How to Increase Research Networking User Engagement with Email Marketing, Web Analytics, and VanityNooshin Latour, MA, Anirvan ChatterjeeClinical and Translational Science Institute, University of California, San Francisco

Clinical and Translational Science Institute / CTSIAccelerating Research to Improve Health

SFUCSoftware &

WebappSocial Net-

works/Online Communities

Education & Training

Non-Profit CTSI eNews Profiles Wel-come Onboard-

ing

Profiles Vanity Email

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

21.9% 22.0% 22.5%25.1% 26.4%

39.2%

45.8%

3.3% 3.9% 3.4% 3.2%

9.0%

32.0%

13.6%

IntroductionAlthough the UCSF Profiles research networking system has become a significant online gateway enabling the discovery of researchers at the university (primarily via Google), we found that many UCSF Profiles page owners were inactive, never having customized or even seen their own pages. As of August 2013, only 28% of Profile pages had been customized with a biography, photo, or list of research interests.

MethodWe first tried an ongoing campaign sending users customized “Welcome to UCSF Profiles” emails when they got added to the system, as well an email campaign encouraging existing users to add a photo and/or bio to their pages, as needed. In both cases, we included data from Google Analytics showing how having a more complete profile correlated with receiving more pageviews.

Based on the success of these two campaigns, we sent users a fully-personalized “2013 UCSF Profiles Annual Report,” where we would describe to them how many pageviews their profile page had received, and from whom. We used Google Analytics network data to split out annual traffic figures from categories that researchers cared about: users at UCSF, other universities, major pharmaceutical companies, major foundations, and the NIH.

ResultsWe tested multiple variants of the 2013 UCSF Profiles Annual Report over six rounds, to 2,713 profile owners.

• Unsubscribes 0%• Average Opens 45.8% • Average Clicks 13.6%• Impact +385 net edited

profiles after 3 campaigns• Survey 8.7% response rate

(236 users)

Engagement rates were surprisingly high. Open rates were 2-3x higher than related industry averages, and click rates up to 3x higher. We were also pleased with the increase in number of personal edits to researcher Profiles. This pilot is helping inform possible future UCSF Profiles features (e.g. personal web analytics dashboards) and email marketing campaigns (e.g. custom email digests).

Annual report engagement rates, compared to industry averages:Key: Left bar = Open rate; Right bar = Click-through rate

The Ultimate Vanity Email

Appeal to professional

vanity

We A/B tested subject lines. Short customized subjects did best

Solicit user feedback with clear call to action

Users encouraged to log in, edit their pages

HTML email template looks

good in Outlook,

phones, etc.

Personalized stats

via Google Analytics

Getting the Data1. Google Analytics records visitors’

network / ISP (e.g. AT&T, Comcast, Harvard, NIH).

2. We created custom Google Analytics filters for each category of interest (e.g. networks with “university” or “college” in the name).

3. We exported counts of unique pageviews for each profile from each category of interest

4. We decided to email only those users whose pages were viewed 20+ times in 2013 by users from at least 2 categories of interest (e.g. NIH and major pharmas).

5. We mail merged custom HTML into a Mailchimp HTML template.

This project was supported by NIH/NCRR UCSF-CTSI Grant Number UL1 TR000004. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

User Feedback• “I’d like to see specifically who (which

govt, institution) viewed my research Profile.”

• “l’d like to know which of my publications others are viewing.”

• “Were my pageviews a little or a lot compared to other faculty?”

• “Great to see my name up in the lights!”

Impact on SiteAfter this and the two prior email campaigns (see Method section), net customized UCSF Profiles pages grew by 385 (6% of users).Default Profile Customized

Profile