Email Marketing Analytics & Metrics All Brands Should Know
How do you know whether or not your email marketing campaigns are getting results?
Without email marketing analytics, you simply can’t. Setting KPIs for yourself and your team each time you launch a new email marketing campaign can help you track your success and improve campaigns over time.
8 Email Marketing Analytics & Metrics:
Here are some of the most important email marketing performance metrics to track, plus how to calculate them:
1. Bounce rate
The bounce rate shows the percentage of total emails sent that could not be successfully delivered.
Bounce rate = (Total number of bounced emails / Number of emails sent) * 100
There are two types of email bounces: “hard” bounces and “soft” bounces. Hard bounces occur when you attempt to deliver an email to a non-existent email address. If you see a hard bounce, you should remove that email address from your list immediately; a high rate of hard bounces can make internet service providers (ISPs) flag your emails as spam.
Soft bounces occur when there’s a temporary problem with an otherwise valid email address, such as a full inbox or email provider outage. You can try resending emails to these recipients after a soft bounce.
2. Open rate
The open rate is pretty self-explanatory: it’s the percentage of total emails sent that were opened.
Open rate = (Total number of opened emails / Number of emails sent) * 100
Knowing your open rate can help you identify areas of improvement; namely, your subject line and/or sender field. Low open rates are often attributed to subject lines, so consider A/B testing your subject lines to figure out which resonate with your audience. Similarly, if you’re listing your company name as the sender of the email, try switching it out for your actual name, then see if your open rates improve.
3. Click-through rate
The click-through rate refers to the percentage of email recipients who click on one or more links in a given email.
Click-through rate = (Number of recipients who click at least one link / Number of emails sent) * 100
This is probably the most popular email marketing metric, and for good reason: The clickthrough rate helps you figure out whether or not your emails are doing their job. Does your email copy or creative make your audience want to learn more about your brand and products? If so, they’ll click at least one link. This is a great metric to measure over time; if your emails are improving, your click-through rates will too.
4. Conversion rate
The email conversion rate refers to the percentage of email recipients who open the email, click a link, and complete a desired action, such as downloading a piece of content or making a purchase.
Conversion rate = (Number of recipients who complete the desired action / Number of emails sent) * 100
Your conversion rate is one of the most important email marketing KPIs. Your call-to-action should be directly linked to the goal of your email campaign, and your conversion rate will tell you whether your call-to-action works — aka whether or not your email campaign is working. To improve your conversion rate, try A/B testing different calls-to-action and landing page copy.
5. Unsubscribe rate
Your unsubscribe rate is the number of people who unsubscribe from your email list after receiving any given email.
Unsubscribe rate = (Number of recipients who unsubscribe from your email list / Number of emails sent) * 100
It’s natural to see a few unsubscribes with each email you send; however, if you’re seeing a high number of unsubscribes, it’s likely that your content is the culprit. We recommend tracking your unsubscribe rate on a per-email basis; this can help you identify whether you have a particularly problematic email in your campaign that is pushing subscribers away. Make sure that your email copy is providing value without being too aggressive and that you’re not emailing your subscribers too frequently.
6. List growth rate
On the flip side, your list growth rate shows how quickly your email list is growing. If your overall email marketing goal is to grow your top of funnel, your list growth rate can be a helpful KPI to track.
List growth rate = [(Number of new subscribers – Number of unsubscribes) / Total number of subscribers] * 100
You should be growing your email list consistently — you need to not only minimize unsubscribes but also encourage new signups often.
7. Email share rate
Speaking of growing your list, one way to gain new subscribers is by encouraging recipients to share your emails with their friends. Your email share rate tracks how many times a certain email is forwarded:
Email share rate = (Number of forwards / Number of emails sent) * 100
Forwarding emails is one of the most straightforward ways for customers to share your content with their friends and family. Just like with social shares, a high email share rate means that your emails are engaging, valuable, and entertaining.
8. Sender score/reputation
Your sender score or sender reputation reflects how likely an email provider is to block your email, deliver it, or mark it as spam. While there’s no easy formula for this metric, it takes into account a variety of factors, including:
- Your hard bounce rate
- Your IP address
- How often your emails are marked as spam (either manually or automatically)
- Whether or not your IP address or domain is blacklisted (or whitelisted)
- And more
While these are 8 of the most important email marketing metrics, you can never have enough data about the performance of your campaigns.
Which key email marketing metrics did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.
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