Do you also stay up late to track the results of your email marketing campaigns?
No worries, we have something in common, just like tens of thousands of marketers and salespeople from all over the world.
However, there’s nothing more satisfying in statistics than tracking and adequately optimizing them. That is, provided you know what and how to optimize to consistently improve results.
It’s time to figure it out.
In this post, you will learn:
- What to focus on in your email marketing strategy.
- How to optimize campaigns to consistently improve results.
- Which metrics are the most important in an email marketing strategy.
Let’s begin.
1/ Open Rate
First and foremost; the open rate is a fundamental statistic tracked in email marketing.
In a nutshell; the open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email.
Let’s break it down into its components.
To calculate the open rate for e-mails, let me use the following formula:
It might look daunting, but it’s not at all complicated. Here’s what these components mean:
1. Number of Emails Opened: This is the total number of times your e-mail was opened by recipients. It’s important to note that if the same recipient opens an e-mail multiple times, each open can be counted depending on the email marketing software you use.
2. Number of Emails Delivered: This is the total number of emails that were successfully sent and not bounced back. It’s calculated by subtracting the number of bounced emails from the total number of emails sent.
For example, if you sent out 1,000 emails and 20 of them bounced, your number of emails delivered is 980 (1,000 – 20). Assuming that out of these, 490 were opened, your open rate calculation would be:
This means that 50% of the emails that were successfully delivered were opened.
This is exactly how the open rate is calculated. A bit of math, but it’ll pay you off.
2/ Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR is the proportion of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in an email.
As a marketer or salesperson, you send many attachments in emails, which include offers, presentations, or links. Therefore, CTR helps you track the effectiveness of all the additional elements you include in your emails.
CTR counts how many people click, indicating the effectiveness of what you’re doing. However, if the number of clicks in your e-mail is high (let’s say higher than 60%), you can be sure that you’re doing a good job. By the way, you can be doubly sure of your success because it also means you have a high open rate (there’s no clicking on an e-mail without opening it), so great job!
But that’s not the end of the good news.
A high CTR is the closest step to increasing sales and conversion.
If your company offers a SaaS solution, then generating sales by sending a link to the purchase is your bread and butter. This is why the click-through rate plays such an important role in email marketing.
CTR can also be tracked in paid advertising & SEO (Search Engine Optimization). However, email marketing is the most relevant example.
3/ Response Rate
The Response rate is the ratio of responses to an email relative to the number sent.
For example, if you sent 1000 emails to your prospects and received a response (unsubscribe or F$!# off, counts as well, unfortunately) from 30 of them, it means that your open rate is 3%. It’s alright, but could be much better.
If you take care of the essential elements of your email, such as:
- Email title
- Email body
- Personalization
- Number of words
- Number of characters
- Tone, message & content, etc.
Then, you can expect a significant and rapid increase.
A very high open rate is achieved by emails that directly expect a response. Therefore, they must contain a question; ideally (only in this case), it should be a closed-end question.
Example:
- Can a 20% change your mind?
- Simon, you still remember me? 🙂
- Thomas, 20-minute call this Friday?
But here’s my number one example:
Email title: [Prospect’s Name]
Email Body: (this image 👇)
My response rate reached 21% based solely on this e-mail. I sent exactly 603 such emails, and 126 prospects responded. It’s always a nice feeling.
I got different responses, but here’s one of my favorites:
As you see—it pays off.
4/ Conversion Rate
What’s the Conversion Rate?
The percentage of email recipients who clicked on a link within an email and completed a desired action, such as making a purchase, making a registration, or installing an app.
Conversion involves achieving a certain Key Performance Indicator (KPI).
The KPI is highly dependent on agreements with your client. The client may expect sales to be the realization of the KPI. In this case, there is a higher cost to achieve the KPI, and naturally, there are fewer of them. However, as a result, you, as an agency, will earn a high fee.
The client may also set conversions based on registration. It’s easier to lead to registration than to a sale. Therefore, there will be more leads, but they may have a lower value for the client; not every registration may lead to a sale.
Nonetheless, the more conversions, the higher the profit for your agency and the greater the satisfaction of your client.
