Email Marketing KPIs are the most crucial part of a business campaign.
In email marketing, KPIs and metrics are values that marketing teams use to measure how well their campaigns are doing. To run a successful email marketing campaign, you must closely monitor your campaigns. You can drastically improve your email marketing results by knowing what’s working and what’s not. You can tweak, refine, and improve your email marketing program in near real-time once you know how your campaign is performing through email marketing metrics like open rate and click-through rate.
What is a KPIs?
Key Performance Indicators are a set of metrics that measure how well a business is achieving its goals. Organizations use KPIs at many levels to determine whether they are achieving their targets. Several departments may use low-level KPIs, including sales, marketing, human resources, and support. KPIs can be used to measure an organization’s overall performance.
Despite the changes in marketing and the emergence of new ideas, the one question that keeps coming up is: What is the importance of email marketing in today’s environment?
Your brand reach can increase with even the smallest tweak if you are familiar with email marketing strategy and also Email Marketing KPIs.
However, email marketing presents some challenges because it is not a direct marketing strategy. It is not exactly upfront and you need to attract attention and action from the customers’ end to truly tell your story.
There are a few ways to measure email marketing results if you’re not sure if your campaigns are making an impact. You should be able to learn from this article what metrics you should monitor and how to make your Email Marketing KPIs campaigns more effective.
Why are Email Marketing KPIs important and what do they measure?
An indicator of key performance is known as a KPI.
A Email Marketing KPIs KPI is a metric that measures how well you are performing against your goals. As you have decided that they are the most important metrics to improve in order to succeed, they are the most important. Performance-based KPIs also show whether or not you’ve accomplished your goals.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, and you should make sure they are all SMART. KPIs are an essential part of setting your SMART email marketing goals.
Email Marketing KPIs play a critical role in the SMART framework (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound). Measurable metrics provide a basis for setting your goals based on the measurable part of the acronym. Your progress will be impossible to measure if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish.
#1. Email Bounce Rate
Emails that bounce represent emails that never make it to the inbox. Bounced emails are instances where the email address is no longer active or is a fake. Spam emails are those that are listed in spam; bounced emails are those that were not sent.
Calculated similarly, the bounce ratio is divided by the number of emails sent and multiplied by 100.
It is ideal to keep bounce rates under 2%, but the number can differ from industry to industry. The bounce rate is influenced significantly by two types of bounces:
Soft bounce
Occasionally, a server may be overloaded, which causes a temporary bounce. It is not uncommon for the internet to go up and down. Most of the time, the server sends the message multiple times before marking it as bounced. As a result, you should not be concerned about soft bounces since the mail usually gets delivered over time.
Hard bounce
Bounce rates are negatively impacted by a hard bounce because they can negatively impact your business or SEO. The domain is not found or the email address is incorrect and a message is returned. Mailing lists that contain such addresses should not be maintained.
How to reduce Email Bounce Rate
Bounce rates of 2% or less are probably not a cause for concern. A hard bounce, however, is a different matter.
#. Monitor your email list
Ensure that your mailing list is active and update it on a regular basis. This will reduce the chances of being bounced back. Remove email addresses that are not active.
Ensure the provider has a healthy IP address and a good reputation. When dealing with spam bots that send wrong or fake email addresses your way, exercise extreme caution. You can easily collect email addresses by offering free wifi or lead magnets. Occasionally, they can, however, issue fake IDs, which further increases your bounce rate.
#. Double opt-in option
In double opt-in setups, new subscribers aren’t added to your list until they click the link in a confirmation email to confirm their email address. As a result, you won’t collect fake or typographically incorrect email addresses, which reduces future bounces.
In addition to ensuring your subscribers want to hear from you, this method also reduces the risk of them unsubscribing from your email list and being labeled spam in the future.
#2. Email Open Rate
The Open Rate reflects how many emails you have sent versus how many have been opened.
You should always track your open rate since it shows how interested your subscribers are in your business and what you offer them.
Subject lines and preview text that draw attention and are well-optimized are strongly related to high open rates. Your Open Rate can decline if either of these two things is out of whack.
At least twenty percent should be the Open Rate.
How to calculate Open Rate:
The Open Rate can be calculated by dividing the number of emails opened by the total number of emails sent, and multiplying the result by 100.
There was once a time when this was one of the most important email marketing KPIs to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Email-open rates have been the subject of debates in recent years regarding their relevance. Many argue that the email open rate KPI is doomed as a result of Apple’s new data privacy update for the new operating system.
