Monitor and Optimize

Welcome to the "Monitor and Optimize" section of the Twilio SendGrid Onboarding Guide.

In this Onboarding Guide section, your team will:

• Learn how to assess the performance of your email program.
• Maximize the quality of the email you send.
• Explore deliverability best practices to proactively plan for improvements.

Step 1: Monitor your email program | recommended

Once you are sending email, your campaigns will generate data. That data will help you understand how successful your email program is at delivering to inboxes and how people are engaging with your content.

Data Sources

Twilio SendGrid offers a few ways to view and use your email data from raw data feeds to aggregated data and analytics.

Event Webhook

Twilio SendGrid strongly recommends that you implement our Event Webhook. The Event Webhook sends the raw delivery event data and engagement event data to a destination that you own. Good sending practices include tracking global email statistics and bounces, which are stats you can retrieve through a Twilio SendGrid API call.

Enabling the Event Webhook gives you maximum flexibility to store and manipulate the data for your unique needs.

Email Activity Feed

The Email Activity Feed provides a snapshot of recent activity so that you can address questions and issues in real time. Email Activity allows you to dig into specific messages to understand your email program at a granular level. Just keep in mind that by default Twilio SendGrid will only store this data for 30 days unless you purchase additional activity history. You can also store the data on your own systems using the Event Webhook mentioned above.

Analytics and Reporting

Analytics and reports aggregate and filter the event data to provide insights on different key performance indicators (KPIs) for email performance. For a full list of the different dashboards available to you and how best to use them, please check the links under Statistics.

Deliverability Insights

Deliverability Insights allows you to assess how well your email is reaching target inboxes at a higher level. Email deliverability is a discipline that combines analysis with strategic actions that improve inbox performance. We share more about deliverability below, but reviewing the statistics featured in Deliverability Insights will be a good way to start.

Adding Additional Data Points

Categories and Unique Arguments

Twilio SendGrid offers Category Statistics and Unique Arguments so that you can track your email program in the ways that are most meaningful to you. Categories can be assigned to a campaign, allowing you to track performance for an event, product launch, or similar send. Unique Arguments are unlimited and allow you to dig into individual messages to track more granular data.

Alerts

Setting alerts, such as usage limits and click or spam reports, allows you to proactively stay informed about how your email is performing. Alerts are sent on your chosen cadence to key members on your team.

Navigate to the linked documentation and resources below to complete the actions in this step.

Step 2: Focus on email writing and design strategies | recommended

With your email application up and running, you can focus on developing a strong campaign strategy and good content. Reading through the following Twilio SendGrid articles and resources may help your team hone your email templates and creative approach to make your email program thrive.

Navigate to the linked documentation and resources below to complete the actions in this step.

Step 3: Optimize your deliverability | recommended

The term deliverability refers to the practice of sending emails that arrive in your recipients' inboxes as intended. Good deliverability strategies will lessen the likelihood that your email will get sent to spam or be blocked by inbox providers, thus harming your reputation.

Every year, the Twilio SendGrid expert team publishes a deliverability guide. This guide provides strategies for improving how you monitor and manage your email program. As previously mentioned, Deliverability Insights will be a great tool for tracking important metrics such as bounce and block classifications.

Reputation Monitoring

Twilio SendGrid does not offer services that help you track the reputation of your IPs and domains. Reputation monitoring is a best practice and your team can employ 3rd party services for this purpose.

Here are some options you could consider:

• 250ok
• Return Path
• Sender Score
• Google Postmaster

Managing Suppressions

Changes to your recipient lists are inevitable once your email campaigns are up and running. As you built your application in the previous milestone, you may have already learned about and planned for suppressions. But, as time goes on, your team may need reminders and reeducation around these concepts. Properly managed lists will improve your reputation with mailbox providers and recipients.

Navigate to the linked documentation and resources below to complete the actions in this step.

Definition of Done

• Enabled the Event Webhook.
• Enabled Alerts for key product owners.
• Reviewed Email Activity Feed for at least one campaign.
• Reviewed Deliverability Insights for at least one campaign.
• Created at least one unique category.
• Created at least one reusable email template.
• Read the Twilio SendGrid Deliverability Guide.
• Set up at least one reputation monitoring practice.

Program development and maintenance

Now that you have completed onboarding, the continued work of developing your email program begins. To jumpstart a long term practice of optimizing your email, you should have:

• A regular team review of Deliverability Insights.
• A practice for monitoring your domain and IP reputations.
• A set of reusable templates with consistent fonts and designs.
• An editorial practice in place for content writing.
• A periodic review of deliverability strategies.

Congratulations on making it this far in the onboarding process! If you need help with onboarding or deliverability, Twilio Professional Services can help. Our Professional Services team provides guidance on how to maintain or improve domain and IP reputation, enhance message content, configure dedicated IPs, create a custom IP warmup plan, and more. Contact us for more information!