Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for attracting, engaging and converting prospects for businesses. However, sending out newsletters and promotional emails without measuring their effectiveness is like sailing a ship without a compass. To truly understand how your email marketing efforts are performing, it’s wise to track some specific metrics that will help you steer your business towards success.
This blog provides key email marketing metrics that matter and why they are essential to understanding the success of your campaign.
What It Is: The open rate measures the percentage of recipients who open your email. It is calculated by dividing the number of unique opens (people who opened your email) by the number of emails that were delivered.
Why It Matters: A high open rate indicates that your subject lines are compelling and relevant to your audience, whereas a low open rate may suggest that your subject lines need improvement or that your emails are being sent to the wrong audience. Tracking this metric helps you refine your email strategy and optimise your subject lines to improve engagement.
What It Is: The click-through rate measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links within your email. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of emails delivered.
Why It Matters: CTR provides an insight into how engaging and relevant your email content is. A higher CTR indicates that your audience finds your content valuable and is motivated to act – i.e. to find out more information, visit a product page or get in touch, etc. By monitoring this metric, you can assess which types of content encourage an active response from your audience and tailor future campaigns accordingly.
What It Is: The conversion rate of your campaign indicates the percentage of recipients who complete a desired action after clicking through from your email, such as actually making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. It’s calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of clicks.
Why It Matters: While it is nice to know that your emails are opened and even read, the number one goal of your email marketing campaign is to drive conversions. A high conversion rate indicates that your email not only captured attention but also successfully encouraged action. By analysing conversion rates, you can identify which campaigns are most effective at driving sales and which ones need improvement.
What It Is: The bounce rate indicates the percentage of emails that could not be delivered to recipients' inboxes. There are two types of bounces to be aware of: soft bounces (temporary issues, like a full inbox) and hard bounces (permanent issues, like an invalid email address).
Why It Matters: A high bounce rate can negatively impact your sender reputation, making it harder for your emails to reach the inboxes of your subscribers. Regularly monitoring your bounce rate helps you maintain a clean email list by removing invalid addresses and can help to ensure a better reputation and better deliverability rates.
What It Is: The unsubscribe rate measures the percentage of recipients who opt out of your email list after receiving an email. It’s calculated by dividing the number of unsubscribes by the number of emails delivered.
Why It Matters: While a certain level of unsubscribes is normal, a high rate can indicate that your content isn’t resonating with your audience or that you’re sending emails too often. By tracking this metric, you can assess the effectiveness of your email strategy and make necessary adjustments to retain your subscribers and keep them engaged.
What It Is: Spam complaints measure the percentage of recipients who report your email as spam. This can usually be found in your email service provider’s dashboard.
Why It Matters: High spam complaint rates can harm your sender reputation, ultimately making it more challenging to reach your audience. Monitoring this metric allows you to identify potential issues with your email content, audience segmentation or frequency, and to make adjustments to prevent future complaints.
What It Is: The list growth rate of your campaign measures how quickly your email list is growing. It considers new subscribers and unsubscribes over a specific period.
Why It Matters: A healthy list growth rate indicates that your marketing efforts are effectively attracting new subscribers. Tracking this metric helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your lead generation strategies and adjust your approach to maintain a growing audience.
Tracking the specific email marketing metrics above will give you valuable insights into your audience’s preferences and behaviour. Insights which are crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns and making informed decisions for future strategies.
Operating with a data-driven approach and adjusting your campaign accordingly will help you refine your email marketing strategy, enhance engagement, and ultimately drive better results for your business. Embrace these metrics and watch your email marketing efforts soar!
For more information on what you can do to improve the metrics above, and all things email marketing, get in touch with our team here.