Analyze This!

We watch our open rates. We track our clickthroughs. But do we really know who we’re e-mailing?

When we capture the all-important e-mail address, we’ve gained access to that person’s inbox (and, ideally, her approval — or at least an absence of disapproval) in order to communicate with her.

Then we start sending e-mails … and more e-mails — and, for too many of us, we never look back. Yes, we track open rates, clickthrough rates, donations, number of new e-mail addresses and on and on. We do a great job of accumulating e-mail addresses and analyzing campaigns.