10 Email Marketing Metrics for High-Performing Emails

81% of small and midsized businesses rely on email as their primary acquisition channel, and 80% use it for customer retention.  

The data above proves that email marketing remains to be an essential digital marketing tool for SMBs in Miami. This is why it’s so incredibly important to get your email marketing campaigns right.  

When your email campaigns promise and deliver on quality, there's a good chance that customer engagement and conversions will be high.  

But, paving the road to a successful email marketing campaign depends on you being well-informed about its performance.  

So, where can you extract accurate data about how well your email campaigns are performing and generate actionable insights you can use to make necessary changes for better results?

Here are the ten essential email marketing metrics you need to monitor.  

10 Essential Email Marketing Metrics

1. Deliverability Rates

Before worrying about whether or not your subscribers are opening your emails, you need to make sure that your emails are actually reaching their inboxes and not going straight to spam.    

Email deliverability rate is a measure of how many emails reach your subscriber’s email address and avoid the spam folder. Note that as long as an email doesn’t bounce, it’s considered as delivered.  

It's important to determine how many emails are accepted by your recipients' servers because, for your email marketing strategy to work, people must first receive your emails.  

To determine the delivery rate of your email marketing campaign, follow this formula:

Delivery Rate = (Emails delivered / Total number of emails sent) x 100.  

If for example you sent 300 emails to subscribers, and only 280 are delivered, it means that your delivery rate is (280/300) x 100 = 93.33%

ISPs’ job is to protect people from unwanted emails. They used to have all kinds of filters to prevent unsolicited emails from making it to a person's inbox but that standard has changed.  

Their focus is now centered around user engagement. This means that the engagement you have with your subscribers determines whether your emails end up in the spam folder or the inbox. And, the lack of engagement will ultimately impact your deliverability rate.  

To maintain high deliverability rates, here are some best practices to follow:

• Get rid of outdated emails and uninterested recipients. Make sure your mailing list is up-to-date.  
• Use a double opt-in tool to verify a user's email address upon signing up.  
• Set the right expectation by letting your subscribers know what they’re getting into.  
• Determine who among your subscribers want to hear from you and are engaging with your emails.  
• Monitor spam complaints and stop sending emails customers find redundant or irrelevant.

• Avoid attaching PDFs or any other files in your emails.  
• Segment your mailing list based on how often they respond to or interact with your emails. Use this data to determine how often you should email them.  

2. Complaint Rate

Context matters, especially when it comes to the success of your digital email marketing campaigns in Miami.  

When you send the wrong message to your subscribers, they'll report your emails as unwanted or as spam. And, you don't want that because it can have a significant impact on your email deliverability rate.

This is why you must monitor your complaint rate by using this formula:

Complaint Rate = (Amount of complaints/ complaints/ number of emails sent) x 100  

In general, the acceptable standard spam complaint rate is anything less than 0.1%.  

If your complaint rate is higher than 0.1% or you’re getting more than one complaint per 1,000 emails sent, you’ve got a problem to fix.  

Here are ways to reduce your complaint rate:

• Only send emails to contacts who have subscribed within the past 12 months.
• Send relevant, personalized content to the right subscribers.  
• Determine how many times a week or a month each of your subscribers wants to hear from you, and then segment them accordingly.
• Include an unsubscribe link at the top of your emails to push users to unsubscribe instead of reporting you as spam.  
• Include a note on top of your emails to remind subscribers how they were added to your mailing list.  

• Send automated onboarding emails to create brand familiarity and recognition.  

3. Open Rate

Open rate is an engagement metric that tells you how many successfully delivered emails were opened by your mailing list.  

Although open rates aren’t 100% accurate, it does give you a good idea of how your email campaign is performing.  A high open rate usually means that your subject lines are compelling and you sent them at the right time.  

The formula for open rate is:

OR = (Number of emails opened/ Total number of emails successfully delivered) x 100.  

Open rate is another engagement metric you want to track to determine where to focus your efforts and what to improve in your email marketing campaigns.  

Typically, having a low open rate could mean the following:

• You’re not sending enough emails or you’re spamming their inbox.

• You didn’t segment your email list.
• Your email subject lines aren’t compelling enough.  

4. Conversion Rate

Every digital email marketing campaign in Miami has a goal. It could be to get your subscribers to sign up for a free trial, buy a product, or download content.  

The number of people that respond positively to your emails and carry out exactly what you want them to do is called conversions.  

Your email campaign’s conversion rate indicates how successful your email marketing strategy is. It also concludes your return on investment.  

To compute the conversion rate of your email marketing campaign, here’s the formula you should follow:

CR = (Amount of conversions/ number of emails delivered) x 100

If you’re struggling to get your email subscribers to convert, altering specific elements in your email campaign may be the key to increasing your conversion rates. Here are some tips to help you:

• Optimize your email campaigns for mobile.  

