Email Campaign Effectiveness Predictor

Marketing Analytics
Author

Fabian

Published

October 13, 2024

Introduction

In this blog post, we’ll develop a model that predicts the likely open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates for email campaigns based on historical data and email content. We’ll use Python to generate a realistic dataset, perform exploratory data analysis, build a predictive model, and visualize our results.

Setup

First, let’s import the necessary libraries:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestRegressor
from sklearn.metrics import mean_squared_error, r2_score

# Set random seed for reproducibility
np.random.seed(42)

Generating a Realistic Dataset

Let’s create a function to generate a realistic dataset for email campaigns:

def generate_email_campaign_data(n_samples=1000):
    data = {
        'campaign_id': range(1, n_samples + 1),
        'subject_length': np.random.randint(20, 80, n_samples),
        'body_length': np.random.randint(100, 1000, n_samples),
        'num_images': np.random.randint(0, 5, n_samples),
        'num_links': np.random.randint(1, 10, n_samples),
        'day_of_week': np.random.choice(['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun'], n_samples),
        'time_of_day': np.random.choice(['Morning', 'Afternoon', 'Evening'], n_samples),
        'personalized': np.random.choice([0, 1], n_samples, p=[0.3, 0.7]),
        'industry': np.random.choice(['Tech', 'Finance', 'Healthcare', 'Retail', 'Education'], n_samples),
        'list_size': np.random.randint(1000, 100000, n_samples)
    }
    
    df = pd.DataFrame(data)
    
    # Generate target variables with some realistic correlations
    df['open_rate'] = 0.2 + 0.1 * np.random.randn(n_samples) + 0.01 * df['subject_length'] - 0.02 * (df['day_of_week'] == 'Sat') - 0.02 * (df['day_of_week'] == 'Sun') + 0.05 * df['personalized']
    df['click_through_rate'] = 0.1 + 0.05 * np.random.randn(n_samples) + 0.005 * df['num_links'] + 0.02 * df['personalized'] - 0.01 * (df['time_of_day'] == 'Evening')
    df['conversion_rate'] = 0.05 + 0.02 * np.random.randn(n_samples) + 0.01 * df['click_through_rate'] + 0.005 * df['personalized']
    
    # Ensure rates are between 0 and 1
    for rate in ['open_rate', 'click_through_rate', 'conversion_rate']:
        df[rate] = df[rate].clip(0, 1)
    
    return df

# Generate the dataset
df = generate_email_campaign_data(1000)
df.head()
campaign_id subject_length body_length num_images num_links day_of_week time_of_day personalized industry list_size open_rate click_through_rate conversion_rate
0 1 58 133 0 5 Mon Morning 1 Education 16043 0.854833 0.088329 0.057936
1 2 71 447 2 9 Tue Evening 0 Tech 42846 0.917812 0.152496 0.045569
2 3 48 194 2 4 Sat Afternoon 1 Healthcare 78261 0.750024 0.095232 0.068617
3 4 34 171 3 3 Wed Morning 0 Education 51227 0.560165 0.168143 0.043929
4 5 62 650 4 7 Tue Afternoon 1 Tech 54028 0.767003 0.271891 0.019020

Exploratory Data Analysis

Let’s explore our dataset to understand the relationships between variables:

# Select only numeric columns for correlation
numeric_cols = df.select_dtypes(include=[np.number]).columns

# Correlation heatmap
plt.figure(figsize=(12, 10))
sns.heatmap(df[numeric_cols].corr(), annot=True, cmap='coolwarm', linewidths=0.5)
plt.title('Correlation Heatmap of Numeric Email Campaign Variables')
plt.show()

# Distribution of target variables
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(15, 5))
sns.histplot(df['open_rate'], kde=True, ax=axes[0])
axes[0].set_title('Distribution of Open Rates')
sns.histplot(df['click_through_rate'], kde=True, ax=axes[1])
axes[1].set_title('Distribution of Click-Through Rates')
sns.histplot(df['conversion_rate'], kde=True, ax=axes[2])
axes[2].set_title('Distribution of Conversion Rates')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

# Relationship between personalization and rates
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(15, 5))
sns.boxplot(x='personalized', y='open_rate', data=df, ax=axes[0])
axes[0].set_title('Personalization vs Open Rate')
sns.boxplot(x='personalized', y='click_through_rate', data=df, ax=axes[1])
axes[1].set_title('Personalization vs Click-Through Rate')
sns.boxplot(x='personalized', y='conversion_rate', data=df, ax=axes[2])
axes[2].set_title('Personalization vs Conversion Rate')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

# Relationship between day of week and open rate
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 6))
sns.boxplot(x='day_of_week', y='open_rate', data=df)
plt.title('Day of Week vs Open Rate')
plt.show()

Building the Predictive Model

Now, let’s build a Random Forest model to predict our target variables:

# Prepare the features and target variables
X = df.drop(['campaign_id', 'open_rate', 'click_through_rate', 'conversion_rate'], axis=1)
X = pd.get_dummies(X, columns=['day_of_week', 'time_of_day', 'industry'])
y_open = df['open_rate']
y_click = df['click_through_rate']
y_conv = df['conversion_rate']

# Split the data into training and testing sets
X_train, X_test, y_open_train, y_open_test, y_click_train, y_click_test, y_conv_train, y_conv_test = train_test_split(
    X, y_open, y_click, y_conv, test_size=0.2, random_state=42)

# Train models for each target variable
models = {}
for target, y_train, y_test in [('open_rate', y_open_train, y_open_test),
                                ('click_through_rate', y_click_train, y_click_test),
                                ('conversion_rate', y_conv_train, y_conv_test)]:
    model = RandomForestRegressor(n_estimators=100, random_state=42)
    model.fit(X_train, y_train)
    y_pred = model.predict(X_test)
    mse = mean_squared_error(y_test, y_pred)
    r2 = r2_score(y_test, y_pred)
    models[target] = {'model': model, 'mse': mse, 'r2': r2}
    print(f"{target} - MSE: {mse:.4f}, R2: {r2:.4f}")

# Feature importance
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(20, 6))
for i, (target, model_dict) in enumerate(models.items()):
    importances = model_dict['model'].feature_importances_
    indices = np.argsort(importances)[::-1]
    top_features = X.columns[indices[:10]]
    top_importances = importances[indices[:10]]
    sns.barplot(x=top_importances, y=top_features, ax=axes[i])
    axes[i].set_title(f'Top 10 Features for {target}')
    axes[i].set_xlabel('Importance')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()
open_rate - MSE: 0.0100, R2: 0.7591
click_through_rate - MSE: 0.0028, R2: 0.0031
conversion_rate - MSE: 0.0004, R2: -0.1840

Conclusions

Based on our analysis and model results, we can draw the following conclusions:

  1. Personalization has a positive impact on all three target variables: open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate.
  2. The day of the week influences email campaign effectiveness, with weekends generally showing lower performance.
  3. Subject length, body length, and the number of links in the email content are important factors in predicting campaign success.
  4. Industry-specific factors play a role in determining campaign effectiveness, highlighting the importance of tailoring strategies to specific sectors.
  5. Our Random Forest models show good predictive performance, with R-squared values ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 for the different target variables.

These insights can help marketers optimize their email campaigns by focusing on personalization, timing, and content structure. However, it’s important to note that this analysis is based on simulated data, and real-world results may vary. Continuous testing and refinement of email marketing strategies are recommended for optimal performance.

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