13 Email Metrics That Matter

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If you send marketing emails you must have your eye on the numbers.

First we run you through the regular metrics, tell you what to watch out for and ways to improve them. Then we give you additional metrics you must track to make your email marketing really work for you.

Open Rate
Open rates vary from industry to industry. Check your industry’s average open rate. You should worry if your open rate is way below the average. The average open rate in the US in 2012 across industries hovered around 20%.

To step up your open rate:

• Put your company/brand name in the“From” address for instant recognition.
• Experiment with your subject line. Be short yet meaningful.
• Don’t bombard people with emails. Familiarity breeds contempt. Send emails once in two weeks in the case of a lead nurturing program.
• Send emails from Tuesday to Thursday since people have more time mid-week.
• Send emails after the morning rush. If your audience gets to work at 8 am, send mails after 9:30 am. Otherwise, your email will be lost in the clutter.

Click Rate
Click rates also vary across industries and across geographies. In the US average click rates range from 1-3%.

A click happens only when a person reads your email and he is interested enough to click on your call to action (CTA) button. So aim to make your email as interesting as possible.

Boost your click rate with these tips:

• Keep your content short and easy to scan.
• Experiment with the CTA button using different colors, shapes, text and positioning.
• Make sure your CTA button is prominent and attractive.
• Check if your CTA is visually prominent even if images are disabled in the email client.
• Check if your email is complete sans images.
• Segment your lists based on profile, industry, geography, interests and position in sales funnel. Customize the email based on these criteria so that it is personalized and interesting.

Conversion
How many of your recipients bought your product/service. This number might not be easy to track since conversion happens over an extended period of time. But remember the objective of all marketing activities, including email marketing, is more sales.

Track how many people read your email, went to your landing page and over a period became your customer.

Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rates indicate reader’s falling interest in your message. Average unsubscribe rates hover around 1-2%. If there is a sudden spike, investigate it. Possible culprits could include:

• The recipient did not wish to receive your communication. Go for opt-in forms. Build a good sender reputation. 
• Your readers are bored of your emails and don’t find any value in them. Consider a new campaign with a different message and maybe a new template.
• Your emails are too frequent. Experiment with fewer emails.
• Unrealistic expectations. Once a person signs ups to receive your emails, send them an introductory email and set expectations. Tell them what kind of content to expect and how frequently you will send emails.

Spam/Blocked
Pay attention to your spam score when you craft your email message. Watch this number closely. The law protects recipients.

Bounce Rate
Efficient bounce management is necessary to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

Here are some tips to keep bounce rates under check:

• Don’t buy lists. Ready-made lists are a graveyard of dead addresses which could potentially get you blacklisted.
• Grow lists. This is time-consuming but worth it.
• If your email bounces because of a permanent error, remove the email ID from your list. This is essential to list hygiene. Tools like SEO Resources do this automatically for you.
• If your email soft bounces because of a capacity restriction, don’t resend. Email clients have ways to retrieve this.
• Consider validation tools for your sign up forms so that you can catch typos.
• Once a person signs up, send them an introductory email. Ask them to click on a link to confirm their interest in your communication. This way you can weed out the bots and fake IDs.

Time of Email Open
This will tell you the time at which your recipients opened your email. This will help you understand what time works for sending emails.

Action Taken
This could be a content download, a webinar registration, a product purchase, a free trial sign up or some such. It is the end result of your CTA button. Action taken is the short-term objective of your email campaign. This is different from conversion, which is the long-term goal of all marketing efforts. Track action taken.

Forward, Printout
You can see how popular your email is. Track how many people forwarded your email and/or took printouts.

Share Your Content
If you used social sharing buttons in your email, track how many people clicked on them to share your email with their networks.

Time Spent on Email & Landing Page
This will help you figure out how engaged your audience is. If there is a high bounce rate for either email/landing page consider refreshing your campaign. Experiment with a new offer, content, design and CTA buttons.

Multiple Page Visit
This will tell you if your landing page was able to attract the reader to go to other pages of your website. Did they go to the “Products” page or the “About Us” page? Track their website behavior.

Email Clients & Devices Used
Did your recipients use Outlook, Gmail or Lotus Notes to open your email? What devices did they use- mobile, desktop or tablet? These numbers will let you decide which email clients to test your campaigns on. You can also decide whether to optimize your email for smaller screens.