Here we help you track the success of your campaigns and make informed decisions to increase conversions and drive sales using email marketing metrics.
As a service-based business owner, you’re likely always looking for new ways to reach your target audience and drive more sales.
You may have heard a thousand times before that email marketing is dead. This isn’t true. It is still one of the most effective ways to convert leads into paying customers.
If done right, email marketing allows you to communicate directly with your subscribers and customers in a way that’s hard to match with other methods. When done correctly, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to stay top-of-mind, build trust, and drive conversions.
To get the most out of your email marketing campaigns, you need to track the right metrics.
10 essential email marketing metrics of independents
In this article, we’ll dive into 10 essential email marketing metrics that every independent business owner should be monitoring.
These metrics will give you valuable insights into the success of your email campaigns. They will help you make informed decisions about future marketing efforts.
Jump to:
- Email open rate
- Clickthrough rate
- Conversion rate
- Email forwarding rate
- Subscriber growth rate
- Revenue per subscriber
- Email marketing return on investment
- Unsubscribe rate
- Bounce rate
- Spam rate
1. Email open rate
Email open rate is defined as the ratio between the number of subscribers that opened an email divided by the total number of emails sent in the campaign. In other words, it gives you an idea of how many people are actually engaging with your email content.
While several factors can influence your email open rates, the most important ones are:
- How compelling your subject line is – Is it boring? Does it look spammy?
- The sender’s reputation – Is your subscriber recognizing your domain?
- Email frequency- Are you emailing subscribers too often? Too infrequently?
To increase your email open rate, make sure you’re using attention-grabbing subject lines, sending emails at the right frequency for your target audience (this will depend on your industry), and using your domain name instead of your email platform’s (e.g., [email protected] instead of [email protected].)
2. Clickthrough rate
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of subscribers clicking links inside your emails divided by the number of emails sent. It gives you an idea of how many people are clicking through to your website, landing pages, etc. from your email campaigns.
Several factors can influence your CTR, including the copywriting quality of your email content (is it enticing? or convincing?), your call to action or CTA, and the quality of your anchor text (are you just saying click here or something that fits your narrative?).
3. Conversion rate
Conversion rate is one of the most important email marketing metrics to measure. Conversion rate can directly measure the impact of an email campaign on your bottom line.
Conversion rate can be measured in many ways, but in general, it’s defined as the percentage of recipients who complete a desired action after receiving your email.
For example, if you’re running an e-commerce site, your desired action might be making a purchase based on an offer you sent out. In simple terms, if 100 people receive your email and 5 of them make a purchase, your conversion rate is then 5%.
The conversion rate will give you an idea of how well your emails are performing in terms of generating revenue. If your conversion rate is low, you may need to re-evaluate the content of your emails and make sure that you’re offering clear calls-to-action.
You may also want to consider segmenting your email list to target specific groups of subscribers based on their interests and behaviors.
4. Email forwarding rate
Email forwarding rate measures how often your subscribers are forwarding your emails to others. This is an important metric because it gives you an idea of how well your emails are resonating with your subscribers.
If a large percentage of your subscribers are forwarding your emails, it’s a good sign that they’re engaging with your content and finding it valuable enough to recommend to people in their network.
If your email forwarding rate is low, you may want to consider creating more shareable content. Include clear calls-to-action in your emails encouraging subscribers to forward your content.
5. Subscriber growth rate
Subscriber growth rate measures the rate at which your email list is growing over time. This is an important metric because it gives you an idea of how well your email marketing campaign’s performance is in terms of attracting new subscribers.
If your subscriber growth rate is low, you may want to consider optimizing your opt-in process via A/B testing of headlines, bullet points, CTAs, etc, and making sure that you’re offering clear incentives for subscribers to join your list.
6. Revenue per subscriber
Revenue per subscriber measures the average amount of revenue you generate from each subscriber on your email list. You can then use it to optimize your email marketing campaigns.
If your revenue per subscriber is low, revise your email marketing strategy to make sure that you’re offering clear purchase incentives for subscribers to act on.
The easiest way to track this metric is to connect your checkout platform with your email marketing platform. This way, every time a sale rings through your email marketing system receives order numbers and sales amounts connected to your subscribers’ email addresses.
7. Email marketing return on investment
When you invest time and resources into your email marketing campaigns, it’s crucial to measure the return you’re getting on that investment. This is where email marketing ROI comes in.
To calculate this ROI, divide the total revenue generated from your email marketing campaigns by the total cost of running them. This will typically include:
- The cost to operate your email marketing platform, keeping in mind that costs will increase with your number of subscribers
- Your staffing costs required to set up, run, optimize, and maintain your email campaigns, i.e. your marketing staff directly involved with your campaigns
- Additional costs, such as freelance copywriters, graphic designers, marketing consultants, etc.
It’s essential to keep track of your ROI as it helps you understand the value you’re getting from your email marketing efforts. If your ROI is low, you might need to re-evaluate your strategy and make adjustments to improve your return on investment.
8. Unsubscribe rate
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of recipients who opt out of receiving future emails from your business. This metric is crucial to track. It gives you an idea of how engaged your subscribers are with your email campaigns.
If your unsubscribe rate is high, it could indicate that your emails are no longer relevant or valuable to your subscribers. In this case, you might need to reassess your email content, segment your audience, or adjust your sending frequency.
Keep in mind that email marketing platforms reserve the right to ban your account if your unsubscribe rate is too high (i.e., they think you’re a spammer.) Unfortunately, this kick-out percentage is usually kept under wraps so always try to keep your unsubscribe rate to a minimum.
7. Bounce rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered to their intended recipients. This could be because the email address was invalid, the recipient’s inbox was full, or the recipient’s email server blocked the email.
A high bounce rate could indicate that your email list is outdated or that your email addresses were purchased from list brokers.
Like the unsubscribe rate above, email marketing platforms reserve the right to ban your account if your list has a high percentage of undeliverable email addresses. Make sure to regularly clean it up and refrain from purchasing email addresses in bulk.
10. Spam rate
The spam rate is the percentage of emails marked as spam by either recipients or email services. This metric is crucial to track as a high spam rate could result in your emails being blocked at the source or filtered into spam folders, reducing the visibility of your campaigns.
To avoid a high spam rate, make sure to follow best practices for email marketing. These include having an unsubscribe link and a physical mailing address in every email, avoiding the use of spam-triggering language, including a clear subject line, etc.
Analyzing email marketing metrics doesn’t have to be difficult
As an independent business owner, analyzing your email marketing metrics is crucial to evaluate the success of your email campaigns and making informed decisions for your future marketing efforts.
The article has outlined ten essential email marketing metrics, from open rates to spam rates, that will provide you with valuable insights into the engagement and effectiveness of your email campaigns.
By regularly monitoring these metrics and making decisions based on actionable data instead of hunches or guesswork, you’ll optimize your marketing campaigns. Get ready for sustainable revenue growth you can count on.
And if you want to take your lead capture to the next level, HoneyBook has a suite of tools that can turbocharge your lead capture process.