• Segment your email list based on demographics, preferences and interests, behavior, psychographics, and subscriber email data.  
• Personalize your subject lines and sender name.  
• Create further engagement and commitment by using a double opt-in.
• Automate your email campaigns to respond to specific subscriber actions right away.  

5. Click-Through Rate

The Click-through rate reveals the number of subscribers who engaged with your email, by clicking on a specific link and visiting your site, out of everyone who received them in their inbox.  

By measuring the click-through rate of your campaigns, you can gain insight into the percentage of people in your email list who are interested in your email content. It can also help you measure performance in the following areas:

• Link placement
• Content
• Media type

• Email fatigue
• Link count

There are two ways you can track the number of subscribers that have clicked on a link: unique link click and all link click.  

All link clicks count all clicks through an email, even multiple clicks from the same user.  

Unique link clicks track every single user who clicks through a link in your email, revealing the actual number of subscribers who clicked.  

6. Unsubscribe Rate

The unsubscribe rate refers to the number of people who no longer want to receive your emails.  

Some of the top reasons why people unsubscribe are:

• You’re flooding your recipients’ inboxes.  
• You’re not using customer data to segment your mailing list and craft personalized email content.  

• Your subscribers don’t find your email interesting or a source of valuable information.  
• They’re just not invested in your brand or your offerings.  

By keeping an eye on your unsubscribe rate, you can gain insight into the people reading your emails, particularly about their preferences, interests, and what you can do to keep them engaged.  

To compute your unsubscribe rate, follow this formula:

Unsubscribe Rate = (Number of unsubscribes / Total number of successfully delivered emails) x 100

The standard industry norm for unsubscribe rate is under 0.2%. If your is high than this, consider doing the following:

• Segment your subscribers according to their interests.  
• Conduct a survey or poll to have a better understanding of what type of content they expect from you.  

7. Click-To-Open Rate

The click-to-open rate measures the number of subscribers who opened your email compared to the number that clicked something in the copy. It accurately measures your email’s level of interaction and relevance to your mailing list.  

If you have a high CTOR but a low CTR, it could mean that your email copy is well-crafted but you’re sending them to recipients who don’t find them relevant. On the other hand, if your CTOR is low but your CTR is high, this indicates that the content of your email isn’t compelling enough to motivate users to engage with it.  

To improve your email campaign’s CTOR, consider doing the following:

• Make your email content scannable and easy to read.
• Include a clear-to-action to take users to the next step and lead them to an end goal.  
• Your email content should be straight to the point.  

• Use high-quality images that capture the attention of your readers.  
• Place your links strategically across your content.  
• Address your recipients by their first name and include relevant information based on their previous interaction or purchase from you.  

8. Bounce Rate

The bounce rate indicates the number of people on your mailing list who didn't receive the email you sent.  

There are two kinds of bounces you need to be aware of:

• Soft bounce – This type of bounce has something to do with temporary problems related to an email address, such as a full inbox, server issues, and whatnot.  
• Hard bounce – Refers to permanent problems with an email. It could be that it has been permanently closed or it’s nonexistent in the first place.  

It’s important to monitor your bounce rate because it can impact your deliverability rate. A high bounce rate can also lower your sender score. A poor sender reputation can make ISPs think that you’re a scammer, causing service providers to send your email straight to spam.  

9. Subscriber Value

Revenue-per-subscriber or revenue-per-email is the method of calculating what each person in your email list is worth to your business.  

How much revenue does the average subscriber produce for your business per campaign?

Here's the formula to compute the value of your mailing list:

Revenue per Subscriber = Revenue from email/ total number of subscribers

This KPI tells you how valuable your subscribers are.  

Here’s how to compute your revenue per email:

Revenue Per Email = Profit from email / Number of emails successfully delivered

The KPI, Revenue per email, provides you valuable insights as to what types of email your subscribers are most responsive to. You can spot trends and identify email characteristics you can use to develop your most profitable email marketing campaigns.  

10. ROI

Typically, email marketing has a return on investment of $40 for every $1 you spend on digital email marketing in Miami.  

It’s no wonder email continues to be among the most effective marketing channels businesses can use to boost their revenue.  

By computing the ROI of your email campaigns, you can evaluate the cost-effectiveness of your email campaigns. You can determine how much you earned in contrast to how much you spent to implement your campaigns.  

To compute your email campaign’s ROI, here’s the formula:

ROI = [(Total sales from email campaign – Campaign costs) / Campaign costs] x 100

If you’re experiencing a relatively low ROI, consider doing an A/B email split test to determine which variation of your email your subscribers like best and boost your conversions.  

Are Your Digital Marketing Email Campaigns in Miami High Performing?

If you aren’t getting the best results from your email campaigns, the first thing you should do is take a step back and analyze the results.  

Are you tracking the right metrics?

By monitoring the right KPIs and metrics, you can identify which elements of your email you need to tweak and improve to generate better results!

At Digital Resource, our team of digital marketing experts in Miami will work with you to create a custom email marketing plan that will boost your revenue and grow your business.  

Contact us today to generate winning email marketing campaign results!

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