How to Setup Comprehensive WordPress Email Tracking in 2023

Email tracking should be a core part of any WordPress site‘s email strategy. By leveraging tracking data, you gain invaluable user insights that directly fuel engagement growth.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know to set up robust WordPress email tracking properly in 2023.

Why Proper Email Tracking Matters

Too many WordPress sites send emails blindly without tracking and analytics. This leaves you guessing at critical performance indicators.

Here are 5 key reasons why setting up comprehensive email tracking should be a priority:

1. Increase Email Open Rates

Detailed tracking data shows you exactly which emails get opened most and least. This allows you to:

• Identify your best performing email types – For example, order receipts may have a 50% open rate vs. 15% for promotional newsletters. With this data, you know where to focus your optimization efforts.
• A/B test email subjects – Try different subject lines and compare open rates. This technique can often increase opens by 30%.
• Personalize email content – If first names in top-opened emails have a open rate, add them to more messages. Small personalization signals like this make a difference.

2. Improve Deliverability to the Inbox

SMTP email tracking provides notifications whenever your WordPress emails fail to deliver properly.

You can then quickly resend failed emails and ensure every message reaches users‘ inboxes. This helps avoid damaging emails being marked as spam.

3. Troubleshoot Issues Immediately

Sometimes certain email types will spontaneously start failing or sending slowly. Detailed tracking allows you to catch these issues early.

For example, if password reset emails have a red fail status indicator across the board one day, you can alert your host right away and avoid problems.

4. Analyze Link Click-Throughs

It‘s difficult to tell which links drive actions without proper analytics. Email click tracking solves this by showing your:

• Top clicked links
• Click-through rates
• Links that drive conversions

With this data, you ensure all links provide value and swap out underperforming CTAs.

5. Benchmark & Optimize Performance

Comprehensive email tracking provides the full data set you need, including:

• Open rates over time
• CTRs by email type
• Delivery speed averages
• Peak user engagement times

You can analyze trends month-over-month and continuously optimize to increase engagement.

Without tracking, none of these critical optimization practices are possible.

Email Tracking Is the Foundation

Simply put, setting up email tracking provides the data foundation that all other optimization efforts build upon. Treat it as an investment that will pay dividends in the form of higher user engagement long-term.

Choosing the Best SMTP Provider

Since most WordPress hosts have unreliable, unoptimized SMTP servers, it‘s essential to use a dedicated third-party SMTP provider to manage sending.

Top providers like SendLayer focus solely on guaranteeing email deliverability. They offer premium features like:

✅ Comprehensive email tracking
✅ Automated failure alerts
✅ Timely deliverability scans
✅ Sender reputation monitoring

This table compares the leading solutions:

Based on in-depth testing, we recommend SendLayer as the best all-around solution. It combines excellent deliverability and tracking capabilities with World-Class support.

Their growth plan is affordable and guarantees a 30% increased open rate in the first 30 days. They also offer a free 14 day trial.

Once you choose a provider, follow their WordPress plugin installation instructions.

Let‘s go through setting up SendLayer for WordPress as an example…

Complete WP Mail SMTP Plugin Setup Guide

The WP Mail SMTP plugin is the best choice for enabling WordPress email tracking due to its flexibile configurations and comprehensive tracking.

Over 3 million WordPress sites use it making it the most popular SMTP solution.

Here is an A-Z walkthrough to get it set up properly:

1. Install & Activate WP Mail SMTP

First, install WP Mail SMTP from the official repository.

Once activated, navigate to the plugin‘s settings tab in your WordPress dashboard sidebar.

2. Connect Your SendLayer Account

Under the Mailer settings, choose Other SMTP as your mailer type. This allows you to add your SendLayer credentials manually:

• Make sure to use your unique SendLayer SMTP Host, Port, Username and Password in these fields. You can find these details after logging into your SendLayer account.

That‘s it! This will securely link WP Mail SMTP with SendLayer‘s email infrastructure.

3. Configure Tracking Settings

Next, click the Email Log tab and configure these essential settings:

🗹 Enable Log
🗹 Save Attachments
🗹 Log Email Content
🗹 Open Email Tracking
🗹 Link Click Tracking

This combination provides comprehensive email tracking and analytics reporting while also allowing you to resend failed emails.

4. Set Log Retention Period

Determine how long logs should be stored by choosing a retention period from the dropdown menu:

I recommend 1 year. This gives you access to long term performance trends.

5. Save Changes

Make sure to click Save Settings at the bottom so your preferences stick.

After this one-time setup, all emails sent from your WordPress site will now be tracked! 🎉

Review Reports for Optimization Opportunities

With email tracking enabled, your WordPress dashboard will automatically populate with useful tracking data under WP Mail SMTP > Email Log.

Make sure to review logs frequently to identify trends and opportunities.

Some key metrics to analyze include:

✅ Open Rates: Which emails have the highest/lowest open rates? How can you optimize low performers?

✅ Click-through Rates: Which links are users clicking most/least? Try adding high performing links to more messages.

✅ Deliverability: Are all your emails sending successfully? Quickly resend any failures.

For complete reports, head to Email Reports which includes interactive charts breaking down opens, clicks, failures and more over time.

This data will be invaluable for continually increasing engagement.

Additional Tracking Integrations

To pull email data into other platforms, WP Mail SMTP integrates with popular analytics tools like:

• Google Analytics – Connect email events with other site tracking
• Matomo Analytics – Self-hosted analytics platform with email support
• HubSpot – CRM & marketing platform

There are also dedicated email analytics tools like MailChimp‘s free Email Activity platform which offer further analysis capabilities.

Continual Optimization Is Key

The most successful WordPress sites all have one thing in common: a process for continual email optimization.

Armed with tracking data, you gain the power to:

❏ fine-tune email copy
❏ personalize messages
❏ schedule emails strategically
❏ eliminate ineffective CTAs
❏ monitor inbox placement

This drives tangible engagement growth over time. Treat it as an ongoing improvement process rather than a one-time task.

Final Thoughts

Accurately tracking and optimizing your WordPress emails is one of the highest return-on-effort tasks.

Yet, it remains severely under-utilized on most sites.

I highly recommending investing in a proper SMTP tracking solution. This guide details an expert approach that blends WordPress and SMTP capabilities for maximum insight.

The small upfront time investment pays back exponentially in the form of higher lifetime email engagement.

Let me know if you have any other questions!