Mobile Marketing: Mobile Targeting and Tracking. Mobile Email Tracking

Email is very different when it is displayed on a mobile phone instead of a traditional computer, so information about mobile email should be evaluated slightly differently. As it turns out, many people are not acting on commercial emails when they are on their mobile phones. Instead, they are using downtime to scan their emails, delete SPAM, and mentally flag items that require follow-up or seem important. When you review the response rate for mobile emails, it might be low, but the presentation of your email in a mobile device could ensure that it is even seen on a traditional computer at all.
As with any email campaign, you should be tracking the number of emails sent, received, opened, and bounced, as well as the response rate to those emails. Becaus email cannot be directed to a mobile device in one instance and a traditional computer in the other, the email might be received on a traditional computer, a mobile device, or both places. This can make measurement a bit complicated; the followin companies should be able to help with mobile email optimization and tracking.

•    ExactTarget—ExactTarget is a traditional email platform that was one of the first to begin integrating mobile delivery into its email solution. Its platform enables you to integrate your system with a variety of different platforms, including SalesForce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, WebTrends, CoreMetrics, Google Analytics, and Omniture.

The ExactTarget system also lets you send different responses based on specific customer behaviors, otherwise known as triggered responses. It also enables you to create content libraries and send content in emails that is dynamically generated, based on different demographics or filters. When they are set up in the system, each different behavior, triggered response, or dynamic email can be tracked and evaluated to determine the relative success of the different segments.

•    mobileStorm—As with other email platforms, mobileStorm enables you to create and segment subscription lists and monitor the success of your campaign. In addition, mobileStorm specializes in mobile marketing, so it offers a variety of other products and services that companies can use to set up mobile-friendly email campaigns, track their success, and personalize responses. These campaigns can work independently or in tandem with SMS campaigns, and the two can be combined to grow your subscribers' lists.

mobileStorm can also help you set up autoresponses on email and SMS campaigns, to manage the opt-in and opt-out process seamlessly, and help you track and manage the mobile and traditional coupons that you send. If you are marketing an event, the system also includes a handy RSVP manager.

•    Pivotal Veracity—Pivotal Veracity is another traditional email provider that can help with mobile email delivery (see Figure 3.17). It focuses on deliverability and rendering, both of which are crucial to the success of mobile email. In terms of tracking, their platform provides advanced analytics and custom weighting, to gain a deeper understanding of how different responses impact your bottom line. The platform focuses on the capability to preview how your email will look on a variety of different phones. After deployment, it helps track the deliverability and click-through rate for traditional and mobile landing pages.

 Pivotal Veracity delivers diagnostics, which include information about two Blackberry renderings and the iPhone.