In addition to your key performance indicators, you also have several other measures of success. You’ll have your hands full analyzing emails, as emails are packed with data and offer multiple metrics for analysis. Open rates will be masked by the new operating system, so measuring them is pointless. You should use the following KPIs instead, monitor deliverability and segment lists consistently.
#3. Click-through Rate (CTR)
When a user opens an email, the CTR measures how many times they click on the links within that email.
Having your emails opened is great, but if that’s all you get, then your marketing efforts are failing. By sending these emails, you are hoping you will drive conversions, which is typically to click on a CTA or offer within the email.
It is recommended that your CTR be at least 4 percent.
It is essential to focus on the design of your emails and CTAs if you have a high open-rate but a low conversion rate. To get your readers to click the links you want them to, try using different words or altering the layout of your emails.
CTR is measured using the following formula:
CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions X 100
CTR is measured differently for email campaigns, and is calculated using the following formula:
Email CTR = Clicks ÷ (Emails sent – Bounces) x 100
#4. Conversion Rate
This email marketing KPI is considered by most marketers to be the most important. In a sense, they are right, since your conversion rate measures how successful your marketing campaign is.
In order for the conversion rate to increase, the number of people completing the call-to-action must increase. The goal of every email campaign you send should be to encourage your subscribers to take action.
The CTA does not have to be included in every email. However, conversions have a direct relationship with your sales and customer intentions. Having a low conversion rate can make sales more difficult. Then how do you measure conversion rates, and in what ways can you improve them?
Calculate the conversion rate using the following formula:
Email conversion rate = Number of recipients that performed the CTA ÷ Number of emails sent X 100
These are some tips for increasing conversion rates:
- Every email campaign should be customized, personalized, and engagement-focused.
- Your subject lines should be short and crisp. This makes it easier for the reader to read the content on their mobile device and reduces the chances of losing interest.
- If possible, make your CTA a button in a color that contrasts with the background. By doing so, the recipient is more likely to notice it while reading.
- Workflows that are triggered by specific actions allow you to automate your campaigns.
You can increase your conversion rate by following these steps. It can be equally nerve-wracking to experience low conversion rates and high unsubscribe rates. However, finding solutions to these problems and implementing them can resolve these issues.
What is a good email marketing conversion rate?
Your email campaign is unique for many reasons, so there is no one answer to that question. Location, demographics, copy in your email, industry, and what you’re offering are some of these factors.
#5. Unsubscribe Rate
It can be frightening to assess unsubscribe rates since they can cause doubt. Nonetheless, much like other key performance indicators, it is going to help you improve and attract more customers. A higher unsubscribe rate may indicate that your services are not meeting customer expectations. Conversely, a low unsubscribe rate proves your marketing efforts were successful.
Here are a few reasons why you may have noticed an increase in unsubscribe rates of late:
- Lack of segmentation. This usually enables the sending of relevant targeted content.
- Content that is irrelevant and unreadable on mobile devices.
- Overloading the customer’s email account can cause fatigue and irritation.
Start segmenting your email list now if you aren’t doing so already.
Additionally, there are other measures you can take to reduce the unsubscribe rate.
- Subscribers should be segmented according to their ideal characteristics. Sell your product only to people who are interested in your product.
- Make sure you tailor your pitch to their needs as much as possible.
- Your emails should be mobile-friendly, and you should consistently follow up on feedback requests.
#6. Email Deliverability Rate
Deliverability refers to the ability to successfully deliver emails to subscribers’ inboxes. Based on this KPI, we calculate the likelihood of a campaign reaching a customer’s inbox. The deliverability rate of emails is critical, and several KPIs rely on it. Below are factors that affect email delivery if you are experiencing low deliverability:
- Absence of custom authentication
- Using a single opt-in method
- An email address with a free domain
- Making unsubscribing difficult
- A low level of engagement
It is important to have a high deliverability rate for your email. Upon receiving an email, receiving servers send an error message to email service providers. The ESPs (explained delivery problems) provide information on how a message bounced.
This formula will give you a decent impression of how deliverable your messages are:
Email deliverability rate = Emails delivered ÷ Emails sent X 100
When assessing your email marketing campaigns, this is the first KPI to take into consideration. In order to get your emails read and acted upon, you first have to get them into the inbox. It is not possible to measure this solely by tracking the Acceptance Rate. The fact that the ISP accepted the email and it did not bounce back does not mean that the email got delivered to the inbox. The Inbox Placement Rate should be tracked simultaneously as a vital email KPI.
