beehiiv 3D Analytics: The Experts’ Secret Weapon

Darwin coined one of the most famous quotes ever: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."

We could say that "adaptable to change" is the number one quality that separates real and wanna-be entrepreneurs. But how do those entrepreneurs at the top of the food chain know what–and how–to adapt?

Analytics.

This blog post will teach you how to take your email newsletter beyond survival and make it thrive as a solid business using the best analytics tools on the market–and they’re all found on beehiiv.

How Morning Brew Blasted Past the Competition

In 2017, Tyler Denk, founder of beehiiv, worked for Morning Brew with only one objective: "grow the newsletter." Five years later, Morning Brew has grown to +6,000,000 readers. How did they do that? What was the secret weapon that helped them overcome the competition?

Professor David Foster Wallace made a joke in a graduation ceremony that exemplifies the current situation of many businesses: "One fish asks another fish, ‘How's the water?’ The other fish replies, ‘What the hell is water?’" In other words, they don't know what they are doing and what is happening around them.

The only way you, as a business owner, will know what’s going around in your ‘water’ is through analysis. And that’s exactly how Eric Ries, the creator of "The Lean Startup Method," revolutionized the startup field with his findings. The methodology is based on the premise of continuous measurement and improvement, which allows businesses to assess what is happening around them–and, based on that data, adapt and thrive in uncertain circumstances.

Morning Brew used a lean methodology to adapt and grow; that’s how they surpassed other, less successful newsletters. In fact, Tyler mentioned that one of the critical aspects of Morning Brew's success was the data they constantly analyzed from their audience–in particular, where they were coming from, and what content they preferred the most.

In short, to have a successful business, you need the most accurate data. That is why Tyler Denk made analytics the focus of the growth strategy at Morning Brew–and why beehiiv created the most comprehensive analysis tool ever for email newsletters.

What is beehiiv?

beehiiv is an email newsletter platform designed to make creating, managing, and sending out newsletters easier than ever. With beehiiv, you can create beautiful newsletters in minutes with our drag-and-drop editor; segment your audience into lists for improved targeting and personalization; and track the performance of your campaigns with real-time analytics.

Is beehiiv free?

beehiiv is the perfect tool to help take your email marketing initiatives to the next level. Best of all, it’s free to use! Though we do offer plans with more features for those who need advanced analytics to scale and grow to the next level. You can check the different benefits of our plans here.

beehiiv 3D Analytics

The 3D analytics dashboard is an advanced analytics solution designed to help creators deeply understand their performance metrics related to subscribers and the content they're creating. The subscriber's report is a powerful tool to understand subscription trends and take actionable steps to improve and optimize your subscription rate. In other words: GROW!

It's important to note that as you get started, the 3D analytics dashboard is available on our scale plan. So you'll have to have that plan to gain access.

The 3D analytics is under the Analyze tab. With just one click, you will see all the different charts related to your subscriber metrics on it. Those charts include:

• Periods you want to analyze–you can choose the date and have all the data from the selected time

• Acquired subscribers by sources and channel

• Filtered results by specific campaigns

• Results of every email you sent, such as the number of emails sent, open rate, CTR, etc.

• Demographics of your subscribers

• And more.

With all this data, you'll see your open rate performance and from where you obtained a subscriber. This is one of the most powerful components of this dashboard. If you're running multi-channel campaigns, you can go to the dashboard and see by which channel you gained the subscribers. It will also show you where that performance is coming from in terms of open rates.

You'll get to see where the opens are happening, broken down geographically. In other words, you will be able to spot the exact time, campaign, and email that is attracting people from a specific location.

This tool not only helps you to see what is working–you can also spot what is not working, so you don’t waste resources on initiatives that are not achieving the desired results.

If you want to go further, you can even detect hidden gems you weren't expecting. For example, you may have received fewer subscribers than expected from a certain channel. Or, people reached on that channel are opening their emails at a much higher rate compared with another, apparently larger channel.

With that information, you can double down and invest in that channel, because the data confirms you are finding highly engaged, valuable subscribers there.

Another thing that’s worth mentioning–with beehiiv, you own your audience. You can download and export all those reports into different formats, such as xls, JSON, and CSV. Then you can have a full breakdown of the results down to the last user. You can use that data to present it to partners, investors, and advertisers and sponsors, or use it for training or case studies.

3D Analytics by Post

With this part of the 3D analytics, you'll be able to understand how to use the post report to understand content trends, recognize how users are consuming and viewing your content, and make optimizations from that information.

To access the 3D analytics post report, go to your beehiiv dashboard under "analyze," and then "posts report."

The top of the post report is similar to the subscriptions report. However, you'll have a couple of different filters that can change how the data is displayed. In the beginning, you’ll see different cards, such as:

• The number of emails delivered.

• The number of emails that were opened.

• The unique email clicks.

• The average number of clicks per email opened.

• The number of users who unsubscribed

• The number of spam reports.

With 3D analytics, you have detailed graphics of the performance of each post along the dimensions of open rate, click-through rate, and total delivery. Using this graphic, you can connect the dots and find emerging trends.

These metrics become even more critical as you get more users, as the more users you have, the more data you will need to collect. But you don't have to worry about that since the graphic can give you detailed information no matter the number of subscribers. It is all broken down to you.

Moving down one row, you can find a similar graphic that shows the total web views of the web version of your publication. Some businesses need to remember this vital line of the company. They think the only thing they need to measure is email performance. They may need to remember this part of the business to avoid losing deals.

The graphic also shows the chronological order, open rates, click-through rate, and total email clicks. Same thing with URLs. You can see which URL was the most popular, and the dimensions of total and unique clicks.

At the end of the post report, you can visualize all posts during the timeframe. You can see the performance of each post graphed over time. With a simple click, you can drop down the date of the post, the subject line, open rates, decreasing open rates, and all the data mentioned above for each post.

These metrics are so important. These are the secret weapons that get you ahead of the competition. With all the information, you can determine what is working by measuring the performance of each post over time.

Again, you can download all the reports in CSV, Excel, or JSON.

Using Data and Analytics To Adapt, Survive, and Thrive

Serious entrepreneurs have widely used the lean StartUp method to optimize their business, eliminate waste, see what works, and double on those efforts to bring results. That is how you turn an idea into a successful business.

With accurate data, they can evaluate the environment more effectively, ultimately leading to valuable improvements for future projects.

With beehiiv 3D analytics, you only have to take a few extra moments to correctly measure the performance of your posts and emails, which leads you ahead of the competition and directly to the hearts–and inboxes–of your readers.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for the Scale program and dominate your industry this 2023.