We’ve gone over the basics of how to create a marketing strategy, email subject lines, email list creation, email marketing call-to-actions, and images and video in emails. Now it’s time to address how to assess the success of an email marketing strategy.
With most marketing tactics, it’s nearly impossible to know the successes or downfalls if you’re not actively using email reporting tools to collect data for analysis to help understand what is and what isn’t working. Take advantage of the fact that we live in a world with excellent digital marketing and have the option to collect data on just about anything.
what email marketing metrics should i use?
The right metrics will help you analyze and improve email marketing efforts. Keep in mind, the when and how of measuring email marketing data depends on each metric.
1. Open Rate: The open rate is the percentage of all email recipients who simply opened an email. It’s useful to know how many people are opening your email, but at the end of the day, click-through rate is an even more informational stat. You should note, open rate can often be inaccurate due to factors such as image blocking, which can skew the data.How to Calculate: Total Emails Opened / Total Emails Delivered
Standard / Goal Open Rate: Average open rate should be between 15%-25%.
How to Calculate: # of Click-Throughs / # of Click-Throughs Delivered
Standard / Goal CT Rate: Average click-through rate should be about 2.5%.
How to Calculate: Total Conversions / Total Emails Delivered
Standard / Goal conversion Rate: Average conversion rate should be 7.13%, but can vary greatly by industry.
How to Calculate: # of Unsubscribers / # of recipients
Standard / Goal Unsubscribe Rate: Average unsubscribe rate should be about 0.17%.
How to Calculate: New Subscribers - Unsubscribers / Total Subscribers (over a certain time period)
Standard / Goal Growth Rate: Average growth rate should be
Knowing how to calculate the above metrics is a great way to assess where you already stand and decide what needs to be done to improve your efforts.
what does reporting and analyzing look like?
Although it can be hard to see the value in any marketing campaign, if data measurement is not being used, it’s nearly impossible to see what’s going on. Focus on the need of your business and each specific campaign. Ask yourself what question you’re trying to answer with each metric you measure. The questions should address knowledge gaps you have about your audience, how they take in information about your products and services, and how that information relates to sales and marketing campaigns.
Here are some of the most common ways marketers analyze their data:
- Take all data for the metrics that were focused on
- Look at how those metrics measure against the benchmark and the desired goal
- Think of ways to improve each metric to drive results
This is a great three-step process to start with if you’re unsure what to do with the data. It can be time-consuming, but if you don’t take the time to look into how improvement can happen, change won’t happen. 99% of consumers check their email every day. Email is still a great way to reach your audience …it’s also a great way to collect data about consumer habits.