Looking at Campaign Reports
Some advice and information about how to look at your campaign reports in Outbase to spot any issues and optimize your outreach.
So your campaigns are up and running, you've started categorizing your responses, what's next? Well, Campaign Reports give you all the data and information about your campaign's performance to start optimizing and making informed decisions to improve your outreach.
But how?
Below we'll give you some helpful general advice based on our experience of running campaigns for organizations across a variety of industries.
If you are on a paid plan, your Customer Success Manager will also be able to give you more in-depth insights based on your offering and the audience you are targeting.
Below we'll cover:
Campaign Reporting Data - An overview of the data presented in the reports.
Campaign Reports - How to look at your campaign reports to make the best decisions in the following areas:Campaign
Example - Finally, well look at an example report and show some recommendations and suggestions we might make in this scenario.
Campaign Reporting Data
Let's look at the data included in the reports, and how this helps with thinking about improvements.
Below we will cover how to look at reports to maximize your campaign(s) potential. Not sure what the data given in the reports shows? The Reports section of the User Guide gives a detailed overview of the reports presented and how the figures presented are calculated.
Campaign Activity
Prospects Engaged
When looking at the data in any section of the reporting we don't recommend drawing any conclusions until you have engaged with at least 10 prospects. Anything less than 100 is too small a sample size to draw definite conclusions from.
For example, if you have contacted 40 people in the Computer Software industry, and haven't received any responses, don't stop this industry straight away, but obviously, keep an eye on it.
Similarly, if you have contacted 5 people in Computer Software and received 1 lead, don't put all your eggs into this basket. It's not guaranteed that if you contact another 50 that you will receive another 10 leads (although you might!), so see this as a good early sign, but wait until you have more data before drawing conclusions.
Emails Delivered
While this doesn't really give any insight into campaign improvements, it is useful to know how many emails are being delivered on your domain and the effect of this long term.
Emails per Prospect
This shows how developed your campaign is and can be really useful, particularly in the early stages of a campaign.
For example, if your campaign has 4 emails in its sequence (initial email and 3 follow-ups) then when this number is:
1: This shows your campaign is in the very early stages - prospects have only received your initial email and no follow-ups have been sent.
Betweeen 1-2: This shows your campaign is still in the early stages - some prospects have only received your initial email and some prospects have received your first follow-up.
Between 2-3: This shows your campaign is starting to pick up - some prospects will now have received your initial email and 2 follow-ups.
Between 3-4: This shows your campaign is sending all emails in your sequence - note: this will never reach 4 as any prospects who reply or unsubscribe will be taken out of further emails.
This can help you when starting new campaigns see how far along your campaign is. For example, if you aren't seeing the responses or leads you expected and your emails per prospect is only between 1-2, this is probably still too early in the campaign's development to make any informed decisions.
Based on our data, we generally see most leads coming from the third email in a campaign sequence (your second follow-up), which is why we recommend campaigns having four emails in the sequence.
Email Activity
Opened & Opened %
Opened % will vary based on the company sizes and industries you are targeting, with smaller companies being much more likely to open emails than larger ones. Any open rates below 15% may be a sign that your domain health is low and may need investigating.
Clicked & Clicked %
Depending on your email's call to action, your clicked % may or may not be relevant.
If your call to action is to click on a link in your template e.g. to sign up for a webinar, or if you are only offering a calendar link to book a call, then your clicked % may be more relevant than even your lead %, so you would expect this to be above 10% - any lower might mean reviewing your email content.
If your call to action does not require prospects to click on a link, then don't be disheartened by low clicks, but focus more on your lead %. The main thing is that prospects are responding to your call to action, above anything else.
Responses
Declines
While you would obviously prefer leads over declines, you can learn as much from your declines as anything else. Getting declines saying they don't know what you do or what your offering is? Or getting lots of responses that they already have this covered? While getting one message like this every so often isn't a cause for concern, getting lots of declines saying the same thing might mean you need to address any of these concerns in your emails.
Leads (Deferred Interest, Referral & Positive Response)
When looking at leads people tend to just focus on the positives... Which is great. But if you're neglecting deferred interest and referrals, you're losing leads. Things to look out for are:
Always being referred to a different job title? Are you actively contacting them directly through your audiences?
If prospects are asking you to follow up, what is your procedure for this? Make sure you keep engagement up so you're the first Organization they think of when this is on the agenda.
Headline Rates
Leads & Lead %
Lead rates again can vary across industries and company sizes and depending on what you are offering. You can see our global average lead rate from the Dashboard. Use the information from your campaigns and the advice on this page to monitor your lead rates and test things to see how this improved your campaigns.
Campaign Reports
Our report breakdowns give you further insights into how to adjust your campaigns to make them as successful as possible.
Industry Report
See how your leads and responses appear across industry verticals. If industries are performing well, are there any similar industries that you can add to your audiences to test? If any industries aren't performing as expected, should you be removing these, or adjusting the messaging for this vertical?
Company Size Report
As explained above, we generally see higher open and response rates from smaller companies, while larger companies have lower ones. But think about your deal sizes too, one big deal and a few smaller deals monthly all help with your bottom line. And more deals means more chance of referrals, boosting your brand image and recognition.
Sequence Report
We find that the third email in a sequence is likely to bring in the most leads, but track this for your own campaigns here. If your follow-ups are not performing as well as your initial email, they may need a revision.
Monthly Report
Keep track of your campaigns month-by-month. This is important to be able to track any changes you have implemented and allows you to see the effect this has on your campaigns. While you're optimizing, look for your monthly lead rate to grow over the first 3 months, before settling into a more consistent pattern.
Daily Report
While the daily report is probably not incredibly useful for optimizing your campaign, watching things like the daily open rate can be useful to spot any drops that continue over a few days that can be a sign that your domain health has dropped.
There are some basic checks you can run on your accounts to check deliverability. Reach out to our Support Team via the in-app chat or by emailing support@outbase.com if you have any questions or need further support regarding this.
Example
Now let's look at putting the above into practice:
International Affairs
With a lead rate of 50%, we could get incredibly excited about this. But hold up! With only 2 prospects engaged, let's give this industry a bit more time and see what happens when we've got another 98 prospects engaged - could just be beginners luck?!
Marketing and Advertising
30 leads and more than half coming from positive responses - this industry is looking good, we would definitely recommend keeping this in your audiences!
Insurance
8 leads and 4 referrals, hmmm... Have a look at who you're being referred to. Maybe there is a specific job title in this industry that you need to add to your targeting.
Education Management
Only a 2.5% lead rate - that's much lower than the other industries... But, with only 1.95 emails per prospect, keep an eye on this industry, but check back when you've got those third and fourth email stages sending out.
Renewables & Environment
Great lead rate, but almost half are deferred interest. That's okay - make sure you're following up, and maybe send some case studies specific to their industry over, to keep them engaged and interested in your offer.
Electrical/Electronic Engineering
Okay, so we've got the worst lead rate of the lot and only 1 deferred interest. While you haven't contacted 100 prospects yet, and the emails per prospect is still a bit low, have a look at those 5 declines for some insight. Maybe this industry needs a template a bit more tailored to them?
Still have questions? You can contact our Support Team at any time through the in-app chat or by emailing support@outbase.com. If you're on a paid plan, then your Customer Success Manager will also be able to help you create a Success Plan for your campaign and help you work towards achieving your goals.
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