"Data analytics" can seem like a bit of a scary concept for those new to e-commerce and online marketing. We get it. But getting the hang of data can help your business out immensely, because it gives you a road map. Using data from MailChimp can help you figure out what to do next for more effective marketing and growing your business.

MailChimp reports offer all kinds of analytics such as audience engagement, revenue coming in from different sources, where your customers are, and targeted tips on what to do next. This post goes over some of the ways you can use your MailChimp reports to improve your email marketing, and is part of our series on using MailChimp with Shopify. 

View your reports

There are a couple of types of reports you can view. You can see your overall reports, which tell you information about how your business is doing as a whole. You can also see individual campaign reports, which show you how each marketing campaign you've run is doing (whether it's through MailChimp, Facebook or Instagram).

Start by logging on to your MailChimp account, and click Reports from the lefthand navigation. 

Quick Tip: You can view your reports online from your computer, or download the MailChimp app to see them from your phone. 

What's on the menu?

Overview 

The Report Overview is just that -- a summary that shows how your campaign performed including how many people are opening the email and going from the email to your site.  

Activity

The Activity menu shows you more in-depth information about how people behaved in relation to your email. You can see bounce rates and engagement rates, and use this information to create relevant segments based on consumer behaviour. 

Links

Links tell you more about how each URL did within your campaign. Clickmaps are a feature that let you see where your subscribers are clicking -- are they going straight for the top or reading all the way through? Use this information to design your emails in a way that gets the most click-throughs. 

Social

You can see which social media platforms you're getting subscribers from, and where in the world they are. This feature works well when you integrate your social media with MailChimp, like your Facebook business account. You can use this information to find out more about your audience, see what platforms you need to keep updated, and even consider international shipping possibilities. 

E-commerce 

The E-commerce tab tells you exactly who bought what. It lets you find out how a particular email campaign led to sales of which products, and how many purchases came from product recommendations found on your campaigns. You can even connect multiple stores and see how each one is stacking up. 

MailChimp lets you compare your marketing success with others in the industry, so you can see how well you're stacking up. 

One feature of the e-commerce report is the Subscriber Report. You'll be able to see their whole order and interaction history, plus their list of recommended products. This means that when you're on the phone with a customer, you can stay on top of the conversation and let them know what you recommend right away. 

Conversations

You can use Conversations to allow your whole team to interact with customers who reply to your emails. This makes it more flexible than a standard reply-to email address, and you can keep track of all interactions on the Conversations tab by campaign. 

Other cool stuff

Ad Campaign Reports

Your ad campaigns give you information from the Facebook and Instagram ads you run through MailChimp. You can see how many people viewed them, how many people clicked through, and what your return on investment was. 

Predicted demographics

One of the features available with MailChimp Pro is predicted demographics - guesses based on other data about the age and gender of your subscribers. You can use this data to better target your audience.

Comparative Reports

You can compare multiple ad campaigns if you're using MailChimp Pro. Use comparative reports to select as many campaigns as you want and see how they did against one another. This can help you figure out what worked in one campaign and didn't in another. 

Opens by Location

See where in the world subscribers are reading your emails, and in doing so you can adjust how you design your content. You can, for example, start creating groups or segments based on location or start using TimeWarp which sends your emails based on time zone. 

To get some more info about the nitty gritty of reports or to troubleshoot, check this out.

What Can These Reports Do

Track your performance

That's the first piece of gathering data -- figuring out how you're doing. It's good to know where your business is and where it's heading. MailChimp helps you keep track of your revenues alongside your marketing and customer order information. It uses interactive graphs that are adjustable so you can choose exactly the indicators you think are relevant for your business. 

Target more effectively

The second biggest reason to dig into your data is to learn what works and what doesn't. You can use your reports to find out what campaigns are clicking with your customers, and give you insights into how to make future ones.

Monitor trends

By looking at why your emails are bouncing, why people are unsubscribing and how often your audience is actually opening your email, you can start to figure out where to improve your customer engagement. 

Advanced Reports

Advanced reports are available for MailChimp Pro users, and can include all sorts of integrations with other apps like SurveyMonkey or EventBrite. You can use advanced reports with features like TimeWarp and A/B testing, too. 

Psssst... have you seen the rest of our series?

We're writing a series about using MailChimp with Shopify. You can learn loads from our MailChimp 101 series. Check it out!

If you have any additional questions about MailChimp Reports or analytics that aren’t addressed here, feel free to contact us today, or check out Mailchimp’s super cool annual report here.

Images via MailChimp