If you’re sending out email campaigns and have no idea what’s working, you’re basically throwing spaghetti at the wall. This guide is for people who want actual answers about their email results—marketers, founders, or anyone tired of guessing. We’ll walk through using Vidu to track, analyze, and improve your campaigns, with a focus on what matters (and what you can safely ignore).
Step 1: Get the Basics Right Before Tracking Anything
Before you start obsessing over open rates and click maps, check your foundation:
- Clean up your email list. If half your list is dead emails or spam traps, your metrics are garbage. Remove bounces and unengaged contacts.
- Set a clear goal for your campaign. Are you after sales, sign-ups, downloads, or just replies? Pick one. Otherwise, you’ll chase vanity metrics.
- Send from a real person. Emails from “noreply@company.com” go straight to the trash. Use a real name and reply address.
Pro tip: If your deliverability is bad, no tool can fix your results. Sort that out first.
Step 2: Connect Your Email Platform to Vidu
Assuming your basics are solid, let’s get Vidu working for you.
- Sign up for Vidu and log in.
- Integrate with your email service. Vidu supports most major platforms (Mailchimp, SendGrid, HubSpot, etc.). Usually, this is an API key or OAuth connection—follow the prompts.
- Import your first campaign. Pull in a recent or active campaign for tracking.
If Vidu doesn’t integrate directly with your provider, you can usually set up tracking manually by adding their tracking pixel/link wrappers. It’s a few extra steps, but worth it for decent data.
What to watch for:
- Some integrations only pull new campaigns after setup—double-check your campaign history.
- If you use more than one platform, integrate them all. Otherwise, you’ll miss the full picture.
Step 3: Understand Which Metrics Actually Matter
Vidu will hand you a dashboard full of numbers. Here’s what you should actually care about—and what you can skip.
Focus on: - Delivery rate: If your emails aren’t landing, nothing else matters. - Open rate: A rough proxy for subject line and sender credibility. (But opens can be unreliable due to privacy features and image blocking.) - Click-through rate (CTR): The real measure of whether your content works. - Conversion rate: Did people do what you wanted? This is the ultimate goal.
Ignore (or treat with skepticism): - “Engagement scores” and other black-box metrics. If you can’t see how it’s calculated, it’s probably meaningless. - Forward/share rates: Rarely actionable unless you’re running a viral campaign. - Time spent reading: Sounds nice, but hard to measure reliably.
Pro tip: Don’t get obsessed with open rates. Apple’s privacy changes now inflate these numbers, so take them with a grain of salt.
Step 4: Set Up Tracking for Conversions (Not Just Clicks)
Clicks are good, but conversions are what you really want. Here’s how to get that data into Vidu:
- Define your conversion event: This could be a sign-up, a purchase, a download, etc.
- Add Vidu’s conversion tracking code to your site or landing page. This is usually a snippet you paste just before the closing
</body>tag. - Test it. Send yourself a test email, click through, and make sure Vidu records the conversion.
If you skip this, you’re stuck guessing which emails actually drove results. Don’t rely on “link clicks” as a proxy for success.
Step 5: Slice and Dice Your Data (But Don’t Drown in It)
Vidu offers segmenting and filtering so you can compare how different parts of your audience respond. Use it, but keep things simple:
- Compare by audience segment: New vs. returning, by location, or by customer type. This helps you spot who’s actually responding.
- Time analysis: See if certain days or times work better. (But don’t chase trends—consistency matters more.)
- A/B tests: Vidu lets you compare subject lines, content blocks, or calls to action. Run these, but don’t get paralyzed by tiny differences.
What to skip:
- Don’t filter so much you end up with groups of ten people. Small sample sizes will lead you astray.
- Ignore “heat maps” unless you’re sending long, complex newsletters. For most, it’s just a distraction.
Step 6: Find What’s Working (and Dump What Isn’t)
Here’s where Vidu can actually save you time. Look for:
- Top-performing subject lines: What got people to open? Use plain language, not clickbait.
- Best links and content: Which calls to action got clicks and conversions?
- Audience segments that convert: Focus future campaigns on these folks, and consider pruning the dead weight.
If a campaign flopped, don’t sugarcoat it. Check: - Was the offer clear? - Was the email too long, or too complicated? - Was your list clean?
Sometimes, it’s not the content—it’s sending the right thing to the wrong people.
Step 7: Iterate—But Don’t Overthink It
You’ve got your data. Now, make changes and send the next campaign. Simple tweaks are best:
- Swap out weak subject lines.
- Shorten your emails.
- Move the call to action up higher.
- Try resending to people who didn’t open (once, not endlessly).
Don’t change everything at once. You’ll never know what actually made the difference.
Step 8: Automate the Boring Stuff
Vidu offers automation features—use them to save time, not to get “set and forget” lazy.
- Automated reports: Set up weekly digests so you don’t forget to check your numbers.
- Alerting: Get pinged if a campaign tanks (or takes off).
But don’t automate away your judgment. No tool can tell you what your audience really wants—you still have to pay attention.
Honest Takes: What Vidu Does Well (and Where to Be Careful)
What works: - Clean, straightforward dashboards—no digging for basic stats. - Decent integration options for most common platforms. - Conversion tracking is easy to set up (when you follow the instructions).
What doesn’t: - If you’re expecting “AI-powered recommendations” to magically improve your campaigns, prepare to be disappointed. Use the data, but don’t outsource your brain. - Some advanced segmentation can get unwieldy—start simple.
Ignore the hype: - No tool, Vidu included, can “guarantee” higher conversions. Use it to see what’s happening, then act on it.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Don’t let dashboards and KPIs distract you from the basics: clear goals, clean lists, and honest messaging. Use Vidu to keep your finger on the pulse, but don’t drown in charts. Make one change at a time, learn, and repeat. Most of the magic comes from doing the work, not chasing the latest shiny feature.
Got your next campaign ready? Good—track it, learn, and do it again. That’s how you get better.