Email Analytics: The Email Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking

So, you’ve set up your email marketing campaign with engaging content. You’ve segmented your audience and created different campaigns according to the customer’s previous activity. Now, you can sit back and watch your email marketing strategy rake in new leads and generate sales, right? Wrong…

Perhaps the most essential step of any email marketing campaign is the reviewing and analysis process that follows. This is what will guide your future campaigns, as you learn from mistakes and further optimize your campaign strategy.

But what are the most important metrics to study when looking at email analytics? And how can you use these figures to boost your campaign?

Keep reading for our list of the ultimate key performance indicators (KPIs) to track in order to run an effective email marketing campaign.

List Growth Rate

First up, one of the most important KPIs to check is your list growth rate. Compared to the other metrics we’ll examine later, this provides an excellent overview of the reach of your campaign.

The list growth rate measures whether your source of potential customers is growing or shrinking. Here’s how to calculate it:

• (New subscribers minus your opt-outs and invalid email addresses) divided by the size of your previous email list

A figure of less than one indicates that your list has shrunk. This is bad news. It would suggest that your business needs to focus on brand awareness and developing interest. Make sure the option to subscribe to your newsletter features prominently on your website and in social media campaigns.

It is inevitable to lose some subscribers over time, so it is important to continually source new potential customers to replace them.

A figure greater than one means your email list is growing. Try to maintain a consistent rate of growth, and remember that the quality of your email leads is more important than the quantity.

Unsubscribe Rate

Now, on to one of the more negative marketing KPIs. The unsubscribe rate is a figure you want to keep as low as possible. To work this one out, take:

• The number of unsubscribes divided by the number of emails delivered

When setting your email marketing benchmarks, you should aim for an unsubscribe rate of approximately 2%. This number indicates the people who have opened and actively disliked the email content and correspondingly hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button.

When an unsubscribe rate gets significantly higher than 2%, this is a sign that some changes need to be made to the email campaign. Consider whether emails are being sent out too frequently, or if the email content delivers real value to its audience.

Email Delivery Rate and Bounce Rate

Next, two closely related and extremely important KPIs: email delivery rate and email bounce rate. These figures depend on a number of different factors, and it is difficult to improve these scores alone.

The bounce rate is calculated like this:

• (The number of bounced emails divided by the number of total recipients) multiplied by 100

EmailOversight’s Email Validation and Hygiene service is a great way to increase delivery rates. Our multi-method solution identifies dormant addresses, bots, and hard bounces to make sure your email list is clean and effective.

The use of our platform to filter out your email lists has far-reaching consequences. It improves businesses’ sender reputation scores and maintains emails sent from your domain ending up in customers’ inboxes.

Open Rate

Another of our top email marketing KPIs to pay attention to is the open rate. A business can never expect a 100% open rate, but a high percentage indicates high brand interest and good previous content. It is also likely that your emails have not ended up in the spam folder, which is a big win.

A low percentage for your open rate might mean more work needs to go into creating an appealing subject line. The benchmark for a “good” open rate varies from industry to industry, but the average is somewhere around 20%.

The open rate is worked out using this formula:

• The number of emails opened divided by (the number of emails sent minus the emails that have bounced)

The sender name is also a crucial factor for driving users to open their emails. The more familiar it is, and the stronger reputation it has, the better.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Next, let’s take a look at the importance of CTRs when it comes to email analytics. This number demonstrates not only the brand familiarity and confidence that has led users to open a business’s email. It also proves that the email content was captivating enough to lead potential customers to follow your links and calls to action (CTAs).

The segment of your email list that is clicking on content within your email campaign are those most likely to make a purchase. The CTR is worked out as follows:

• (The total clicks divided by the total opened emails) multiplied by 100

It may take businesses just starting out with their email marketing campaigns longer to achieve an admirable CTR. Starting with a strong delivery rate and open rate will lead to a better CTR in time.

Conversion Rate

When looking at your email metrics, the one figure the executive board and finance department will be interested in is the conversion rate. This KPI shows exactly how your email marketing campaign is leading to new business.

Conversion rates go one step further than CTRs. A user following a link in the email to register for an event is counted in the CTR. However, once they actually fill out their details and complete the registration on your website, this counts as a conversion.

The definition of a conversion will vary from business to business. It might consist of completing a contact form, liking a Facebook page, downloading some free content, or even making a purchase. The conversion rate is calculated like this:

• (The number of people who completed the desired action divided by the total number of emails delivered) multiplied by 100

A higher conversion rate indicates that your business is reaching the objectives the email marketing campaign has set out to achieve.

Spam Complaint Rate

Next, a KPI you want to keep as low as possible is the spam complaint rate. Spam complaints have larger repercussions than just a single user expressing disengagement with a business.

It can affect email deliverability as the domain loses its reputation, and email service providers begin directing a business’s emails directly to the spam folder. To work out your spam complaint rate take:

• The number of emails reported as spam divided by the total number of emails sent

Any figure higher than a spam complaint rate of 0.1% is considered high. Be sure to reconsider your email frequency and double-check for any subject lines or email content that potentially look like spam.

Email Forwarding Rate

A high email sharing or forwarding rate is a great sign for email marketing campaigns. This suggests that you are providing valuable content to your email list, that they have chosen to pass on to their contacts. It will likely mean your email list grows organically.

Here’s the calculation to find your email forwarding rate:

• (Number of clicks to share or forward divided by the total number of emails sent) multiplied by 100

The best way to improve your email forwarding rate is with dynamic email content. Try to include information that is useful and relevant to your customer profile. Another way to generate new leads via email forwarding is to offer a discount code in the email.

Overall ROI

The last of the top marketing metrics you need to be looking at is the overall ROI. This gives you the bottom line on how much money your email campaign is making for you. There are several different methods of determining this figure. Here is the basic formula:

• (($ of additional sales made minus $ invested in the campaign) divided by $ invested in the campaign) multiplied by 100

The EmailOversight analytics platform provides a great way for businesses to boost their ROI. By tracking email activity and customer engagement, businesses can gain insights that help optimize campaigns. This ultimately leads to sales conversions and a greater ROI.

Those Are the Essentials of Email Analytics

Now that we’ve covered the crucial components of email analytics, it’s time to develop and improve your campaign. Taking these key metrics into consideration will guide you to the precise areas of your marketing strategy that need improvement.

Don’t forget that using the EmailOversight platform is an efficient way to clean up your email lists, and lower those all-important bounce rates. For more information about how our software can help your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch.