Anyone who works in marketing knows woes of email marketing. People get excited about the first few emails, then reading gets rare, then they skim, then they skip, and then it’s straight to spam. The same can go for Newsletters as well.
There are email marketing services that make the going easy but everything eventually comes down to the metrics. Metrics are the intricate jargon that defines email statistics to indicate user behaviour over a period of time.
How many people read them? How many people click on them? Did the email even get there? All these things affect your email marketing strategy. Since you don’t know about metrics or want to know about the ones that matter, this article is for you.
Let’s dive into 8 of the most important email metrics…
Bounce Rate
First off, let’s get the obvious one out of the way. Bounce Rate determines the rate of emails that didn’t reach your target subscriber’s inbox. You might be thinking, why the hell wouldn’t it reach there in the first place?
There are 2 reasons: Soft Bounce Rates usually include temporary email errors and Hard Bounce Rates are more permanent in nature and include things like fake email addresses, mistyped names, or old and shutdown email addresses.
If you have a high amount of hard bounces then your email lists may be full of fake email addresses and other errors that could hurt your chances. To combat this, you can use a double-opt to verify a subscriber’s email and hence make it accurate.
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Spam Rate
The biggest reason that people didn’t notice your email is that it ends up in spam. Due to the increasing amount of fraud, scams, and viral emails; spam filters have had to become stricter to fight back effectively which apparently means a lot of good ones end up there.
No matter how polished your heading is or how well you structured your text, it is totally possible to get caught in spam. Probably the only way to know if your email went to spam is to check the statistics for any serious open and read dips.
There are many ways to combat this but a rather popular one is using Litmus. Litmus would run your email through multiple spam filters to check its integrity and also verifies the IP address, domain names used inside the email, and also runs it through known blacklists.
Forwarding Rate
Forwarding Rate determines how much of your user base shares your content on social media or forwards it to other colleagues. Email sharing spreads your content to various audiences and could lengthen your email list.
People who spread the word are your brand advocates that increase your overall engagement. Why social media is such a big deal is how it affects day-to-day life. People are a lot more inclined to buy something that they see on social media or their friends recommending it.
List Growth Rate
After email gets forwarded and a significant amount of people like what they read, the next obvious thing would be the email list growing.
The way to calculate this is to subtract the amount of unsubscribes from the subscribers, then divide those by the total of your email list, and then multiply that by 100. Maybe you lost more than gained but that is the part of the job.
Your primary focus always has to be on growing your user base and establishing loyalty and trust among them.
Open Rate
It’s obvious from the name but still: It is the metric that shows how many people actually clicked on your email. This is the bedrock of all metrics and gives you a clear picture of your email marketing campaign. Without opening, there are no leads.
It also gives you insight into how well your subject line did. Usually, the subject lines that mention the reader’s name have a better chance of being opened and there has also been a popular trend of people using emoticons. But it’s all about appearing personal.
According to Smart Insights, if your open rate is above 24%, which may not sound much but it is above a certain threshold, could mean that you have a successful email campaign.
Click-Through Rate or CTR
Once someone is done reading your email, the next step is to make the reader click on your provided links. For example, you mention a discount coupon, CTR will let you know many people claimed it. It sounds easier than done and it also depends on how good your copy is.
There are a few things to consider while plotting out links: First should be to include non-essential links within the context. Secondly, your main links should be bold, can include exclamation marks but shouldn’t be clickbaity, and thirdly limit links only 5.
CTR rates are rarer than open rates due to most people tend to skim and ignore a lot of details BUT once you have a loyal following, you’ll get a few leads in no time.
Conversion Rate
While CTR only tells you how many clicked on the link, Conversion Rate will let you know how many people achieved the real objective. The term Conversion refers to people turning from potential onlookers into real customers.
For example, you mention a link about your ongoing sale, someone clicks on it and then buys something from that sale is a conversion.
Conversion Rate is probably the most important metric of all. It gives you a direct insight into how many subscribers are converting and how to aim your efforts in the right direction.
Return on Investment or ROI
ROI is a metric that marketers in every field and around the world live by. If your overall investment precedes your profits, then you’re doing something wrong.
The way to calculate ROI is to multiply the money made from the sales by the money spent on marketing, divide that by the money used in marketing, and then multiply it by 100.
Email marketing is a lot more difficult than any other form of marketing but coincidentally it also tends to have the highest ROI.
Conclusion
Those are 8 of the most important email marketing metrics that you need to know. There are more like Domain Open Rate, Mobile Click Rate, Engagement Over Time, etc. but they’re not as essential in the short term or if you’re a beginner.
If I was you, I’d concentrate on my Open Rate, CTR, and ROI and let the rest take the backseat. But your strategy could be totally different and could include a different set of priorities.
So do let us know what you think. Did the terms we describe give you the much-needed knowledge? Or What makes your email campaign so successful? Whatever your thoughts may be, do let us know in the comments.