Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Almost Timely News, 23 January 2022: Newsletter Format, Mind Readings

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Almost Timely News, 23 January 2022: Newsletter Format, Mind Readings :: View in Browser

Almost Timely News

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What’s On My Mind: Newsletter Format

I was wondering something… this week, as you remember, I published our quarterly ad as a video, and hundreds of you viewed it (thank you!). That got me thinking… would you also like this newsletter in multiple formats?

Let’s take a quick poll. Just click on your preferred format below – and you can click more than one. There’s no form to fill out or anything, this is literally the voting process.

I’m curious to see what your answers are.

A little behind the scenes too: what I’ve done to make a super simple poll is send every option to the same landing page, but each option has a unique query parameter (that thing after the question mark in the URL):

Voting options behind the scenes

Once you arrive on my website, Google Analytics reads the URL, ingests its tags (UTM tracking codes), and then records the rest of the information. That means anything I put on the URL also gets recorded. Here’s an example from last year:

Voting example

You can see the results of the poll right in Google Analytics, which keeps things very easy and straightforward.

Why wouldn’t I just rely on the click tracking in my email marketing software? Because we know that open and click tracking in email marketing are a little squishy. I can still do that tracking there, but Google Analytics filters out most bots and spiders if you’ve turned that setting on. That means that the data I get in Google Analytics should be a little more reliable and human.

Why is email marketing click tracking data squishy? Some folks have mail systems and servers that pre-fetch mail. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection does this, which badly skews open rates. In businesses, companies that use high-end firewalls and other cybersecurity protections often have servers that will open and click on every link in an incoming email to check it for malware and viruses. That means, as an email marketer, you may see higher click-through rates than are actually real.

So that’s why I use this particular method for polls in my email newsletters. It’s the least amount of work for you and my best effort at reliable data for me. Feel free to use this technique in your own email marketing!

Share With a Friend or Colleague

If you enjoy this newsletter and want to share it with a friend/colleague, please do. Send this URL to your friend/colleague:

https://www.christopherspenn.com/newsletter

ICYMI: In Case You Missed it

This week, I debuted a new series called Mind Readings. These are topics I had some thoughts about that I wanted to share with you, but weren’t questions anyone asked. They’ll be interspersed with the questions you send me.

Skill Up With Free Classes

These are just a few of the free classes I have available over at the Trust Insights website that you can take.

Get Back to Work!

Folks who post jobs in the free Analytics for Marketers Slack community may have those jobs shared here, too. If you’re looking for work, check out these open positions.

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What I’m Reading: Your Stuff

Let’s look at the most interesting content from around the web on topics you care about, some of which you might have even written.

Social Media Marketing

Media and Content

SEO, Google, and Paid Media

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Tools, Machine Learning, and AI

Analytics, Stats, and Data Science

Ad: Make Better Videos with Techsmith Camtasia

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How to Stay in Touch

Let’s make sure we’re connected in the places it suits you best. Here’s where you can find different content:

Required Disclosures

Events with links have purchased sponsorships in this newsletter and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

Advertisements in this newsletter have paid to be promoted, and as a result, I receive direct financial compensation for promoting them.

My company, Trust Insights, maintains business partnerships with companies including, but not limited to, IBM, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Talkwalker, MarketingProfs, MarketMuse, Agorapulse, Hubspot, Informa, Demandbase, The Marketing AI Institute, and others. While links shared from partners are not explicit endorsements, nor do they directly financially benefit Trust Insights, a commercial relationship exists for which Trust Insights may receive indirect financial benefit, and thus I may receive indirect financial benefit from them as well.

Thank You!

Thanks for subscribing and reading this far. I appreciate it. As always, thank you for your support, your attention, and your kindness.

See you next week,

Christopher S. Penn

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