Email marketing is a lot of work, and tracking what actually happens after you hit “send” can feel like a mess—especially if you’re using Visualvisitor. This guide is for marketers and sales teams who want to get real insight from their campaigns, not just check a box. If you’re tired of vanity metrics and want to know what’s actually working (and what’s just noise), this is for you.
Why bother tracking email engagement (and what to watch out for)
Before we dive into the how-to, let’s talk about why tracking email engagement matters—and why a lot of people get it wrong.
- It’s not about open rates. Those numbers are famously unreliable thanks to privacy changes in email clients (hello, Apple Mail Privacy Protection).
- Clicks and website activity tell you more. What people do after they open your email matters a lot more than whether they opened it at all.
- Visualvisitor’s strengths: Visualvisitor is all about tracking what happens on your website—specifically, who’s visiting and what they’re doing, even if they don’t fill out a form.
- What it can’t do: Don’t expect Visualvisitor to replace a dedicated email marketing platform for things like A/B testing and detailed email design analytics.
If you’re looking to connect the dots between your email campaigns and real sales outcomes, read on.
Step 1: Set up your email platform and Visualvisitor correctly
Let’s get the basic plumbing right—otherwise, nothing else matters.
- Use a reputable email platform. Visualvisitor doesn’t actually send your emails. Use Mailchimp, HubSpot, or whatever you trust.
- Install Visualvisitor’s tracking code. This is non-negotiable. Put their snippet on every page you want to track. If it’s not there, no tracking.
- Whitelist your sending domains. Make sure Visualvisitor knows which domains your emails will link to. That way, it doesn’t flag your own traffic as suspicious or bots.
- Sync your CRM (if you have one). If you want to tie campaign results to actual accounts or contacts, connect your CRM to Visualvisitor. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck guessing who’s who.
Pro tip: Test your setup by sending yourself a campaign. Click through, poke around your site, and check if Visualvisitor logs your activity. If not, fix it before you go live.
Step 2: Tag your campaign links for tracking
Visualvisitor knows when someone lands on your site, but it needs a way to connect that visit back to your email campaign.
- Always use UTM parameters. These are tags you add to the end of your URLs. Example:
https://yourwebsite.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale - Be consistent. Pick a naming convention for your UTM tags and stick with it. This makes reporting much easier later.
- What to avoid: Don’t use generic UTMs like
utm_campaign=blast1. You’ll never remember what that was three months from now.
What works:
UTMs + Visualvisitor = you can see not just that someone visited, but why they visited, and which email got them there.
What doesn’t:
Sending emails with plain links and hoping Visualvisitor magically knows they came from your campaign. It won’t.
Step 3: Understand what Visualvisitor can actually tell you
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by dashboards, so here’s what’s actually useful.
What Visualvisitor does well
- Identifying companies: Visualvisitor is great at showing which businesses are visiting your site—even if you don’t know the individual.
- Mapping visits to campaigns: If you’re using UTMs, you can see which campaigns drove which visits.
- Showing user journeys: You can trace what a visitor did on your site after clicking from an email. Did they just read a blog, or did they check out your pricing page?
What it doesn’t do (and what to ignore)
- Personal-level tracking is limited. Unless someone fills out a form or is already in your CRM, you’re mostly seeing company-level data.
- Don’t obsess over open rates. Like I mentioned before, these are barely worth your time anymore.
- Ignore the “anonymous” visitors for campaign analysis. Focus on the ones you can actually identify and act on.
Step 4: Build reports that actually help you make decisions
Dashboards can be shiny, but focus on what moves the needle.
- Track by campaign, not just by total traffic. Break out your reporting by UTM campaigns so you know which emails are working.
- Look for patterns: Did people from a certain campaign spend more time on your site? Did they check out key pages?
- Don’t drown in data: Pick 2–3 metrics that matter (ex: which email got the highest number of pricing page visits, or which drove demo requests).
- Set up alerts: Visualvisitor can notify you when a high-value company visits. Use this to pass leads to sales—don’t just let the data sit there.
Pro tip: Send weekly summaries to your team with just the highlights. No one wants to read a 20-page report.
Step 5: Use the data to actually follow up
All the tracking in the world is pointless if you don’t act on it.
- Hot leads: If Visualvisitor spots a target company clicking through your campaign and checking out your pricing, let your sales team know—fast.
- Warm leads: Maybe they just read the blog. Nurture these folks; don’t pounce.
- No engagement: If a campaign gets zero clicks, don’t keep sending the same thing. Try a new subject line, offer, or timing.
What works:
Quick, relevant follow-up. Reference what the lead actually looked at (“I saw you checked out our case studies…”).
What doesn’t:
Spamming everyone who opened your email. That’s a fast way to get ignored.
Step 6: Watch out for common pitfalls
A few things to keep you from wasting time (or embarrassing yourself):
- Internal traffic: Make sure you filter out your own team’s visits in Visualvisitor, or your numbers will be junk.
- Bots and spam clicks: Some clicks aren’t real people. Use Visualvisitor’s filters to weed out obvious junk.
- Over-complicating things: Don’t try to track 50 different campaigns at once. Focus on your top priorities.
Step 7: Keep things simple—and improve as you go
Tracking email engagement isn’t a “set it and forget it” job. Here’s what to do:
- Review your process monthly: What worked? What didn’t? Where did tracking break down?
- Iterate: Change up your UTMs, alerts, or reporting if something isn’t working.
- Don’t chase every metric: Stick with what helps you make better decisions—ignore the rest.
Bottom line:
Getting real insight from your email campaigns in Visualvisitor is all about setting up tracking the right way, focusing on the metrics that matter, and actually doing something with the data. Don’t get lost in dashboards or vanity numbers. Keep it simple, stay curious, and tweak things as you learn. That’s how you’ll actually get better results.