Email marketing is an incredibly popular and effective way to market your business. However, email marketing is a tricky beast, with dozens of metrics to be tracked and analyzed. These metrics can be implemented into the improvements that you make to your email campaigns.
In this blog post, we will discuss nine email marketing KPIs that I think you should be tracking. With these KPIs, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what isn’t, which ultimately leads to more conversions!
What Do We Mean by Email Marketing KPIs?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that demonstrate how well your email marketing strategy is working. A KPI can be anything from total email open rate, to click-through rates on an email, or even metrics on subscribers unsubscribing from your emails.
Email marketing KPIs are leading indicators that can be used to predict email marketing campaign success.
As with any form of marketing, email marketing KPIs vary depending on your goals for the email campaign. For instance, if you're looking to generate leads, metrics like total subscribers and sign-up rates might matter more than click rates or open rates.
So without further ado, let's get right into which email marketing KPIs you should be tracking!
1. Email Delivery Rate
Email marketing is a powerful way to reach your audience, but managing email delivery rate can be a huge problem for email marketers.
If email deliverability rates are poor, it means the majority of emails you send out will never get delivered, and no one ever sees them!
This can negatively affect your email campaigns in a similar manner to low open rates and poor email CTRs.
If email delivery rates are low, it might be time to reevaluate your email list and grow a better one.
2. Number of Emails Opened
Simply making it into a subscriber’s inbox isn’t enough. You want to make sure that your recipients interact with your emails, which can be done through observing and utilizing the right KPIs.
Email open rates are an indication of how exciting and engaging email content is. If people aren’t opening emails, it could be because the subject line isn't appealing or enticing enough. There might be a poor call-to-action, or email content isn’t that relevant to your audience.
Keep in mind, email open rate is affected by email deliverability rates. So if email delivery rates are low, it's likely email open rates will also be lower than average.
When thinking about email content and improving your email marketing campaigns, think about what will make a subscriber click on the email in their inbox.
3. Click-Through Rate
The click-through rate (CTR) indicates how many email recipients clicked on any of the links in your email. A high click-through rate is a good indication that your email content was engaging and relevant to subscribers, which can lead them to visit your website or social profiles.
The click to open rate (CTOR) tells you two important things about your campaign:
1. How relevant your email subject line is to your email copy.
This demonstrates how interesting or engaging the email subject line and copy are to recipients, as well as whether or not they’re factors towards them clicking a link.
Take into consideration that your email subject line can indeed affect email open rates. For example, if you choose an under-performing or unappealing email subject line, it will likely have a negative impact on email open rates and click-through rates.
The best way to improve email CTRs is by testing different email subject lines and email content with your list.
2. How well your email copy resonates with your audience
If your recipients click on the links in your email, this indicates that they are interested in what you have to offer.
A high email click-through rate can mean that your email copy resonates well with your subscribers. Additionally, this also gives you an idea on how well your email subject lines are working. A low email CTR could be a sign of unappealing email content or poor email open rates – keep an eye out for these factors when measuring this KPI.
With these points in mind, you can help improve your CTR by making email subject lines and copy more engaging.
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4. Reply Rate
Reply Rate is the number of email recipients who have opened your email and replied back to you.
This email marketing KPI shows how engaged subscribers are with email content. If reply rates are low, subscribers might not find the email content relevant or compelling enough. This could also mean that your email content doesn't offer any value to your subscribers.
Reply rates can be improved by strengthening email copy. Ensure that your email offers are compelling enough for people to respond.
If email campaigns aren’t getting much engagement, it might be time to reevaluate the goals of your email campaign, or brainstorm better strategies moving forward.
5. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of email recipients who never received your email because your recipient's mail server returned it. This could mean it was either a hard bounce or a soft bounce.
A hard bounce is a permanent response from a server and means the email can't be delivered. This could mean that the email address you are trying to send to doesn't exist, or their email server is blocking your emails from being delivered.
A soft bounce means the email address is valid, but it could fail because the attachment you're sending is too big, the recipient's email box is full and can't accept any more emails, or their server was temporarily down.
If you see bounce rates increase, it might be time to look at your email list.
Email bounces can happen for several reasons: spam traps, invalid email addresses, or email addresses changes.
Improving email bounce rates is possible by regularly updating email lists, and you can automate this with marketing automation.
This will also improve your overall email deliverability rates by keeping your list clean.
Pro Tip: Why You Need to Track Email Engagement for a Quality Email List
6. Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients who have opened an email and unsubscribed from your email list.
It's possible that subscribers are finding email content irrelevant or unappealing, so this email marketing KPI could be a sign that you need to reevaluate what email copy you're sending out.
Regularly update your email lists to reflect your unsubscribed contacts. This will ensure that your email content always reaches the proper demographic.
7. Complaints
Complaints are something you want to keep a close eye on. An email complaint is when your subscriber provides feedback to their mailbox provider (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) that the emails you are sending them are unwanted.
You can reduce complaints by clearly stating what types of emails you will be sending them and what frequency you'll be sending emails. You should note this in your welcome email series.
You can even add an extra step to make your subscribers confirm they want to receive these emails before adding them to your main email list.
8. List Growth Rate
The list growth rate is the percentage of email recipients who have joined your email list over a certain timeframe.
This email marketing KPI tells you if your lead generation strategies are working or if it might be time to implement new marketing channels.
If there's been little to no change in this number, you should evaluate your marketing campaigns to make sure nothing has changed or your audiences may need to be updated.
If you are running paid ads, you should always keep your ad copy fresh with different offers and new content that will encourage email list growth!
9. Conversion Rate
The email conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who have opened an email, clicked on any links in that email, and taken the desired action.
Depending on the goal of your email campaign, a conversion might be:
- Registering for a particular event
- Making a purchase
- Joining an email list
- Signing up for a demo
- Downloading a resource
This email marketing KPI is an excellent indicator of email campaign success, as it demonstrates the bottom line in regards to recipient actions.
If there's been little change in this number, then it could be time to reevaluate your email copy. Use your KPIs to improve individual aspects of your campaign, as this can lead to exponential growth in the long run.
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Conclusion
Successful email marketing requires a thorough understanding of the metrics that matter. Knowing what numbers to track and how they relate to each other can make a big difference in your conversion rates and email campaign revenue.
These email marketing KPIs are the most important ones to watch out for and should be monitored on a regular basis! If you need help understanding these email marketing metrics or want assistance with improving email campaigns, don't hesitate and contact us today!
