Determining whether someone has read your broadcast message can be challenging, as many messaging platforms don’t provide read receipts for broadcast messages. However, there are a few techniques you can use to get an indication of who may have seen or interacted with your broadcast message.
Check for replies
The most straightforward way to know if someone read your broadcast message is if they reply to it. On platforms like email and Slack, recipients can reply directly to your broadcast message just like any other message. If you get a reply, you know for sure that person read the message.
The downside is that most people won’t reply to broadcast messages, so a lack of replies doesn’t necessarily mean the message wasn’t read. But receiving a reply is a clear sign that particular recipient did in fact read your message.
Look for likes and reactions
Many messaging platforms allow users to react to or “like” messages. On Slack and Teams, users can click an emoji icon to react. On SMS/MMS messaging, some providers allow you to include voting buttons that recipients can tap. Email marketing platforms like MailChimp display the number of opens and clicks.
As with replies, these are positive signals that a recipient has seen and interacted with your broadcast message in some way. Likes and reactions are more common than direct replies, though many recipients still won’t bother reacting. But seeing a spike in reactions and engagement can indicate your message is being seen by at least a portion of recipients.
Check read receipts
Some messaging apps provide read receipts that directly tell you if a recipient has viewed your message. Platforms like iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram show read receipts within the chat interface, generally displaying “Read” or “Seen” when the recipient opens the message.
Read receipts give definitive proof that a message has been seen. The main limitation is that not all messaging platforms include them, and some users disable read receipts in their settings for privacy reasons. Still, if you do have access to read data, it’s the best way to confirm views of your broadcast message.
Use email tracking
Email marketing and automation platforms often include more advanced analytics for broadcast email campaigns. Services like MailChimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot and others will track opens and clicks for your campaign messages.
This info isn’t available in your email inbox itself, but through analytics dashboards provided by those platforms. You can view data on:
- Total email campaign recipients
- Number and percentage who opened the message
- Number and percentage who clicked any links
- Which links were clicked the most
This data gives you aggregate metrics to estimate how many people actively read and engaged with your broadcast email message.
Check social media analytics
Similarly, most social platforms provide analytics on post reach and engagement. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and others give content creators metrics on:
- Impressions: How many times the post was served to viewers
- Reach: Approximate number who saw it
- Engagement rate: Percentage who interacted through likes, comments, shares, etc.
Social analytics are not exact, but can give you a general sense of how many users your broadcast post reached and whether it got decent engagement from that audience. Higher reach and engagement improves the odds your message was viewed by more recipients.
Use click tracking
To get more granular data, many email and social platforms support click tracking. This inserts unique URLs with tracking codes to monitor exactly who clicked on each specific link in your broadcast message.
Click tracking helps in a few ways:
- Identify who interacted enough to click links
- See which links get the most clicks
- Optimize your content and messaging based on link popularity
Enabling click tracking where available gives the most detailed view of who engaged directly with your broadcast message. Just keep in mind some users may find click tracking invasive, so transparency is important.
Consider message context and goals
Beyond platform-specific features, also think about the context of your broadcast message and what your goals are. A few examples:
- Webinar invites want registrations, so check registration numbers
- eCommerce promos want sales, so look at revenue data
- Customer surveys want responses, so monitor completion rates
- Newsletters want subscriptions, so examine opt-in and retention trends
The key metrics that indicate your broadcast message is successful will vary based on the purpose and call-to-action. Identify what those metrics are and track them over time to see if your messages are resonating.
A/B test your messages
One effective technique is A/B testing different versions of your broadcast message. Send one version to a test segment and a slightly modified version to a comparable segment. Then examine the open, click, reaction, and other engagement metrics across the two.
This allows you to directly compare how interaction and response rates differ based on the content and formatting of your message. Over time, you can optimize and refine your messaging for greater reach and engagement.
Example interaction metrics
Here is an example comparison of interaction metrics across some popular broadcast communication platforms:
| Platform | Read Receipts | Reactions | Link Clicks | Replies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Social media | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SMS/MMS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Slack | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Teams | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
This summarizes some of the key options available for gauging interaction and engagement across major broadcast platforms. Use the indicators appropriate for each platform to get a rough measure of message readership and effectiveness.
Conclusion
Determining if recipients actually read your broadcast messages can be tricky and imperfect. But leveraging available metrics like read receipts, reactions, clicks, replies, and platform analytics can provide useful indicators of message engagement.
Combine these signals with an understanding of your communication goals and audience preferences. With smart testing and optimization, you can fine-tune broadcast messages that resonate and achieve your desired response.