By Karen Barr
5 Email Marketing Performance Metrics
Email marketing performance metrics can help guide your business growth, but only if you measure the right things. Your email marketing platform offers invaluable analytics, starting from when your customers receive your emails to their actions once they open them.
Tracking your metrics is a strategic approach to understanding your audience’s preferences and behaviours. If your email marketing campaigns are not getting the desired traction, this post is for you.
Let’s break down the 5 Email Marketing Performance Metrics you need to monitor while explaining what the numbers mean. Ready? Let’s begin.
Deliverability Rate
The deliverability rate shows the percentage of emails sent successfully to your customers. Of course, you want a high delivery rate. It will confirm that your emails are landing in the inboxes they are meant for and not ending up in spam.
Deliverability rates will also indicate invalid email addresses. I see numerous invalid emails when my brick-and-mortar retail customers hold in-store raffles and draws. Customers write down e-mail addresses that aren’t always clear on the ballots.
There are other reasons for invalid email addresses. Customers may decide to change email addresses over time, making some on your list obsolete. Removing invalid emails will help generate better email marketing performance metrics by keeping a clean email list.
Open Rates
Open rates tell you how many people are opening your email. Low open rates could indicate weak subject lines or emails being sent at the wrong time or day of the week.
Open rates can provide valuable customer insight, such as which customers are most interested in reading your company’s news. Check to see if these customers have purchased from your website. It may be time to sweeten the deal with a targeted email offering discounts as an incentive to buy.
High open rates on any campaign indicate that the subject matter resonates with your readers. Keep sending more of it!
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Once your customers open your email, you want them to click on your Call to Action (CTA).
When tracking CTR, you’ll better understand the percentage of people who clicked the link in your email. This indicates how compelling your content or Call to Action (CTA) is. You’ll see a theme emerge when you look closely.
My food clients have a stronger CTR when they share recipes, especially during the lead-up to special holiday celebrations—Christmas is a big one. I create strong CTAs that lead customers to the website to find the recipe. While there, it’s easy for a customer or restaurant patron to buy a product or make a reservation while envisioning the season ahead.
Conversion Rate
This naturally leads us to the conversion rate metric. How many customers completed the action you wanted them to take in your email? This could be a purchase, a sign-up, or even a download.
Email marketing campaigns that lead to high conversion rates deserve a gold star. Analyze each to see what is working. Wait. What is considered a good conversion rate?
According to Shopify, conversions in e-commerce are notoriously low. Translation? That’s anything over 2 percent. It is a numbers game. The more people you have on your email lists, the larger that 2 percent conversion rate will be. That’s why you should always be list-building!
Read 5 Reasons Why You Need An Email List.
Unsubscribe Rates
This metric tells you how many people have decided to drop off your list. Don’t be discouraged. For my retail and e-commerce clients, I notice a higher unsubscribe rate after customers sign up to participate in a store draw. Sometimes, it is about the prize, not connecting with you and your business.
Other reasons for high unsubscribe rates include irrelevant content, meaning customers signed up to learn about topics you haven’t followed through on. Others may unsubscribe if they receive too many emails.
In Conclusion
Don’t give up if your email marketing campaigns are not producing the desired results. Instead, take a closer look at your email marketing performance metrics. Use this knowledge to structure a marketing plan that moves the needle forward.
