7 Email Metrics You Need To Be Tracking
The effectiveness of your emails is determined by factors such as how many people received the message, opened the message, or unsubscribed to it. If you’re a small business owner, these metrics can avert dangers and help you implement creative campaigns seamlessly.
Moreover, ignoring the metrics can get you in trouble. For example, if you keep sending mails when the unsubscribe rates are high, they might get blacklisted. Read on to discover the must-know seven top metrics for marketers.
Bounce Rates
It’s important that you find out exactly how many emails bounce off the recipient’s server back-to-you. This means that the delivery was unsuccessful. If you notice high bounce rates, it might be a sign that your contact list is filled with fake, error-prone, or expired addresses.
For starters, there are two types of bounces. A hard bounce indicates permanent issues while a soft bounce denotes short-term problems in the address.
The double opt-in option is a smart way to reduce the bounce rate significantly. Aim to achieve below a 2% bounce rate. Anything above 10% is a cause for concern in email marketing.
Open Rate
The total number of people who opened your mails is specified under the open rate metric. This parameter determines if your subject line resonates with the contact list enough to make them open it. Emails with an open rate of or above 20-40% are ideal.
It’s calculated by subtracting bounced messages from total sent emails. If you’re seeing low open rates, personalize them by inserting the first name of the subscriber. According to statistics, this increases the opening metric by 26%. Segmenting is another way to increase the open rate of messages by 14%.
CTR
Click-through-rate measures the performance of your campaigns. It determines the total amount of readers who clicked on a CTA, link, or image within the message.
For example, if you sent a landing page link in your email, CTR finds out how many people clicked on that link.
The click-through-rate of a healthy campaign is above 2.5%. Marketers can improve these figures by testing link positions or using custom CTA buttons. Alternative ways for improving it include creating more responsive design and relevant content.
Conversion Rates
Defined as the number of people who took a specific action, this reveals the ROI from marketing campaigns. A good CTR with a low conversion rate means people clicked on your link but didn't complete the action.
For instance, the conversion rate for a marketer who sent an Amazon link to buy his book is the total amount of people who bought the book. It’s calculated by dividing the total users who took the desired action by the total emails delivered. The result is then multiplied by 100 to determine the percentage.
Read More: Boost Conversation Rate with Email Automation
Sharing Rate
Popularly known as the forward rate, the email share rate shows the average number of users who shared your content. This KPI metric indicates the number of forwards to email addresses and social media channels from subscribers.
Divide total shares by total emails delivered to determine the forward rate. In short, it shows the total number of contacts who recommend your brand to others.
The sharing rate is important in this age of marketing because over 81% of purchases are driven by social media recommendations. One surefire way to create shareable content is by creating referral campaigns.
ROI
The total ‘return of investment’ of your campaign is its ROI. This is calculated by subtracting your profits from investments and then dividing the result by total investments.
For example, suppose you spend $10,000 annually by paying $90 per month to a marketer and $200 per month for ESP. Assume that you generate 500 email leads to make a revenue of $42,000. In such a case, the ROI is (42000-7500)/7500, which is 3.158 or 3158%.
Unsubscribe Rate
One of the easy to understand metrics is the unsubscribe rate. This determines the total users that unsubscribed from your list after receiving the message. If you notice a high number of unsubscribe rates, it’s a sign that your content isn’t aligned with the interests of the target audience.
However, it’s not always a bad thing. Oftentimes, marketers consider high unsubscribes as a good way to weed out wrong customer personas. The best thing to do is to make sure the unsubscribe button is clear in the email so that the reader feels in control.
Bottom Line
Marketers must be familiar with a host of different metrics when it comes to evaluating email marketing efficacy.
Between avoiding deliverability issues by monitoring the bounce rate to considering open rate when checking the performance of the subject lines, there are many areas to cover. Don’t forget to keep close tabs on click-through rates, conversion rates, and share rates, ROI, and unsubscribe rates that can make or break a campaign.
Besides remembering their relevance, make sure to track these metrics to deliver successful campaigns or fine tune as needed.
