If you’re running email campaigns and you care about results (and who doesn’t?), tracking performance isn’t optional. Maybe you’re responsible for sales outreach, lead gen, or even just trying to prove your ideas work. Either way, you need to know what’s actually moving the needle—not just what looks good in a dashboard. This guide is for anyone using Emelia who wants to cut through the noise, get real answers, and make decisions that grow the business.
Let’s dig in.
Why Tracking Matters (And What to Ignore)
Anyone can send a bunch of emails and hope for the best. But when you’re serious about improving results, you need to know:
- Which subject lines pull their weight
- Where your leads drop off
- What’s worth doubling down on (and what’s just wasting time)
Not all metrics are created equal. Clicks and opens look good, but they don’t always tell the whole story. Focus on actions that tie directly to your actual goals—like replies, booked calls, or conversions.
Step 1: Set Your Real Goals Before You Log In
Don’t skip this. If you don’t know what success looks like, you’ll end up chasing meaningless numbers. Ask yourself:
- Are you looking for replies, scheduled meetings, or something else?
- Is your boss (or client) obsessed with open rates? Should they be?
- What’s a win for this specific campaign?
Write your answers down. This will keep you from getting distracted by vanity stats later.
Pro Tip: If you’re managing multiple campaigns, set a baseline for each. A cold outreach campaign will have different benchmarks than a newsletter.
Step 2: Know What Emelia Tracks (And What It Doesn’t)
Emelia automatically tracks a lot of the basics:
- Sends: How many emails went out
- Opens: Who opened your message
- Clicks: Who clicked your links
- Replies: Who actually wrote back
You’ll also see stats like bounce rates and unsubscribe counts.
But here’s where folks get tripped up:
- Open rates can be inflated (think auto-loaders and privacy tools). Don’t obsess over them.
- Clicks are only as good as your call-to-action. If your links are buried, don’t expect magic.
- Replies are gold—this is where you find real engagement.
What Emelia doesn’t track natively: - What people do after they click, unless you set up your own tracking on the linked site. - Deals closed or meetings booked—unless you connect Emelia to your CRM.
So, if you need deeper data, you’ll have to connect the dots yourself (more on that later).
Step 3: Launch Your Campaign With Tracking Enabled
When you set up a campaign in Emelia, make sure tracking is turned on. Most of it is enabled by default, but double-check:
- Open tracking: Adds a tiny image pixel. Good for broad trends, not gospel truth.
- Click tracking: Usually a safe bet, unless you’re worried about deliverability. (Some spam filters don’t love tracked links.)
- Reply detection: Emelia will log replies even if people write back days later.
What to skip: Don’t bother with “Read Time” or similar stats. They’re rarely reliable and distract from what matters.
Step 4: Dig Into The Dashboard—But Don’t Get Distracted
Once your campaign is live, Emelia’s dashboard gives you a decent overview. Here’s what to actually look at:
Must-Watch Metrics
- Reply Rate: The percentage of people who responded. This is your best indicator of message-market fit.
- Bounce Rate: High bounces mean your list is dirty or your sending domain needs help.
- Unsubscribes/Complaints: If these spike, your content or targeting is off.
Take With a Grain of Salt
- Open Rate: Treat it as directional, not precise.
- Click Rate: Only valuable if your CTA is a link.
Ignore: Time-of-day stats, device breakdowns, or anything that doesn’t tie to a business outcome. It’s easy to waste time slicing the data a hundred ways.
Step 5: Compare Campaigns (A/B Testing Without the Hype)
Emelia lets you run A/B tests on subject lines, messaging, or sending times. Here’s how to make the most of it:
- Test one thing at a time. If you change the subject and the copy, you’ll never know what actually worked.
- Run tests long enough. Small sample sizes can be misleading.
- Look for meaningful lifts. Don’t chase a 0.5% bump in opens—aim for real, business-significant improvements.
Pro Tip: Sometimes your “losing” variant teaches you more than the winner. Pay attention to negative feedback, too.
Step 6: Export Your Data (If You Need Deeper Analysis)
Emelia’s built-in reports are solid for day-to-day decisions, but sometimes you need to slice the data your own way.
- Download CSVs: Perfect for deeper dives in Excel or Google Sheets.
- Push to your CRM: If you want to see the full customer journey, connect Emelia to your CRM or marketing stack.
- Custom tracking links: Use UTM parameters on your links, so you can see what happens after the click in Google Analytics or similar tools.
Watch out: Exported data can get messy fast. Clean your lists, double-check your columns, and don’t trust any one metric blindly.
Step 7: Turn Insights Into Action (And Avoid Overthinking)
Here’s where most teams stall—they look at the numbers, then… freeze. Don’t overcomplicate it.
Ask yourself:
- Did this campaign hit the goal I set in Step 1?
- If not, what’s the single biggest thing I can try differently next time?
- Are there obvious red flags (high bounces, lots of unsubscribes) that need fixing first?
Pick one or two changes, relaunch, and repeat.
What Actually Works (and What’s Overrated)
After running a lot of campaigns, a few patterns emerge:
What matters: - Clean lists and good targeting beat fancy copy every time. - Clear, direct subject lines usually outperform clever ones. - Measuring replies (not just opens/clicks) gets you closer to revenue.
What’s overrated: - Email “best time to send” hacks. Your audience is unique—test, but don’t obsess. - Chasing tiny improvements in open rates. - Micromanaging every stat in the dashboard.
Common Mistakes (So You Don’t Have to Make Them)
- Reading too much into opens: With privacy changes, it’s not a reliable metric.
- Ignoring negative signals: High bounce or unsubscribe rates are a warning—don’t brush them off.
- Changing too many things at once: You won’t know what worked.
Keep It Simple — And Iterate
Tracking and analyzing campaign performance in Emelia isn’t rocket science, but it does require focus. Pick a real goal, watch the metrics that matter, and ignore the fluff. Use the data to guide your next step—not as an excuse to do nothing.
Start simple. Make one change at a time. Iterate. That’s how data-driven decisions actually happen—and how you get results worth bragging about.