The Smart Marketer’s Guide To The Top 6 Email Marketing Metrics & How To Optimize Them

Kick back with a chilled beer and sink into your favorite beanie; as you take your first sip, imagine this: you are on a beautiful beach in California, soaking up the good vibes and getting on those oh-so-awesome tan lines. In the midst of the serenity, you pull out your kayak and fishing net and set out looking for some fresh catch.

After casting the net, you throw the haul at the back of your kayak without pausing to sift through your spoils of the day. In the evening, when you make your way through the catch, you find a few shrimps, a couple of mussels, and some pieces of plastic string. Uh oh! 

In similitude, as an email marketer, you need to stay cognizant of the right metrics or KPIs to track and target to know the efficacy of your “virtual lead haul”/ email campaign.

Over the past twelve-plus years, we at Mavlers have delivered flawless email campaigns across major CRMs and marketing automation platforms. 

In today’s blog, we will bring to the table insights on the top 6 unmissable email marketing metrics that should help you hit the nail on the head with every carefully crafted email campaign.

1. Open rate

Let’s begin our quest with the most basic yet important email marketing KPI/metric a marketer can judge the success of their campaign by. Yep, ladies and gentlemen, we are indeed referring to the percentage of the recipients who actually open your mailers.

A high open rate is indicative of your mailer content being compelling enough for your audience to want to open & read what you have on offer.

Conversely, a lower open rate might signal the need to re-evaluate your email subject lines and copy so that you cater to the exact needs of your target audience and don’t end up in the spam folder!

With Apple now masking user activity, such as email opens, open rate data may no longer be entirely accurate, especially for users on iOS devices. This doesn’t mean open rates are obsolete, but marketers need to approach this metric with caution and supplement it with other engagement data.

To optimize your email open rates, here are some tips that you can take advantage of;

• Personalize and play around with your email subject lines
• Carry out A/B testing and implement the ones that work best for your target audience
• Find out the best time to engage with your audience based on their past behavior with your mailers
• Match the subject lines and email copy with your brand tone and voice
• Analyze click-through rates and on-site behavior: Complement open rates with more reliable metrics like link clicks and time spent on your website.

2. Click-through rate

When you add product or collection links in your mailers, you send them out with the intention that the prospective consumer will actually click on them and ultimately convert!

CTR or click-through rate is your knight in shining armor as it reflects the exact percentage or proportion of people who click on the links within your mailer.

Here’s what you can do to amp up your campaign click-through rates;

• Ensure that your content is compelling, engaging, and relevant to your target audience’s tastes and needs.
• Craft clear and unmissable CTAs
• Ensure that the email design supports easy readability and navigation

3. Bounce rate

Imagine a ball aimed at the basket bouncing off the hoop. Consider a similar situation with your emails landing in or “bouncing off” the subscribers’ inboxes. 

This email marketing metric measures the percentage of emails that “bounce off” or are not delivered to the intended subscribers’ inboxes.

Now, bounces can be either soft or hard. If your subscribers’ inbox is full or you are experiencing server problems, your emails might be in for experiencing a soft bounce. 

On the other hand, hard bounces can result from your emails being permanently rejected because of nonexistent or invalid email addresses. 

In order to steer clear of choppy waters and high bounce rates, here’s what you can do;

• Ensure email list hygiene to weed out instances of hard bounces
• Examine the reasons behind soft bounces to ensure good email deliverability 

4. Conversion rate

The perfect moment of truth in marketing is when your customers (or prospective ones) engage positively with your brand and carry out the action you intended them to make through your mailer or newsletter. 

The conversion rate measures the percentage of recipients who engage in the intended manner after clicking on the links within your email. 

The intended actions can range from a plethora of activities that you might have in mind for a particular campaign, such as filling out a form, signing up for a webinar, purchasing your product/service, or any other goal that you might have in mind. 

Keeping track of this essential KPI lets you judge the efficacy of your landing pages, email content, and the overall user experience.

Here’s how you can set the ball rolling and realize improved conversion rates;

• Feel free to experiment and test different versions of email copy, formats, and messaging to test the waters and audience receptivity
• Ensure seamless and flawless navigation from the internal email link to the point of conversion
• Give clear instructions and refrain from succumbing to the “curse of knowledge” by summarizing key details for the intended audience
• Make use of tools and software to segment audiences based on their demographics, interests, and previous behavior

5. Unsubscribe rate

It’s always disheartening to see your subscribers end their “virtual” relationship with your brand, but nevertheless, it is an important email marketing metric to keep track of.

If you are witnessing high unsubscribe rates, it may be indicative of the emails not meeting your audiences’ preferences and expectations. Another scenario might be sending emails at a high frequency. 

You may consider the following tips to keep the unsubscribe rates in check;

• Keep the email list segmented to send out more targeted emails
• Give the recipients the chance to manage their email preferences
• Ensure that the email content offers great value to your subscribers

6. List growth rate

A steadily growing email list speaks volumes about the positive and sustainable relationship between your brand and the target audience. 

This KPI is indicative of the rate at which your email lists grow as well as your ability to attract new subscribers and hold on to the existing ones.

Here’s what you can do to optimize your list growth rate;

• Push and share your email newsletter across your social media channels and your website
• Keep the experience of opt-in forms a seamless process for the users
• Give valuable opt-in incentives

The road ahead 

Analyzing and setting up these key email marketing metrics will keep your campaigns on track and offer accountability for you and your team to meet your campaign goals.

We now suggest reading ~ How Many Email Automations Do I Need? Essential Email Flows During the Holiday Season.