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You may have noticed in your accounts recently a new link under the 'reports' tab labelled 'Compare campaigns'. This is a brand new feature we released recently, thanks to a lot of great customer suggestions, and to the efforts of our star interns.

The idea is that you can select two or more past campaigns for a particular client, or even across all your clients, and compare their key statistics in chart and table form. The five measurements you can compare are:

• Opens
• Clicks
• Bounces
• Unsubscribes
• Spam complaints

Each one is compared as a percentage. Once you've picked the campaigns you want to compare, you hit the generate button and the data is loaded in. The new graphs are pretty slick, and you will need to have a recent version of the flash player installed to view them.

You can hover over each indicated point to see the relevant date and value for the statistic at that point. Below the graph is a table listing the data, and at the bottom, averages across all your campaigns.

If you decide you'd like to change the graph, use the edit button at the top to add or remove campaigns or statistics to compare, and regenerate it. These graphs are also available to your clients logging in for their reporting via Client Report Access.

Why compare campaigns?

With this new ability to easily compare your campaigns, you can start to really get an idea of what is working and what needs improvements with your clients emails. Here's just a few ideas to get you started - we're looking forward to hearing how you use campaign comparisons.

Testing different subject lines
If you want to improve your open rate, changing the subject line is a great place to start. Use segmemting to target one part of your list, and send them your standard subject line. For another segment, try something different, like putting an article title in the subject. Then compare your open rates for two campaigns. (more ideas for subject lines)

Change your 'call to action'
Once you can easily compare your click rates, you can start to experiment with the links in your campaigns. What happens if you use a graphic button to link to your site rather than a text link? What about a photo of your new product as a link vs the normal heading? Does putting a link at the top get more clicks?

Are competitions worthwhile for gaining subscribers?
Sure, running a competition where people have to give their address to enter might gain a ton of signups, but are they worthwhile? Use compare campaigns to compare your open rates and click throughs before and after the competition, and see if those new people are really interested. Also check out your bounce rates to see if you just end up with a bunch of bad addresses.

There's plenty of other ways you and your clients can make use of simple comparisons between campaigns. If you have a great idea, leave us a comment. Thanks to everyone who suggested this feature too!