Email marketing metrics to track for successful strategy
“Email is dead!”
How many times have you heard that phrase? And yet still everything revolves around that email address that you took 15 to 20 years ago. Unlike social media email has been here long before, and will be long after. So if nobody reads email messages why are you still receiving them and why nearly every web site in the world has newsletter subscription.
Even though you won’t increase visibility of your business via email marketing you gain something far better. What is the most valuable thing a person can have online? It’s the email address. That small combination of characters is what is unique about a person online, everything else can be copied. That’s why email address is necessary if you want to use any other platform. It’s pretty remarkable.
Let’s say that unknown users on your web site gave you their email address in exchange for your newsletter and you start sending your messages to them? Ok, it seems you have everything, a list of subscribers, pretty email design and platform trough which you are sending your messages but how do you know if your email marketing strategy is working?
Are your subscribers even receiving your messages?
This is big one, imagine that you spent your budget on sending newsletters just to find that your subscribers mostly didn’t receive them. Many companies and email marketers focus on two metrics Open rate and Click trough rate but for efficient email marketing strategy that is not enough. Introducing — Deliverability rate. This tongue twister metric is really important because if your subscribers are not receiving your messages what will they think about your business. It looks like you don’t care about them.
Email deliverability rate is the percentage of emails that are delivered to your subscribers.
Industry average for deliverability rate is 85% but you should set your goal much higher. If its lower then take a look which email domains are affected, or does your message ends in spam.
Track, measure, take action and repeat.
Ok, my email message is delivered, but are my subscribes clicking on my message?
One of the most important metric to measure is — Open rate. It tells you how many of your subscribers clicked on your email message. It tells you also about engagement your subscribers have with you.
So, is it low? Well if it is low you may want to experiment with subject lines. It is the first thing your subscribers see when they get a message from you so it be spectacular. Subject line is why your subscribers click on newsletters. Make an effort.
Open rate is how many subscribers opened an email you sent on that campaign.
Industry average for open rate is around 25% so shoot for the stars and try to get that number as high as possible.
So message is delivered, my subscribers are opening my message but are they going on my web site?
Now it’s time to convince your subscribers to click on links in your email. That is known as — Click trough rate. It is an important metric in order for your subscribers to make conversion. If they are not on your web site they can’t purchase your product. This is also very important metric and you should always check how it is performing because it is closely related to your email conversion rate.
Click trough rate is how many subscribers clicked opened email you sent on that campaign.
Industry average is around 5% so make them an offer they cannot refuse.
Now that subscribers clicked on your landing page you want them to make a conversion.
From Click trough rate you can easily measure your — Email conversion rate. It is based on how many subscribers that clicked link in your message purchased your product.
To increase that number you can e.g. introduce limited time offers for your newsletter subscribers so that they take action.
Industry average vary for each industry, business or product. Compete with yourself, try to be better than month before.
Last important email marketing metric you must track is ROI of your email marketing campaign.
Maybe you’ve had some sales from your newsletter, but are you making a profit? What is the return on your investment for that email marketing campaign?
To know that you need to know how much have you earned from your campaign and how much money have you spent on it. By dividing your earnings minus costs wits costs you will find out how much have you made for every dollar you spent. You want to keep that number as high as possible.
It might take some time to see a trend in your data, but keep up with it and you and your business will benefit from it. Measure, analyse, test, and take action and you are set for success.
Sources:
https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/metrics-email-marketers-should-be-tracking
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/practical-guide-email-marketing-metrics
https://convertkit.com/email-marketing-analytics/
