5 strategic ways to follow up on tracked emails

Email tracking is a common tool among sales teams, startups, venture capitalists, and anybody else who can get their hands on a free email tracking tool. 

But email tracking data is only as useful as what you do with it. With a solid follow-up strategy, sales reps, startup founders, and investors can improve open rates and connect with more leads based on email tracking data.

Once you’ve started tracking your sent emails, try one of these 5 tactics to improve your follow-up with leads based on their email engagement.

1. Call at the perfect time

Data shows that the best window to call a prospect is between 9 am and 4 pm Within that timeframe, most people answer calls between 10 am and 2 pm.

Tracking emails in Gmail confirms when your contacts and leads are active and gives you the opportunity to engage with them while you’re top of mind. 

Set up an alert to be notified when your contact has opened your email. When you get a ping, you can use this as a cue to pick up the phone and strike while the iron is hot. 

Maybe just give them a few minutes so you don’t seem too overeager…

2. A/B test your subject lines

A/B testing is the practice of testing two or more variations of one specific part of your email, like a subject line or call to action, to understand which parts perform best. 

It’s done by sending one version of an email to one group of prospects and another version of an email to another similar group. You then compare a metric that shows how well each version did.

For example, if you want to test two different subject lines, you’d want to look at the open rate for each version. The subject with the highest open rate is your winner.

A/B testing is a common practice for subject lines, but it can also be used to test:

• Email format – for example, HTML vs plain text
• Content layout 
• Email copy
• Calls to action
• Design and color

Many email marketing and mail merge tools allow you to A/B test your messages to learn what’s performing best. 

3. Know when your prospects are most active

Tracking emails in Gmail can provide you with insight into when your prospects are most active. 

For example, are your email recipients reading your messages at the beginning of their day, or does it seem like they focus on other work before going through their inbox in the afternoon?

Are they in a different timezone – maybe hours or even a business day ahead or behind? 

This information helps you understand when they’re most likely to view and respond to emails so you can segment your email list and schedule your outreach accordingly.

4. Know when to drop a lead

Email tracking helps you target engaged leads, but one of the most helpful benefits of tracking emails in Gmail is actually knowing when to drop a lead. 

If you’ve sent an email and followed up multiple times but none of the emails have been opened, it’s time to direct your energy elsewhere. Of course, it’s worth trying a breakup email before you can rest easy knowing the lead just isn’t right for you. 

No need to try and force the issue or worry about a lost opportunity – they’re just not interested, and you can leave your contact info in case that changes and move on to more qualified leads. 

5. Optimize your content for device type

Email tracking in Gmail gives you a glimpse at what types of devices your recipients are using.

For example, emails from a B2B software company are likely to be opened during the week while your recipients are at their desks. Those people are more likely to be reading emails on their desktops, but a fashion brand may be more likely to reach individual consumers on their mobile phones during the weekend.

Since 81% of people prefer to open emails on their smartphones, you typically want to craft your email copy with smaller screens in mind. 

If the email you’re sending will most likely be opened on a mobile phone, make sure to: 

1. Compose short email subject lines
2. Include a short email header to outline the offer
3. Use a single-column template
4. Use a large font size
5. Display small images
6. Use a limited amount of text
7. Provide a clear call to action

Learning what your recipients are actually doing helps you tailor your content so they have the best experience.

Email tracking success stories

Using email tracking data can have real results. Whether you gain a better idea of what types of emails certain customers prefer, or 5x your open rates to close more deals, there's no shortage of benefits to tracking emails.

BustedTee increases revenue by 8% with personalized send times

eCommerce brand BustedTees is a company with a global customer base. It used to send out automated emails to its customers at the same time, without taking different time zones into account. 

Then the company decided to segment its customer list based on time zones and even personalized the list based on the individual preferences of its customers. 

The result was an 8% increase in email revenue and a 17% increase in email response rate. 

Click a Tree closes more deals

Click a Tree is an organization focusing on reforestation projects across the globe. The organization helps businesses commit to a tree planted for every sold product or acquired customer, making them attractive to consumers who shop with sustainability in mind. 

Using Streak, the company tracks thousands of leads at once straight from Gmail. The CRM automatically adds useful information about past interactions and email tracking data about how many times their emails have been opened. 

The ability to optimize mass email campaigns has allowed the organization to send over 100,000 personalized emails to potential partners. 

Take action on email tracking data

Email tracking gives you valuable data points that can help you learn:

1. When to contact a prospect
2. When to drop a prospect
3. What kind of content resonates best

With free email tracking tools, there’s no excuse not to engage in meaningful interactions and take your email campaigns to the next level.