As mentioned in our previous post (Why Email Marketing Still Matters), email marketing will outperform many marketing channels, and consistently deliver a high ROI. With that in mind, which metrics are vital in ensuring your email marketing efforts are effective?
Conversion Rate
- Summary: The percentage of users who complete the desired action. For example, made a purchase, completed a contact form, subscribed, etc. This is by far the most important metrics you can measure.
- Calculating: Number of conversions / Number of emails delivered x 100
- Example: 100 conversions / 2,000 emails delivered x 100 = 5%
- Average: Varies by industry, but 1.5 to 5% is common.
- Goal: Conversion rates vary by industry. For example, with e-commerce (B2C) you should be aiming for 3% or more. For B2B you should be aiming for 5% or more. If you are in Finance, Nonprofit or Government you should be aiming even higher.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
- Summary: Ratio of users who click on a link. CTR is by far the most popular metrics to measure the success of email marketing campaigns.
- Calculating: Number of clicks / Number of impressions (emails delivered) x 100
- Example: 100 clicks / 2,500 impressions x 100 = 4%
- Average: 2.5 to 3%
- Goal: Most organizations should be aiming for 4% or more.
Bounce Rate
- Summary: The percentage of emails that cannot be delivered.
- Calculating: Number of bounced emails / Emails sent x 100
- Example: 10 bounced emails / 2,500 emails sent x 100 = 0.4%
- Average: 0.3 to 1.5%
- Goal: If your bounce rate is over 1% you need to refine your subscriber list
These 3 metrics will give you a good base, and more importantly allow you to quickly measure if your email marketing efforts are performing or not. And as you start fine-tuning your email marketing, you should start measuring other metrics like Open Rate, Unsubscribe Rate, Subscriber Growth Rate, Forwarding Rate, etc.
References:
