Email marketing metrics that matter

Email marketing is an indispensable tool for businesses that want to grow. Email is still the most widely used channel to reach your audience and effectively communicate your message. For this reason, marketers need to understand how to measure the effectiveness of their efforts and make smarter decisions.

Email marketing metrics are available from many different sources like Google Analytics, MailChimp, or Constant Contact, so there’s no excuse not to track them! In this post, we’ll cover the essential email marketing metrics that marketers need to monitor to stay on top of their game. This will help you measure your campaigns’ success and optimize your marketing strategy. 

What are the different email metrics that matter?

1. Open rate

The open rate tells you how often people opened your emails compared to the number of emails sent (opens/total sends). For example, if you send 100,000 emails and 25,000 people open your emails, you have an open rate of 25%.

Although the open rate varies by industry, the benchmark for open rates for email is at 20%, according to data shared by Hubspot. This will tell you if recipients are reading your emails or if they’re just getting ignored in their inboxes. You can track open rates by looking at the analytics in your email marketing software.

Some steps you can take to increase open rates include :

1. Make sure your subject lines are compelling and relevant to the person receiving them so that they know what’s inside. Experiment with different subject lines to see which ones have higher open rates.
2. Use personalized subject lines by including recipients’ names.
3. Send out emails to a segment of your audience.
4. Send out emails on days when your audience is most engaged. You could look at your analytics to see when your audience typically opens their emails.
5. Check your email marketing software to see if recipient filters are set up correctly.
6. Different people have different interests, so you should send out targeted emails according to the topics they’re most interested in.
7. Make sure you’re sending emails at a time when most of your audience is likely to be awake (i.e., mornings). This will increase open rates because people are more likely to check their inboxes first in the morning but not during dinner hours.

2. Click-through rate

The click-through rate tells you how many people clicked on your links or your Call to Action out of the total number of emails delivered. If 100,000 people received your email, but only 3000 people clicked on the Call to Action, your CTR is 3%. 

Click-through rates vary by industry, but you should target an average CTR of 3%, which is the benchmark. This will tell you if recipients are interested in the content of your emails and they’re willing to take a look at the links included. If people are not interested in your content, it doesn’t make sense to keep sending them emails.

Some steps you can take to increase click-through rates include :

1. Send emails with helpful content that can be read within a minute or two, and make sure it’s not too long. 
2. Use a call to action in the subject line that links back to your website, and make sure it’s evident what you’re asking them to do.
3. Use punchy words and short sentences throughout the email – not too many long ones at once for easier reading.
4. Avoid sending multiple emails with the same content in a short period.
5. Make sure your message is personalized, relevant, and interesting for individuals, and you’re not just sending generic promotional emails or trying to sell them something they don’t need or care about.
6. Send messages to people who have previously opened or clicked on an email from you as they are likely relevant prospects that you should continue to engage with.
7. Connecting your email marketing campaign to your social media platform. This will increase CTR because people are more likely to engage in content if it’s posted on their favorite site.
8. Send out an “anniversary” email every year. People always want a reminder of where they shop, so sending an email every year with a special offer or discounts is great for increasing CTR.
9. Send out emails on weekends. Pick a time when people won’t be busy at work and are more likely to click on your email.

3. Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of people who opened your email and clicked through to an online sales or lead generation form. It measures how many people clicked on the Call to Action and completed a specific action. For example, if 100,000 people received your email and 3000 people clicked on the CTA, but only 1500 made a purchase, your conversion rate is 50%. This will tell you if recipients are actually interested in what’s being offered by your company, and they’re willing to take a look at whatever link is included as well.

Some steps you can take to increase conversion rates include:

1. Make sure your email content is relevant and interesting so it doesn’t get lost in people’s inboxes. The email should be well designed with a very clear call to action. Remove any distractions in the email.
2. Using CTAs in order to make it clear what you want recipients of your newsletter to do. The more urgent, compelling, and specific they are, the better chances there will be for people opening them and following through with the desired action
3. Making sure to personalize the messages and be more specific about who you’re talking to. For example, if you are sending an email that has a contest for one of your products, it’s important to include their name in order for them not to feel like they are being spammed.
4. Creating a sense of urgency or scarcity with the subject line, headline, and email content. This is to get people who may not be interested in your offer right away to take action now instead of later when their interest has waned. For example, if there’s an offer for only so many hours left before it expires or the product will be unavailable, these are all ways to make people more likely to open and read what you have sent them.
5. Offer incentives or discounts in your messages, so people will want what you’re selling!
6. Use a consistent call-to-action for your email, so recipients know what you want them to do and they feel less pressured by the offer you’re making. This will help with developing brand recognition as well.
7. Make sure you use bullet points to help with content organization. This will also assist in keeping an audience engaged because they can scan the information quickly without becoming bored by long paragraphs of text
8. Test different types of layouts, fonts, colors, etc., so that your email is visually appealing for recipients

