From now on, your contacts' behavioral tracking choice applies to both opens and clicks. Until now, it only applied to opens. Only the interactions of contacts who have accepted tracking are measured, and your open and click rates are calculated only on these contacts. This article explains how to read your statistics and adapt your analyses.
Have access to the “Campaigns” module and to the statistics in Sarbacane.
Before: tracking consent applied only to opens (tracking pixel). Clicks from all your contacts were measured.
From now on: consent applies to opens and clicks (tracking pixel and tracked links). For a contact who has not given consent, no opens or clicks are recorded. Their links still work normally.
Your figures will therefore change, even though your audience's actual interest in your emails has not: it is the measurement scope that changes.
Indicators calculated only on contacts who have accepted behavioral tracking:
opens and openers, clicks and clickers, and the related rates;
click-to-open rate (ratio of clickers to openers);
active and inactive contacts;
reading time, desktop / mobile breakdown, technology and geolocation;
Links tab and Heatmap;
per-contact detail in the Behavioral tracking tab.
Indicators that do not depend on behavioral tracking: sends, unsubscribes, hard bounces, complaints and behavioral tracking opt-outs.
Your rates are calculated on the contacts who have accepted behavioral tracking, and no longer on all recipients.
Example: you send a campaign to 10,000 contacts, 4,000 of whom have accepted behavioral tracking. 1,000 of them open the email. Your open rate is 25% (1,000 openers out of 4,000 tracked contacts). Opens by the other 6,000 contacts are not measured.
To interpret a rate correctly, always look at the share of your recipients who have accepted tracking: a high rate calculated on a small number of contacts is less representative than a rate calculated on a large share of your audience.
Campaigns sent before this change were measured on a different scope. To compare your performance:
preferably compare campaigns sent since this change with each other;
if you compare with older campaigns, interpret the difference with caution: a drop may be due only to the change in scope;
track the trend over several campaigns rather than a single send.
The engagement score changes based on detected opens and clicks. For a contact who has refused behavioral tracking, no opens or clicks are detected: their score can therefore no longer increase through these interactions.
When you segment your contacts by score, keep in mind that a low score does not necessarily mean a contact is inactive: they may simply have refused tracking. Cross-check the score with the Email behavioral tracking consent field.
When the winner of an A/B test is selected automatically, it is chosen according to the criterion you defined, the open rate or the click rate. Both rates are calculated only on the contacts who have accepted tracking in each sample. You can also choose the winner manually: in that case, rely on these same rates while keeping their scope in mind. Depending on your target and the volume of contacts, the result may be less significant. Before launching a test:
check that your samples contain enough contacts who have accepted tracking;
use larger samples if this share is low;
analyze the result with caution when the difference between the two versions is small.
A scenario or trigger based on opens or clicks can only react to measured interactions. For a contact who has refused behavioral tracking, these conditions will never be met. Before building your scenarios:
identify the share of your target that has accepted tracking;
plan a next step for contacts whose interactions are not measured, for example a branch based on a delay rather than on an open;
review your existing scenarios that rely on opens or clicks.
The share of your recipients who have accepted behavioral tracking becomes a key indicator: it determines how representative your rates are. Note it for each campaign or for each of your lists. You will know whether your rates reflect a large part of your audience, and you can measure the effect of your consent collection efforts.
The click-to-open rate (clickers / openers) is calculated on the same contacts in the numerator and the denominator. It therefore remains comparable from one campaign to another, even if the share of tracked contacts varies. It is a good indicator for judging the quality of your content and calls to action.
Unsubscribes, complaints and hard bounces cover all your recipients, whether or not they have accepted tracking. They are the most reliable indicators for monitoring the health of your database and the relevance of your sends across your whole audience.
The links in your emails work for all your contacts. By adding UTM parameters to your links, you can see the visits and conversions generated by your campaign in your web analytics tool.
Note: this data depends on cookie consent on your website, not on the behavioral tracking of your emails.
Collect consent: the more of your contacts accept tracking, the more representative your statistics are. For example, use the “Behavioral tracking preference” question in your forms.
Monitor refusals: the “Behavioral tracking opt-out” indicator lets you track contacts who refuse tracking.
Diversify your indicators: complement your open and click rates with other measures, such as conversions, sales or replies generated.
→ Why are your open statistics decreasing in Sarbacane?
→ Understanding Sarbacane Statistics
→ Engagement Score in Sarbacane
→ How to analyze the unsubscribe rate at the pixel in Sarbacane?
→ How to collect tracking pixel consent via a form in Sarbacane?
