10 Email Marketing Metrics & KPIs: Should be Tracking
Measuring the performance of your email marketing campaigns will tell you which subject lines perform best who’s clicking on what. Tracking and evaluating your email marketing performance is the key to understanding your audience.
Plans for measuring, evaluating and analyzing should be integrated into the campaign from the outset. When tracking KPIs and metrics for email campaigns, it's crucial to ensure that they align with the specific objectives of the campaign.
This article explains how various KPIs can be utilized to trackthe performance of email marketing campaigns metrics.
What are Email Marketing Metrics?
Email marketing metrics are valuable data points that reveal how well your campaigns are doing. These metrics give insights into campaign performance as the number of people opening an email, clicking on links to visit your website or choosing to unsubscribe.
Metrics can highlight whether your emails capture attention, drive interaction and help you reach key objectives like boosting revenue. It's essential to approach email metrics with a broad perspective, focusing on your own campaign benchmarks. Since each brand operates differently, comparisons to other programs can be misleading. What truly matters is your program’s continuous improvement.
Why you Should Track Email Marketing Metrics
Tracking email marketing metrics is essential to understanding subscriber engagement with your content. These insights reveal which topics and formats resonate most with your audience, allowing you to refine future emails for greater effectiveness.
Fireonmail simplifies this process by automatically tracking your selected metrics, so you can easily see how many subscribers clicked through to your store, added items to their cart or completed a purchase. Best of all with everything connected to your account and product catalog, you gain access to rich, detailed performance insights that help strengthen your customer relationships over time.
How to Measure Your Email Marketing Success?
Tracking email marketing metrics offers concrete insights into the effectiveness of your campaigns, moving beyond mere intuition. By analyzing real data, you can gauge what resonates with your audience, fine tune future emails and make informed decisions that drive results.
- You can use email marketing metrics to:
- Test your assumptions
- Write better email subject lines and copy
- Send more relevant and helpful content
- Monitor and maintain delivery and deliverability
- Prove the value of your email marketing program
- Continuously improve your email marketing strategy and designs
- Share your progress and insights with your team and leaders
- Get executive buy in for a larger email marketing budget
Fireonmail, you can harness the full potential of email marketing metrics to optimize every part of your campaigns. From testing assumptions and crafting stronger subject lines to creating more tailored content, Fireonmail helps you monitor deliverability and connect meaningfully with your audience.
10 Email Marketing Metrics You Should to Track
You’re actively growing your list or refining segments, the following 10 email marketing metrics are the key to confident digital marketing decisions.
- ROI
- Conversion rate
- Click to open rate (CTOR)
- Open rate
- Deliverability rate
- List growth rate
- Email sharing or forwarding rate
- Bounce rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Number of spam complaints
ROI
ROI or return on investment measures the revenue generated by a campaign relative to the amount invested. On average email marketing yields $47 for every $1 spent, equating to a 4,200% ROI. While this is an impressive benchmark, it’s essential to focus on achieving a return greater than your investment rather than striving for specific figures.
To increase ROI, consider optimizing conversions A/B testing subject lines and content, experimenting with calls to action and including incentives in your emails. These steps can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate in email marketing reflects the percentage of subscribers who completed a desired action. It’s one of the most critical metrics in a campaign, as it often aligns with the primary objective. To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of recipients who completed the action by the total number of emails delivered, then multiply by 100.
Click to Open Rate (CTOR)
CTOR indicates the percentage of subscribers who clicked a link within an email after opening it. This metric combines two key data points. How many people opened the email and how many of those were interested enough to click. It is valuable for assessing how engaging and relevant your content is. To calculate it divide the number of unique clicks by the number of unique opens, then multiply by 100.
Open Rate
Open rate refers to the percentage of recipients who open your email. A high open rate often indicates that your subject lines are compelling or that subscribers are eagerly anticipating your emails. On the other hand low open rates could signal the need for improvements in your email's presentation or timing.
To improve try experimenting with different subject lines, adding personalization, using emojis or adjusting your sending frequency. To calculate the open rate, divide the number of emails opened by the total number of recipients and then multiply by 100.
Deliverability Rate
Deliverability rate refers to the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to a recipient's inbox. A high deliverability rate suggests that your email list is clean and healthy, ensuring that your emails reach the intended recipients. However if you notice a decline in this rate, it could indicate that your emails are being flagged as spam or sent to invalid email addresses.
List Growth Rate
List growth rate measures the speed at which your email subscriber list is expanding. A higher list growth rate means more potential customers and opportunities for sales. Aiming for a growth rate of around 2.5% is a good target. To improve this rate, you can use clear CTAs on your landing pages, offer incentives for new subscribers and strategically place sign up forms on your website and across key marketing channels.
Email Sharing or Forwarding Rate
Email sharing or forwarding rate tracks how many recipients share or forward your email to others, such as on social media or with friends and family. This is typically measured through a share this or forward to a friend button. It’s an excellent way to grow your email list with minimal effort, as it leverages your current subscribers to spread your message to a broader audience, potentially attracting new subscribers and increasing engagement.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered to a recipient’s inbox. There are two main types of bounces which soft bounce and a hard bounce. A soft bounce occurs when an email is temporarily rejected due to issues like a full inbox or a server being down. A hard bounce, on the other hand, happens when an email address is invalid or non existent. Monitoring bounce rates helps you maintain a clean email list active recipients and improving overall deliverability.
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate measures the percentage of recipients who opt out of receiving future emails from you. A high unsubscribe rate can indicate that your content is not resonating with your audience or that you’re emailing too frequently. To calculate the unsubscribe rate, divide the number of unsubscribes by the total number of emails delivered and multiply by 100. Keeping this rate low is crucial for maintaining a healthy and engaged email list.
Number of Spam Complaints
The number of spam complaints refers to the percentage of recipients who report your emails as spam. A high number of spam complaints can negatively affect your sender reputation, causing future emails to be filtered into recipients spam folders, reducing deliverability. To calculate this metric, divide the number of spam complaints by the total number of emails sent and multiply by 100.