4. Email delivery rate

The email delivery rate will tell you how many emails went through to a recipient’s inbox. If the deliverability is low, this might be due to spam filters which are constantly getting stricter and catching more marketing messages in their trap.

Some steps you can take to increase email delivery rates include :

1. Send relevant content that targets the recipient’s interests
2. Avoiding using a spammy subject line like “Hey! Check this out!” and instead write something creative, interesting, or interactive. It will be more likely to capture someone’s attention and get them to open your email
3. Make sure you don’t have too many links in your message because spam filters will think that you’re trying to trick recipients into clicking on them
4. Make sure your subject line isn’t too long because it may get truncated when the recipient opens a preview of the email. Instead, write a short and concise subject line that captures their attention
5. Use appropriate language for different audiences

5. Unsubscribe rate

The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of people who clicked on an email link to unsubscribe and opt-out of your email list. It can be a good thing as it gives you information about the customers that are actually interested in your email and how you can keep them engaged. In general, unsubscribe rates should be less than 2% as per industry standards. If a large number of people are clicking that button, then your email might be too spammy and overwhelming for them, or they’re not interested in what you have to offer. 

Some steps you can take to increase unsubscribe rates include :

1. Always provide a clear unsubscribe link in the email to give people an easy way out if they want it. Provide reminders about your privacy policy and how often recipients can expect emails from you each day, week, or month.
2. Reduce the number of emails you send per week or month so that they’re more likely to be read and clicked on. The more emails you send, the less effective they become. This is because your audience may see many messages and tune out from them.
3. Use personalization in your emails. This will help people feel like they are hearing from a friend instead of an impersonal company.
4. Send emails that are relevant to recipients, not just about your company’s latest product or service.
5. Don’t send multiple emails with the same content. This will result in a high unsubscribe rate, which is not what you want! We recommend sending one email per week and only if there’s something new for your subscribers.

6. Bounce back/hard bounce rates

Bounce back and hard bounce rates show the percentage of email addresses that are invalid or inactive. It signifies the percentage of emails that were not delivered compared to the total number of emails that were sent. This could be a soft bounce caused by temporary issues or a hard bounce caused because the email address is incorrect, fake, or old.

If a lot of emails from your company’s list are bouncing, then it might be time to clean up this list so you’re not sending messages to people who don’t read them or will never open them in their inboxes.

Some steps you can take to increase bounce rates include :

1. Ask recipients to update their contact information if they are no longer interested in receiving emails from you.
2. Remove inactive or invalid email addresses and unsubscribed subscribers from your list.
3. If people have opted out of all communications, make sure to remove them as well.
4. Use a double opt-in, where the user is asked to confirm the email address. 

7. Email sharing or forwarding rate

The email sharing rate is the percentage of people who shared your content on social media. If a lot of readers are clicking “share,” it could mean that they found something very valuable in what you wrote and are recommending it to their friends or followers.

Some steps you can take to increase email sharing rates include : 

1. Encourage your readers to share content on social media.
2. Include a link in the email that shares the blog post on their favorite website or app, encouraging them to send it along with an explanation about why they liked what you wrote.
3. You can also include suggested hashtags for use when sharing specific items of interest. Creating a social media campaign around a specific product or service could also increase the email sharing rate.
4. Send out emails that are easy to share with your target audience, like a video of people who need the item you’re selling or an article on how it can help them.
5. Include social media buttons in the email and on the landing page where it sends people after they open up your message so that they can easily share content with their networks.

Final Thoughts

Email marketing is an important part of any digital marketing strategy. If you want to make sure your emails are as effective as possible, it’s worth investing in these email metrics that matter. The more you know about your customer’s behavior, the better equipped you’ll be to create an effective strategy that will generate sales and conversions.