Visual link analysis

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The visual link analysis shows how often each link in a mailing is clicked. The analysis data is displayed directly over a screenshot of the original mailing to reveal correlations that might not be obvious, such as if recipients tend to click links in a certain area.

Image: Visual link analysis

To create a visual link analysis, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the Optimizely Campaign menu and select AnalyticsVisual Link Analysis. The Visual Link Analysis window opens.
  2. Click the Mailings box and the mailing you want to analyze.
  3. In the Show Click Rate drop-down list, click the type of clicks you want to analyze:
    • All clicks. Each click is counted, including multiple clicks from the same recipient.
    • Unique clicks. Multiple clicks from the same recipient on one URL are only counted once. If a recipient clicks on different links to the same URL (such as text and image), this is one unique click also, because not the link itself, but the URL to which it links, is decisive.

    Calculation of the unique click rate

    The unique click rate for each link is calculated in relation to the total number of unique clicks on each link in the mailing. This differs from the unique click rate of the whole mailing, as given in the mailing report.

    In the visual link analysis, one recipient can generate one unique click for each link in the mailing. The total number of unique clicks is usually higher than the total number of unique clicks as given in the mailing reports, because some recipients click various links in the mailing. The percentage of unique clicks for each link is calculated in relation to this number. Note that unique clicks in the overall mailing report and unique clicks in the visual link analysis are not identical, since they are calculated differently.

  4. In the Reference Parameter list, click the reference value you want to use to display the attractiveness of the individual links:
    • Percent of all recipients. Shows the clicks on a link in relation to recipients of the mailing.
    • Percent of all (unique) clicks. Shows the clicks on a link in relation to unique clicks on links of the mailing.
    • Percent of all recipients/(unique) clicks. Shows the clicks on a link in relation to unique clicks on links in the mailing and in relation to recipients of the mailing.
  5. If your client is set up for post-click tracking , in the Additional Data list, you can select the post-click option. It shows the post-click actions created from each link, such as the number of items bought. The data shown in this option depends on the kind of data tracked via post-click tracking.
  6. Click Show. The visual link analysis is started.
  7. To show only elements assigned to specific target groups, click Target Groups…, select one or more target groups, and click Submit Selection. In the background, a screenshot of the mailing is shown. Over each link, the respective numbers (clicks and percentages) are shown.

You can switch between versions of your mailings by clicking the appropriate tab (HTML, Mobile and Text). Optionally, you can save the analysis result by clicking Save result as image.

The box also has a color indicator: White means a link has not been clicked; yellow indicates a low click rate, orange medium click rate, while red means frequent click rate.

Multiple links with the same link target

Multiple links to the same URL, such as an image and a text link, are not analyzed separately. That is, the total number of clicks/unique clicks is shown for each link item to the same URL. You cannot determine if recipients preferred clicking an image or a text link to the URL.