Email marketing is proven to be one of the most effective ways to get in front of your customers.
But some people fail at the first hurdle, which is making sure your emails are personalised and designed to catch the audience's attention.
However, let's say you have got your email writing formula down. You regularly create captivating subject lines, engaging email copy and irresistible calls-to-action.
How do you improve your email marketing performance?
You track data!
But what are the most important metrics for email marketing you should be tracking?
Start with these:
Let's dive in a little deeper on each email metrics definitions. By doing this, you can figure out which ones matter most to your business!
Before we start, there are tons of email analytics tools to help with tracking and monitoring your email marketing KPI’s. A simple Google search will help you find 100s and it’s up to you to determine which one fits your needs.
Moving on, let’s discuss the best marketing metrics for your business.
Open Rate
In simple words, it is the ratio that tells how many people opened your email out of the total number of recipients who received it.
E.g. 1000 people received your email, and 100 people have opened it. That's an open rate of 10%.
In short, the performance of this metric comes down to the effectiveness of your subject line.
You need to spend time working out what formula or subject line works best for your audience. Have you ever heard of A/B testing? Subject lines are perfect for testing this technique.
Check out my blog if you need help with writing email subject lines.
Most email marketing platforms have built-in A/B testing capabilities. Check my blog out on which email marketing software you should be using to grow your business.
CTR (Click Through Rate)
Your CTR measures how many people clicked the links inside the email.
It's also one of the fundamental email marketing metrics to track that helps you understand the effectiveness of your email campaign.
CTR is the percentage of clicks on links in every email vs the number of emails opened. For example, using the previous example, if you sent 1000 people an email, 100 people opened it, and 10 people clicked on it. That's a click rate of 10%.
Typically, it's less the open rate, not like the example above. CTR shows us engagement and is a good indicator of how exciting and persuasive the email was.
To increase the CTR rate, ensure all links, including the banners and images, link to where you want the consumer to go.
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate is how many people opt out of your email list or recipients who request removal from your list.
Don't panic; unsubscribes can be a good thing.
As brands or businesses, you want engaged and active consumers on your lists, not inactive. All inactive do is ruin your numbers and waste content.
There are a few reasons your recipient might unsubscribe from your email list.
They might not be interested in what you have to say anymore.
They got what they came for.
They consider it spam.
They are bored.
Conversion Rate (Subscription, replies, joining a group etc.)
Conversion rate is a notable email marketing metric to track and represents the individuals who opened your email, clicked the link inside and acted upon where it took them.
Conversions can be anything. It can be joining a group, subscribing to your service, making a purchase and even replying.
Measuring and tracking conversion rate is more important for campaigns where you want your subscriber to do something or act upon it. This rate might not be as important for your weekly newsletter compared to, for example, a campaign for your black Friday sale or some special offers.
List Growth Rate
We all like having lots of subscribers and people to share our message with. A more extensive quality list of subscribers can equal more revenue or whatever your desired outcome is.
The growth rate tells how many people or emails get added to your email list per week/month. If this metric rate is good, then unsubscribe rate or hard bounce rate is the sign you are doing your email marketing right.
Takeaway
Tracking email marketing metrics is essential if you are a brand, marketer or business. It's one of the best ways to continue learning and improving your marketing efforts. Without data, how do you know if what you are doing is worthwhile or not?
Use this list as a foundation to gather data on your email marketing performance and as a talking point to adjust and optimise your future email campaigns. Alternatively use it to set up your own email marketing metrics benchmark. Remember, without data; you are walking blind. Think of this terrible analogy. Data are the bricks to Dorothy's yellow brick road.
Good luck with your email marketing efforts, and thanks for reading.
Jack