5/ Bounce Rate
In email marketing, the bounce rate refers to the percentage of email addresses in your campaign that didn’t receive your message because it was returned by a recipient mail server.
Let’s divide the bounce rate into two types:
1. Soft Bounce: This is a temporary issue, like a full inbox or a server that’s down.
2. Hard Bounce: This indicates a permanent issue, like a non-existent or invalid email address.
How to Calculate Bounce Rate?
For example, if you sent 1,000 emails and 50 bounced, your bounce rate would be:
The result is simple: 5% of your emails were not delivered.
How Bounce Rate Works?
- First, when you send an email, it’s either delivered or not. If not, it’s considered a ‘bounce’.
- Second, bounce rate is an important metric in email marketing, as it can affect your sender’s reputation. High bounce rates can lead to your emails being flagged as spam.
How to Decrease the Bounce Rate?
There are three main ways:
1. Clean Your Email List: Regularly remove invalid, non-existent, and unengaged email addresses. The fewer fake ones, the better.
2. Use Double Opt-in: This ensures that the email address provided is correct and that the recipient wants to receive your emails.
3. Authenticate Your Email: Use email authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability.
6/ List Growth Rate
This is the rate that shows the growth of your mailing list.
It realistically shows how much your list has grown since the beginning of the email campaign.
If you set KPIs for the quarter, you’ll have full results of the campaign after three months.
Based on the List Growth Rate, you can make predictions about growth in the upcoming months and thus organize your advertising budget.
Keep watching the results—the list growth rate doesn’t mean that there will only be an increase. Nevertheless, you’ll know when to react once you notice a drop in subscribers.
7/ Email Sharing & Forwarding Rate
This is the percentage of recipients who share your email content or forward it to others.
It is a lesser-known and less-used metric, yet it allows for easy verification of your recipients’ engagement.
This way, you can easily estimate the effectiveness and appeal of your emails; the more people forward them, the more interesting your content is perceived to be.
Email sharing & forwarding rates pair well with response rates. If your email gets forwarded, great. If you get a response to it, even better. This is how to measure overall engagement properly.
8/ Overall ROI (Return on Investment)
ROI is definitely the favorite metric of all managers and entrepreneurs.
ROI is the return on investment for all expenses related to your email marketing campaign.
How to calculate it?
It’s really simple.
If you spent $5,000 on the campaign and earned $10,000 from it, it means that:
- First, you have $5,000 in profit.
- Second, your ROI is 100%.
This simple metric shows how much you earn on what you spend. In our example; how much you earned from the email campaign you created.
High expenditure does not always mean high earnings. For this reason, the first step should always be to create an ideal customer profile (ICP) for your product. If you definitely know who might buy your product, each subsequent stage of campaign creation becomes easier.
9/ Unsubscribe Rate
This is the rate showing the number of subscribers who have opted out of your email list.
As you can guess, unsubscribing doesn’t mean something promising. But, it’s a good sign for you that something has to be changed.
According to MailerLite, among all industries, the highest unsubscribe rate is recorded in the Architecture and Construction industry, accounting for 0.51% of unsubscriptions. The fewest readers unsubscribe from newsletters in the Computers and Electronics sector, which is just 0.1%. We, bloggers, are also doing pretty well—just 0.18% of readers unsubscribe. Not bad.
What can you do to restrain the unsubscribe rate?
Here are 3 proven ways:
1. Use a Double Opt-in
Double opt-in is an easy way to verify whether your user is fully interested in what you offer. If they accept the invitation to your email twice, you can be sure you’ve found a relevant reader.
Introduce double opt-in to avoid accidental guests in your newsletter.
For accidental readers, you’ll have to bear unnecessary costs, and at the same time, you will be creating content for not-interested people.
2. Make Sure Your Emails Are Relevant
A common problem in email marketing is the lack of relevant content. Marketers in various industries send dozens of pieces of information that aren’t on target. They inform instead of providing benefits. They also never expect anything in return, not influencing their readers’ next steps. This is a mistake.
Another mistake is focusing on quantity rather than quality. Even sending 2 emails a day doesn’t win over a well-thought-out email that will contain a base of essential materials for its recipient.
