6 Email Marketing Metrics and KPIs You Must Track In 2020
Email marketing has cemented itself as one of the best marketing tools so it is crucial for you to constantly review and update your strategy. Email marketing metrics are useful as they allow you to scale the success of your campaigns and identify any issues that may be holding you back.
“Customers sign up for your brand, not your emails – talk more about why your brand is important.” — Bob Frady
Each marketing metric is different. However, there are certain key factors you should focus on. Below, we have mentioned some of the email marketing metrics you cannot do without.
1. Click-through rate (CTR)
The most obvious email metric you should consider is the click-through rate (CTR). It is a routine email marketing metric that allows you to examine the success of every individual email you send. After that, you can monitor how your CTR changes. Basically, CTR shows you the percentage of people that click on your ads after seeing them.
Source: superoffice.com
Since A/B tests are designed to find new ways of generating more clicks in your emails, CTR is routinely used to examine the results of A/B tests. If you are an email marketer, it is essential that you track your CTR. They allow you to understand how many of your customers are engaging with the content you provide and are interested in what your brand has to offer.
Data shows that if you can increase your CTR rate by two times, then your conversion rate can go up by 50 percent.
2. Conversion Rate
After your customer has clicked through your email, your next move should be to convert them on your offer. For instance, if you send your customers an email with the opportunity to download an eBook, anyone that does so can be considered as a conversion.
Your email’s call to action (CTA) is directly linked to your definition of conversion, your CTA should also be directly linked to the overall goal of your email marketing. Conversion rate is an essential metric that allows you to understand whether you are achieving your goals.
3. Bounce Rate
There are two forms of bounces you can track: sift and hard bounces.
1. Hard bounces result from a closed, invalid or non-existent email address and they are never successfully delivered. You should remove such emails promptly from your email list as internet service providers make use of bounce rates as an important element to judge the success rate of an email sender. If your brand has too many hard bounces, ISPS may consider you as a spammer.
2. Soft bounces, on the other hand, are a temporary issue from a valid email address. This is the result of a full inbox or issues from the recipient server. Until the issue is cleared up, the recipient server can hold up these emails or you can also re-send them to soft bounces.
List-Through Rate
Other than your CTA metrics (conversion rates, CTR) you should also monitor your list growth and loss. Always make an effort to expand your list in order to increase your reach, build up your audience, and cement yourself as a leader in the industry. The harsh fact is that your email marketing list will naturally decay at 22.5% every year.
Further, about 75% of your subscribers may be inactive. This is quite a worrying data as it means about three-quarters of your subscribers list may not find the content you provide as engaging. Many of them may eventually unsubscribe to your emails so it is important for you to routinely try and increase your subscriber base.
Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
It may seem insignificant to you when your customer share or forward your email but it is important for you to track this metric as this is how you can grow your contact list. The customers on your email lists are already saved in your database. Even though conversion is still very important, it is not helpful enough to generate new leads for you.
Motivate your readers and subscribers to share the email if they found it useful or interesting and track how many people you are able to add to your database.
Overall ROI
Determining your overall ROI is also an essential aspect of your email marketing campaigns. If you have not done this yet, it is important that you frame an SLA system through which you assign various values to different leads based on their likelihood to bring in revenue for your brand.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that you have got to be smart about which metric you are chasing. Ensure that you effectively track your email list’s health, individual email performance, and the progress you have made towards achieving your company’s goals. As long as you are effectively tracking these, your email marketing strategy is on the right track.
Pay attention to what type of offers and articles are being shared the most by your customers. You can then use that data to plan your future email marketing campaigns. Also, make sure that your content is relatable and engaging. 25% of subscribers are willing to unsubscribe if they find the content irrelevant.
Overall ROI
Determining your overall ROI is also an essential aspect of your email marketing campaigns. If you have not done this yet, it is important that you frame an SLA system through which you assign various values to different leads based on their likelihood to bring in revenue for your brand.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that you have got to be smart about which metric you are chasing. Ensure that you effectively track your email list’s health, individual email performance, and the progress you have made towards achieving your company’s goals. As long as you are effectively tracking these, your email marketing strategy is on the right track.