Introduction: The importance of tracking email marketing metrics
Email marketing remains a critical channel for engagement and revenue. As one of the highest converting digital marketing channels, with ROI as high as 4400%, marketers rely on email to build meaningful connections with subscribers. However, simply sending emails is not enough. To fully leverage its potential, you need to dig into the data.
Understanding campaign performance through metrics allows for optimization and refinement that drives greater results. Setting up tracking and regularly analyzing metrics identifies what is working well while revealing areas for improvement. Rather than shooting blindly, savvy marketers use email metrics to take aim at higher open rates, more clicks, greater engagement, and increased revenue.
Key metrics to track include:
- Open rate - percentage of subscribers opening an email
- Click-through rate - percentage clicking links within the email
- Bounce rate - percentage of emails bouncing due to invalid addresses
- Unsubscribe rate - percentage unsubscribing from the mailing list
- Revenue per email - sales directly attributed to email campaigns
- Deliverability rate - percentage successfully reaching inboxes
- Engagement rate - overall interactions like opens, clicks
Benchmarking these metrics against industry standards illuminates where your strategy exceeds or falls short of email marketing best practices. For example, while an open rate of 15% may seem decent, it pales in comparison to top brands averaging 30%.
Regular analysis provides insights to refine targeting, messaging, content, design and overall campaigns. By continually optimizing based on performance data, marketers maximize email reach, engagement, and conversion over time.
Essential Email Marketing Metrics
Open Rates
Open rate measures the percentage of subscribers that open a particular email campaign. This reveals how well your subject line and sender details encourage opens.
Higher open rates indicate your subject lines are crisp and compelling while subscribers recognize and trust your brand as the sender. An open rate benchmark to aim for is 20% or higher, which exceeds the industry average of around 15-18%.
If your open rates are lackluster, look at factors like the day and time sent, subscriber segments targeted, email clients and devices used. A/B test different subject lines, personalization and sender details to identify improvements that will get more opens.
Click-Through Rates
Click-through rate (CTR) tracks how often subscribers click links, CTAs or other interactive email elements after opening. This demonstrates how captivating and relevant your content is.
Higher CTRs signal your email content and messaging resonate with subscribers, encouraging them to engage further. A good CTR range to benchmark against is 0.5-5% or more, depending on your industry and goals.
To boost CTRs, closely analyze links and CTAs with low click performance. Strengthen your copy, customize content, and highlight value to compel more interactions. Use a click heatmap to understand the most popular links subscribers click and place those more prominently. Testing promotional and educational email content can also reveal which drives more engagement.
Bounce Rates
Bounce rate represents the percentage of emails sent that bounce back or fail to deliver due to invalid addresses. High bounce rates indicate issues like inaccurate subscriber data, unengaged contacts, or faulty deliverability.
Aim to keep your bounce rate under 2% as a widely accepted target. Regularly remove hard bounces and update subscriber details like changed addresses to avoid continuous failed deliveries lowering your sender reputation. Follow up with soft bounces with a preference center email or personalized outreach to re-engage them.
Unsubscribe Rates
Unsubscribe rate measures the percentage of subscriber list that opts out of your email campaigns. Spikes may signal your content is irrelevant to subscribers or provide little value.
Industry experts recommend keeping your monthly unsubscribe rate at 0.2% or lower. Review messaging, segment targeting and list quality if your rates suddenly increase. Confirm subscription preferences with subscribers and clearly highlight the value they gain by staying on your list.
Revenue per Email
This metric tracks sales revenue directly attributed to your email campaigns like special offers or promotions. It illuminates how email contributes to your overall revenue and ROI.
The figure varies significantly based on your business model and industry. Test different components like offers, discounts, and CTAs with A/B subject lines to determine what motivates more sales. Pair email with landing pages and thank you pages to better track conversions.
For ecommerce brands, aim for a revenue per email of $0.10 or more. Get granular by analyzing revenue per segment and campaign type to optimize.
Advanced Email Marketing Metrics
Deliverability Rates
Deliverability rate measures the percentage of emails sent that successfully reach subscriber inboxes. Higher rates indicate positive sender reputation and subscriber engagement.
Aim for deliverability rates of 97% and above to benchmark well against competing brands. Maintain inbox placement by building your list responsibly, sending valuable content, and complying with CAN-SPAM regulations. Using dedicated IPs and monitoring tools can also optimize deliverability.
Engagement Rates
Engagement rate provides a snapshot of overall subscriber interactions with campaigns based on open rate, CTR, shares, survey responses, and more. Higher engagement demonstrates your emails inspire actions subscribers find valuable.
A 10%+ engagement rate is a recommended target to benchmark against the 6-8% average. Boost engagement by improving copywriting, content quality, visual design, and personalization. Identify low-engaging segments and customize outreach to re-activate them.
List Growth Rates
This metric represents the percentage change in mailing list size during a period. It sheds light on how successfully you acquire new contacts and retain existing ones.
Industry averages for healthy list growth range around 2-3% per month. Identify highly engaged segments that may be good candidates for referral incentives. Promote opt-ins, highlight benefits, and send welcome series to accelerate expansion.
Email Shares
Email share rate tracks how often campaigns get forwarded or shared via social media. Higher sharing indicates your content resonates as valuable, interesting or entertaining to subscribers.
Include social sharing buttons and encourage subscribers to pass on worthwhile content. A/B testing copy and content can reveal approaches that inspire higher sharing rates.
Conversion Rates
Conversion rate represents the percentage of email recipients who complete a desired goal like downloading content, registering for a webinar, or making a purchase.
Due to variability based on campaign goals, compare to your own historical performance instead of broad benchmarks. A/B testing subject lines, content and CTAs can optimize conversion rates over time. Follow up with non-converters to identify obstacles.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
Regularly monitoring essential metrics like open, CTR and unsubscribe rates provides insights to refine your approach. But avoid relying solely on vanity metrics like open rates that don’t reflect engagement.
Benchmark against industry averages and your own past performance to gauge opportunities for improvement. Use these metrics not just to evaluate but to set campaign goals and implement changes.
Pair email analytics with your website and CRM data. This reveals the complete picture of how email marketing contributes to broader business growth.
With a metrics-driven approach, you can continually enhance email targeting, messaging, content development and overall strategy. By optimizing campaigns based on performance data, you’ll maximize reach, engagement, and conversions over time.
Fine-tune your email marketing program by exploring the automation and segmentation capabilities of solutions like Sensorpro. Their features can help you implement metrics-based optimizations seamlessly.
