Even in 2023, email marketing will continue to be the most powerful technique to connect with people, build their trust and turn them into loyal customers.
Email is undoubtedly an action-oriented channel that can ultimately drive sales.
But honestly, only if the email campaign you are running is effective then you can expect positive results.
You can make sure the campaign, you’ve set is moving in the right direction or not by monitoring the email marketing metrics.
Every campaign might have different goals but their basic metrics remain the same.
So if you want to make sure the efforts you put in are paying off then just keep a track on the email marketing metrics mentioned below.
1. Open Rate
Just sending mail is not important, everything about the successful email campaign starts with email openings.
Only if the subscribers open the mail, it will indicate that you have started off well.
A higher open rate mainly depends upon the subject line, content, offerings, and personalization.
Research says that subject lines which are short, direct and emoticons have increased opening rates.
On the other hand, spammy words, using aggressive spelling and attaching files have a lower open rate. You can perform A/B testing to check which style of subject line works for you the best.
2. Click-through Rate
Now comes the click-through rate which is another common metric that determines the performance of your email campaign.
If open rates tell you how many subscribers have opened the mail then click-through rate tells you how many subscribers have clicked the links mentioned in the mail.
A noticeable call-to-action button with a specific label can increase your click-through rates.
Delivering the right emails to the right audience can also boost click-through rates.
Mostly the percentage of click-throughs is less that mail openings, so it’s normal. But, if it’s considerably low then you have to work on its improvement.
3. Conversion Rate
The ultimate aim of your email campaign is to drive sales, so if your email subscribers are opening the mail, clicking on the link and making a purchase then your conversion rate comes into the picture.
It is the percentage of people who are making a purchase on your website by clicking through the link offered on the email sent.
Through this metric, you will understand, if the campaign is running in your favor or not by determining the amount you’ve invested and the subscribers converting are justified.
If the conversion rate is too low, you may need to make some serious changes.
4. Bounce Rate
Some email addresses might not have received your email.
This is quite possible, hence you need to keep a track on bounce rate metric too.
Email bounces can be of two categories – soft bounce, hard bounce.
Email doesn’t get delivered due to any temporary email address problem, it is what called soft bounce while hard bounce means email doesn’t get delivered due to permanent email address problem.
The main cause of the bounce rate could be fake email addresses, wrong email addresses or old email addresses present in your email list.
You can decrease your bounce rate by opting for a double opt-in option that helps in creating a high-quality email list which eventually will cut down the bounce rate.
5. Unsubscribed Rate
This is the metric related to the percentage of people who’ve unsubscribed your email campaign.
Users/customers’ unsubscribing mail is discouraging but it is also helpful as you can fine-tune your email list.
Unsubscribe email rate below 0.5 is fine but of crosses 0.5 then it is a major concern.
You may have to find out the reason and work for the betterment.
The most common causes for unsubscription are poor content, email blast, email frequency or wrong timing, irrelevant content and spammy subject line.
Analyze what went wrong. Learn from the mistakes to reduce the unsubscription rate.
6. Spam Rate
Another discouraging factor, spam rate. Pay attention, if your email gets marked as spam.
If your mails are being constantly reported spam and if the spam rate goes up, the mail service providers can take negative action and block your account.
Email service providers most likely keep an eye on the spam complaint, so do not underestimate the compliant rate and start fixing the situation.
You can follow the double opt-in practice, start sending a personalized message like by addressing the user by their name and also lower your email frequency.
7. Email Forwarding Rate
Forwarding rate is the percentage of your email recipients who either share your mail on any social media channel or forward it to others.
It is a helpful tracking metric which will let you know how much your email marketing campaign is making an impression.
It also signifies success as people will only share or forward content that they find compelling and worthy.
In fact, most of the buying decisions made by consumers are based on recommendations.
So, ensure the content is engaging and also the forward and social sharing buttons are quickly noticeable.
8. Mobile Open Rate
As we all know most people find it convenient to access mails via their smartphones. So keep a track of the metric mobile open rate.
It should be high because as compared to smartphones, statistics show a higher percentage of people open their emails on smartphones.
If the rate is considerably low, just check if the mails are properly mobile optimized and also pay attention to the frequency.
Attention! Statistics also suggest that mobile open rates are more on weekends as compared to weekdays.
9. Mobile Click Rate
Though the mobile open rate is high, the mobile click rate is comparatively low as compared to desktop click rates.
People prefer opening mails on mobile phones but they still prefer to click and take action on desktops as it is more convenient and easier than phones.
However, keeping a track on this metric is no loss, at least you’ll understand your user habits.
10. ROI Rate
Now, this is a must metric to be tracked by the marketers as it helps you to know the overall rate of investment for your email campaigns.
Email marketing is certainly an investment but it is also considered to have the highest ROI among all the digital marketing strategies.
So ultimately, all these above-mentioned email metrics will help you to measure your growth and also make improvements for more success.