#7. Revenue Per Email Subscriber
Using the ROI, you can see how well your investment has performed. You can tell if your email campaign was successful by looking at the income per email. By assessing this metric, you can quickly determine which emails perform well. In addition, it can help you identify issues that reduce the overall return on investment.
As opposed to the number of subscribers, the revenue shows how valuable a subscriber is. You can measure the quality of your email list with it, which is crucial. Moreover, it will help you identify your ideal subscribers.
Following is the formula for revenue per email:
Revenue per email = Revenue from each email ÷ Number of sent emails
The formula for revenue per subscriber:
Revenue per email subscriber = Total revenue generated ÷ Number of subscribers
With this calculation, you can both observe your revenue details and get insight into the intrinsic value of your subscribers.
In order to get the most value from subscribers, you need to identify them first. After you find subscribers with similar characteristics, you can look for others. This will help you increase revenue in the long run.
#8. Rate of email forwarding or email sharing
An email campaign with a high forwarding rate always puts a smile on our faces. Send-forward rates are the percentage of recipients who click the share button in your email. These emails are usually forwarded by your customers to their friends. The indicator may not seem significant, but it is something that should be improved. You should consider your leads as brand ambassadors who drive sales if they forward your emails. This is because they can reach new prospects and help boost your lead generation in general.
The following formula can be used to calculate email forwarding rates:
Email forwarding rate = Number of clicks on the share button ÷ Number of delivered emails x 100
Email marketing can be an excellent strategy for developing brand ambassadors. Approximately 81% of consumers use social media to make decisions about purchases. If you are planning a marketing campaign, be sure that it will be shareable. It should be something fun and interactive that you’d want your friends to see.
#9. Email ROI
Return on investment (ROI) can be used to assess the profitability of an investment and is also still an important part of email marketing KPIs. As such, it indicates the effectiveness of a marketing campaign using email. Email ROI is relatively straightforward to determine. Nevertheless, you should consider the goals of your campaign before measuring it.
Our campaigns are created for a variety of reasons, such as:
- Lead nurturing and increasing engagement.
- Increase sales and revenue.
- Create positive brand perception and brand awareness.
If you categorize your campaigns into these categories, your ROI can be measured. A revenue-boosting email campaign, for example, should be measured according to its ROI. However, ROI might not be the best email marketing metric when trying to raise brand awareness.
Calculate the ROI of your email campaigns with this formula:
Email ROI = (Revenue gained – Amount invested) ÷ Amount invested
Your profits will be lower than your investment if you don’t figure out how to increase them. Below are some ways to increase ROI from emails:
- A comprehensive ROI assessment should include clear goals and a plan of action.
- Increase the growth of your email list.
- Your emails should not end up in spam folders, so ensure they reach the right people.
Indicators like ROI are easy to get swept away by. In some ways, it seems more important than before. However, it cannot measure success exclusively. So, don’t be discouraged if your ROI is below your expectations; instead, strive to increase the mentioned email marketing KPIs, and your ROI will naturally increase.
#10. Click-to-Open Rate
Having an understanding of your email marketing KPIs campaign’s CTOR gives you a better understanding of how it is performing. As it measures how many people opened your email and clicked on the content within, it shows whether your email had any real value for the recipient.
The CTOR metric is useful for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign at generating interest. In the event that your links, design, and content are engaging, readers will click through to learn more. A unique open is what defines this metric. By dividing the number of unique clicks you received by these opens, you can find out the number of opens you received.
Click-to-open rates in different industries tend to fall between 20-30%. To improve your CTOR whenever you’re having trouble, follow these steps:
- Ensure that the content you create is meaningful and valuable to readers. You should show your readers how your product will help them, even if you’re essentially selling it.
- Create hyper-personalized subject lines, ads, and offers. Avoid creating generic copy and expecting multiple clicks.
- A high CTOR can be achieved by testing different types of content. Your content recipe will improve over time if you do this.
With CTOR, you’ll be able to create better content as with all the other email marketing KPIs. Furthermore, it will demonstrate how effective your content is at getting engagement.
Conclusion
These are the top 10 email marketing KPIs that are very important to your business and you should monitor them regularly.
email marketing KPIs in certain industries may be more useful than others, but whatever industry you operate in, these measures can be useful.
A crucial element of any email marketing KPIs campaign is segmentation. The metrics you collect can help you measure the effectiveness of every email marketing KPIs campaign element. Even if you track every single KPI, you won’t see results if you don’t segment your lists. In addition, you must automate your campaigns and make sure that triggers are action-based. Having these in place can help your marketing team focus on each KPI and ease the burden on your team.
