That is both the point and the risk. A welcome series written two years ago may still mention an event that has passed, or send a discount that no longer exists. Statistics tell you whether each automated email is still working. For Barbadian senders, they also show how local and overseas audiences behave differently.
The metrics that matter for automations
Entries and completions
How many contacts entered the sequence, and how many reached the last step? A large drop between steps often means the timing is wrong or the content has lost relevance.
Open rate per step
Compare each email in the sequence. The first welcome email usually performs best, and later steps need stronger subject lines. Treat opens as a trend rather than an exact count, because privacy features on some mail apps load images automatically.
Click rate per step
Clicks are a more reliable signal of interest than opens. If step three of a pre-arrival sequence, say the one with restaurant recommendations, gets few clicks, test a different format or offer.
Conversions
Bookings, purchases, renewals or form completions that follow an automated email. Use tracked links and, where possible, Google Analytics integration to connect email clicks to results on your website.
Unsubscribes and bounces
A spike in unsubscribes after one particular step is a clear signal to rewrite or remove it. Hard bounces should be cleaned automatically; Mailpro handles this for you.
Reading the numbers in a Barbadian context
- Look at geography. Geo-tracking shows where opens and clicks come from. A hotel may find its UK subscribers click on weekday evenings London time, while local customers respond at lunchtime on AST.
- Allow for seasonality. Engagement with tourism offers typically changes as the winter season approaches. Compare like with like, this October against last October, rather than month to month.
- Watch for hurricane-season gaps. A storm or a power outage can depress results for a few days. Don’t rewrite a sequence because of one unusual week.
- Separate transactional and marketing flows. Booking confirmations will always be opened more than promotions; judge each against its own purpose.
Where to find the data in Mailpro
Each automation has a dashboard with statistics per step. The automated email statistics feature shows sends, opens, clicks and unsubscribes per message. You can compare these with your regular campaigns in the real-time statistics. The FAQ on checking whether an automation fired helps with troubleshooting.
Benchmarks: compare against yourself
Published industry averages for open and click rates vary widely, and few are specific to Barbados, so they make a weak target. Your own history is a better benchmark. Record each automation’s results in its first full month, then compare each quarter with the same quarter a year earlier. Improvement against your own baseline is what counts. A welcome email whose click rate rises after you add a local photo and a clearer button is doing its job, whatever the global average says.
A quarterly review routine
- Export the step-by-step results for each active automation.
- Flag any step with unusually low clicks or high unsubscribes compared with the others.
- Check the content for outdated dates, prices, events or staff names.
- Rewrite one step, then compare the next quarter’s results.
- Confirm that unsubscribed contacts leave every active sequence, as the Data Protection Act 2019’s right to stop direct marketing requires.
Data protection and statistics
Engagement data such as opens, clicks and locations is personal data linked to an individual. Keep it only as long as it is useful, and mention tracking in your privacy notice. Mailpro stores this data in Switzerland, outside US jurisdiction, and never sells or rents it. To build or adjust a sequence, see how to send automated emails in Barbados.