Marketing Automation Strategy: from Insight to Action

Looking for real results from your marketing efforts? Say goodbye to guesswork and hello to the practical power of insights. In our upcoming blog post, we'll show you how to use Eloqua Insights to take the most informed decisions for your campaigns and lead you to better results in the future. 

Analytics, reporting area, or Insights, as we call it in Eloqua, learn to use it in your favor! This is where you’ll determine the most effective marketing automation strategy for your business. 

Are you seeking ways to improve your campaigns? Start by checking your campaigns' performance and identifying the things you can optimize. This will provide you with solid hypotheses and solutions to your needs that may work for you. And, of course, another helpful tool: running tests and gathering valuable insights. 

How often do you wonder how to write e-mail content that resonates with your target audience, but you still aren't close to "cracking the code"? Well, that's where Eloqua Insight comes to the rescue. This testing tool allows you to formulate hypothesis by considering your past marketing efforts and Insight reports. Embrace the exciting process of piecing everything together, as it will allow you to discover which strategies and decisions are the most effective. 

Review your Insight dashboard like an expert!

- Email Open Rates: This is a key area that highlights your marketing automation performance. In addition, it is a good indicator of whether your email strategy is working. By testing different subject lines, preheader text, and sender names, you can determine which factors are most likely to lead to higher open rates and which version resonates with your target. 

- Email Click-through Rates (CTR): also known as email click rate, it’s a metric that requires a keen eye and constant monitoring. It measures how many people click on a CTA, hyperlink, or image within your email content. Is there an optimal way to start this process? Test different versions to determine which elements are most likely to lead to higher click-through rates, and compare them across regions, segments, or time spans. 

- Conversion Rates: the old and gold business metric. Depending on your qualification process you can measure how many people take the desired action after clicking through to your website or landing page. It’s a no-brainer that testing different landing pages, forms, and offers can help you determine which elements are most likely to lead to conversions. But how can you stay on top of everything without losing important information? One word: Insights. 

Let's see, have you ever had a campaign with low click-through rates? Do you have one right now? This discussion aims to give you real hypotheses you can test to improve your overall performance. Before we begin, check the main global or by-region email benchmarks to know what to compare your activity to. You can also check our general excellence benchmarks for campaign configuration. 

*End-of-2022 Oracle benchmarks

Where do you see your email metrics? (in Eloqua Insights)

The report that will help you see all the metrics you need is Email Analysis Overview. You can find it in the Catalog/Shared Folders/Email.

• If you want to see it all the time, remove the Email Name column and click Results. 

• If you want to see for a set period of time, click edit on Email Send Date is promoted and select as an operator is between. 

• If you want to see specific emails, click on the gear near Email Name and select filter. 

Email Campaign Optimization Plan 

Are your clickthroughs below industry benchmarks? If so, what should you do? 

Test, optimize, and personalize. As a rule of thumb, always test one hypothesis at a time. And if you need a practical guide, check out our hypothesis samples below and use them to evaluate your emails. Also, if you want to test your landing pages, we have just the article for you!

• Test email personalization: no news here. We all know the theory, but do we really do it? Talking in your audience's language can improve engagement and click-through rates. And we mean talking to them like they want you to talk to them. Don't say things in a stereotyped tone of voice just to fit the box. Use Eloqua's segmentation capabilities to personalize your emails based on demographic data or behavior. You can also use dynamic content to tailor your email based on the recipient's profile or activity. In fact, we’ve successfully tested and identified for one of our Fortune 500 clients that by using First Name personalization in the email subject line area with Field Merge functionality, it increased open rates by 2.5%. It's not a big campaign change, right? But it brings results. 
• Test various CTAs: Your call-to-action (CTA) is the cherry on top of your email elements. Test different variations of your CTA, including button color, text, placement, or size. You can also experiment with different types of CTAs: buttons versus text links. Who will win? 

• Test email length: Do they have the time to read the whole saga about your product, or do they want a summary of a summary? Test different content lengths, such as short versus long emails, to see which resonates best with your audience.  
• Test email copy: is it the tone, the messaging, or the language? See which version truly matches your audience. There’s a difference between selling a car to an experienced driver and to one that only cares about how many seats it has because it needs to fit four kids. 
• Test different images and graphics: play with size, placement, and image type. You can even consider plain text if that works best. Don't be afraid to give up on it. 
• Test email layout: text, image, and CTA placement dictate how the customer interacts with an email. You can even use your button to start the email! (Ok, maybe it is too much, but you get the idea, right?) 

Final thoughts

The difference between average and exceptional results boils down to how skillfully you test, interpret, and act based on the results you have in hand. Remember, as we emphasized above, finding the right testing balance is vital. Too many changes will negatively affect your campaign, even if they're good. 

Everything is subjective to your brand, audience, and your unique goals. But, in the end, is there a one-size-fits-all marketing approach? We can say from our experience that the finest results come from consistency, learning from mistakes, and being bold in your actions. So, if you think you might benefit from an extra push from outside your company, contact us. Adding our expertise to your business will save you time and empower you to enjoy all marketing automation benefits without being overwhelmed.