5 Email Marketing Metrics You Need To Track
01/09/2021 | Share:
The importance of measuring your email marketing campaigns cannot be understated. You need to know how well this strategy is going or whether it is a complete waste of time, money, and resources. In this post, we will look at how to measure your email campaigns properly and how to improve the areas you find to be lacking.
As with all marketing campaigns, some companies will do this for you entirely. However, if you wish to do this yourself, it isn’t a challenging process, and we’ve explained everything you need to know in this article.
The things you need to monitor are outlined below, as well as their importance explained and how you can improve on them.
#1 Delivery Rate
Emails can not be delivered due to a few reasons. Firstly, the email address may be non-existent, the mailbox could be full, the server unavailable, or the recipient is away and using auto-reply. The delivery rate is the percentage of the number of emails delivered to consumers, divided by the number of emails sent.
An email marketer should always track the delivery rate of any email campaign, aiming to achieve a 95% or above delivery rate. If your delivery rate is below this, then it may be time to examine your mailing list. It could be that you’re holding on to invalid email addresses.
Pay attention to the subject lines in your emails and the email content. It could be that they consist of words often blocked by ERPS, equating these messages to spam.
#2 Open Rate
Email open rate is the percentage of people who open one of your emails in comparison to your number of subscribers. For example, if you have a 50% open rate, this means that out of every ten emails sent, only five were actually opened.
Many marketers will look at their email open rate to identify how successful their strategy has been. While this is an important indicator, it is certainly not the only one; there are multiple metrics to consider to determine how well your plan is going.
As well as looking at the email open rate, it is essential to monitor how this fluctuates over time. It may improve at certain times and decrease at others – look at the possible reasons for this, and you’ll better understand what type of content entices your subscribers. Maybe it isn’t all down to the content, but it could be due to the frequency of your emails – could it be too much or not enough?
By monitoring your subscribers’ engagement with your email marketing, you will be able to see what is working and what isn’t. It is often vital to make changes here, or you could end up with a high percentage of subscribers blocking your emails or just never reading them at all.
#3 Click-Through Rate
This is the percentage of the links clicked in your emails. The whole point of an email campaign is to get people to act, whether this be a subscription, follow, or purchase and the action comes in the form of an embedded link.
To calculate your click-through rate, you need to divide the number of people in total who clicked on a link by the number of emails delivered. Then, multiply that ratio by 100, which will result in your email click-through rate percentage.
The calculation may prove useful if you’re interested in knowing how effective your emails are in converting your readers to take action. If people are not clicking these links, consider why. It could be several things, such as being too pushy, irrelevant information, or poorly written content.
#4 Conversion Rate
To calculate your email conversation rate, you need to define your end goal and your conversion. Secondly, determine your base; do you base your conversion rate on click-through emails or on all sent emails? Finally, calculate your conversation rate by taking the total number of conversions in the first step and dividing this by the figure found in step two.
The answer will be the percentage of people who performed the desired action, i.e., Signed up, subscribed, made a purchase. Don’t worry if this number isn’t huge; according to recent data, email accounted for 19.8% of all online transactions, coming behind paid-for search at 19.9%, and organic traffic taking the lead at 21.8%. However, if your figure is much lower than this, then you should look at why.
Consider what it may be that your email campaign is lacking and why people are not taking action. By monitoring your campaign and its success, you will get a good understanding of what is encouraging people and what seems to dissuade them.
#5 Unsubscribe Rate
Generally, an unsubscribe rate below 0.5% is a reasonable unsubscribe rate for an email campaign. A rate under 0.2% tends to be within the normal range, and a rate over 0.5% indicates you have some work to do. But, the good news is that there’s a lot of tactics to try.
Remember that around 80% of emails are never opened, and for every 2,000 subscribers you have, it is usual to lose up to 10 with every email sent. Rude, right?! So, how can we change this? Well, there are a few things that are proven to work, and these are:
- Interesting Blog Posts: A simple way to elevate your business is through interesting blog content; this could be your email promising to answer a relevant question or to share your brand’s feelings on current events. This raises brand awareness and gives your company a more humanised image to subscribers.
- Customer Stories: Share authentic customer stories with your subscribers to see what they can get from your brand and what they may be missing. Has your product enhanced someone’s life in some way or make a positive impact on their family?
- Testimonials: Similar to sharing customer stories, testimonials are the words of someone who doesn’t represent your brand – a regular consumer. This portrays trust, transparency, and honesty when done correctly. It’s important not to make this read like a sales pitch, which can be a big turn-off.
- Updates: Has your business done something new recently, launched a new product or service? Have they invested or donated to a charity? Let your followers know what you’re up to, and couple this message with a powerful call-to-action for great results.
- Birthday Emails: Who doesn’t like to be remembered on their Birthday? Try sending your subscribers an automated ‘Happy Birthday’ email which includes a coupon or freebie. Not only will this show that you care, but it can also encourage sales.