Quality > Quantity; this equation will never lose value.
3. Clean Your Email List Systematically
No one has to unsubscribe themselves—you can do it. Sounds terrible, right? But don’t worry; it’ll only help you.
Regularly review your readers’ interactions and remove inactive or opted-out readers from the list. If you only have engaged readers, the better for your business.
Either way, by sending emails only to relevant recipients, you can be sure to maintain the high quality of your domain.
10/ Spam Complaints
This is the number of times your email has been marked as spam by recipients.
Again, it’s quality, not quantity, that should be the foundation of your emails.
Secondly, you must create the right profile of your reader (ideal customer profile) before acquiring subscribers for your newsletter.
Why is all this so important?
If you send emails to the wrong recipients, your emails won’t be read, and eventually, they’ll start landing in spam.
The more precisely you define your target audience, the more engagement you will see from your readers.
Moreover, your emails must be really substantive. Do appropriate research, use data and provide relevant and only pertinent content. Nowadays, no one has time for fluff. Plus, avoid unnecessary words.
Using adjectives simply to dress up content has fallen out of favor.
1. The right target group.
2. Relevant and substantive content.
These two essential elements will ensure that your readers find your emails in their inbox instead of spam.
11/ Email Engagement Over Time
This metric tells you how engagement with your emails changes over a specific period.
It means how readers engage with your content and what further actions they take.
What’s important—this metric includes 8 elements that will be helpful in diagnosing the development of your newsletter:
1/ Open Rate
How many clicks do your emails generate? If you see a decline, introduce A/B testing of the email subject line immediately. If you see an increase, continue this trend.
2/ Click-Through Rate
How many clicks do your emails generate? The more clicks, the better. Track which elements in your emails are clicked the most, and if there are few clicks, make appropriate changes.
3/ Conversion Rate
What is the conversion from your emails? This metric easily shows the outcome of the emails you send.
4/Email Forwarding & Sharing Rate
Have your emails been forwarded to further recipients? Perfect. The more engagement, the better.
5/ Bounce Rate
An increasing bounce rate signals issues with email list quality or deliverability that need to be solved.
6/ Unsubscribe Rate
If you see that more than 10% of users on your list have unsubscribed, it’s a serious sign that something wrong is happening. A/B tests your emails and verify what didn’t work out
7/ Time Spent on Email
What is the average time spent reading your email? If it’s usually more than 40 seconds, it means you’re creating engaging content. Try to maximize the time spent on your emails.
8/ Email Frequency vs. Engagement
This way, you’ll verify how your emails affect readers. It doesn’t always have to be a conversion—questions, forwarding & email sharing are also good signs that your emails are gaining momentum.
12/ Mobile Open Rate
This metric shows the open rate of your emails on mobile devices.
Your open rate on desktops can be much higher than on mobile devices.
Why?
Mobile devices can display a maximum of 25 to 30 characters.
In contrast, on desktops, the number of characters ranges between 60 and 70.
That’s a huge, more than twofold difference.
The number of characters that will be fully displayed depends on the size of each character.
For example, the letter “I” will take up less space than the letter “W”.
If you want your email title to be fully displayed, check how many characters you’ve written before sending it.
From my experience, the fewer words and characters, the better the final result.
Here we are, that’s the summary of the 12 most important metrics for email marketing strategy.
What are your most important metrics for your email marketing strategy?
Drop me a comment, I’m curious how your insights look like!
P.S. If you enjoyed my post, I’d be grateful for your support in keeping this blog alive. Feel free to donate it with a single cup of coffee (or more! 😉).
Thank you in advance, and find out more insightful posts!
Simon
Author Profile
- Simon Gorlak is a Digital Marketing Expert with over 8 years of experience. He specializes in 3 areas: SEO, Lead Generation on LinkedIn, and Email Marketing. Simon's blog gathers knowledge that helps Marketers & C-level to increase profits from their online businesses. Also, his content helps to reach the most difficult customers, make others' content to be read & purchased. Besides digital marketing, Simon speaks 4 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish & works as a Head of Business at an Indian Start-up.
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