As email marketing remains a cornerstone of digital communication programs, understanding and measuring the right metrics will impact the success of your campaign(s). From Open Rate (which measures the effectiveness of your subject lines and preview text) to Click-Through Rate (CTR) indicating a click out of the email to another location, and Conversion Rate (the ratio of your efforts as compared to purchases), each metric provides critical qualitative feedback.
Bounce Rate and Unsubscribe Rate are also important to monitor, as they provide insights into deliverability and the effectiveness of your list (and help to illustrate the importance of regular list hygiene). But before we dive deeper into how each metric should be analyzed and where/when to track it, let’s first make sure we have a clear understanding of some of the basic metrics and just what each metric tracks.
Open Rate refers to the percentage of recipients who open your email to those who were sent it. It’s an important metric to be tracking at all times because it indicates how effective your subject lines are and the overall interest in your emails. If your emails aren’t getting opened then that’s pretty much end-game for communicating your message. So how can you increase your open rates? Try switching up your subject lines or description lines to make them more engaging, concise or urgent (for more tips about optimizing your subject lines, check out our blog here *insert link*). If you’re finding your Open Rates are consistently low, it might be time to conduct a list hygiene check. Your list may include dead, incorrect or duplicate email addresses, all of which will affect your Open Rates.
CTR refers to the percentage of recipients who clicked on one or more links in your email. This is another essential metric to be tracking on a regular basis because it measures the engagement level between your readers and your emails, and gives you an idea of the relevance of the content of your email for your audience.
Simply put, the more clicks your emails get, the more your audience is engaging with your content, and the higher the chances of conversions are. If your CTRs are low, try switching up your email layout to add some more engaging visual elements such as images, GIFs, or buttons with clear calls to action (CTAs) such as “Learn More”. Another consideration could be placement of your clickable elements. If your only clickable elements are at the very end of your email, you’ll likely lose a lot of readers before they get there, thus lowering your overall CTR. We recommend adding clickable elements above the scroll to catch readers’ attention right away. It might also be worth conducting heat map tracking (if this is something your email client is equipped to do). This will give you a more detailed, visual understanding of where exactly your audience is clicking on your emails by indicating most to least popular areas using a colour-coded display.
Conversion Rate refers to the percentage of recipients who completed a desired action (e.g., making a purchase, signing up for a membership, or registering for an event) after clicking through your email. This may be THE most important metric to track as it is a direct reflection of how successful your email marketing efforts were in meeting your business goals and ROI. The higher the Conversion Rate, the more successful the campaign. To increase your Conversion Rate, make the pathway to your desired outcome as easy for your audience as possible, making all instructional language simple and clear, and ensuring that all links are fully functional with no accidental loops.
Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of your sent emails that could not be delivered to a recipient's inbox. This is another crucial metric to track as high Bounce Rates can negatively impact your sender reputation and deliverability, increase your chances of being labelled a spammer, and can even lead to blacklisting. Once again, this comes back to making sure your email lists are regularly maintained and list hygiene continues to be a priority to ensure you’re maximizing your marketing efforts.
Unsubscribe Rate refers to the percentage of recipients who opt-out of your email communications after receiving a campaign. It is important to track and check on a regular basis as it provides insight into how well your email content aligns with your audience's expectations and preferences. Once someone unsubscribes, ensure that the recipient is moved off of your mailing list or archived to avoid getting labelled as spam or worse, getting blacklisted. Yet again, a great metric to showcase the importance of list hygiene!
The more you know about email metrics, the better qualified you will be to decide which ones are important to track in order to measure the success of your email marketing campaigns, what the results actually mean, and what you can do to boost them in the future. Regular reporting and review of your metrics is imperative in order to continuously improve on your tactics and your overall marketing effectiveness.
