The Most Important Email Marketing Metrics to Track

Your email marketing program is full of useful statistics you can use to improve your campaigns. These email marketing metrics can reveal how many links were clicked, the subject lines that get lots of engagement, and where your campaigns may be falling flat.

If you’re not sure how well your emails are performing, or want to increase conversion rates, start by taking a look at these five email marketing metrics!

1. Bounce Rate

The bounce rate tells you how many emails didn’t make it into a recipient’s inbox. If you send an email to 1,000 subscribers and you have a bounce rate of 2.5%, that means 25 people never got to read your awesome message.

Emails can bounce for a few different reasons.

If the recipient’s inbox is full or experiencing a connectivity issue, one of your emails may be rejected. This is called a soft bounce — there’s not much you can do about it, and it doesn’t necessarily indicate a long-term issue. 

However, if the email is undeliverable because you’re trying to reach an incorrectly typed or defunct email address, this is called a hard bounce and is something you need to address.

2. Open Rate

You can get a sense of how successful your messages are at competing for recipients’ attention by looking at the open rate. It’s as simple as it sounds: this metric shows you how many people saw your email in their inbox and clicked to open it.

If you have a low open rate, people either aren’t noticing your emails or just aren’t interested in opening them. By testing your email content, timing, and subject lines, you can begin to get an idea of what your subscribers want.

3. Conversion Rate

If you’re selling a product or service — even a free course — you’ll want to keep a close eye on your conversion rate. This metric shows you how many people wound up making a purchase or signing up for an offer as a result of your emails.

Coaches may see conversion rates go up after emails that share client testimonials, while eCommerce brands may discover that abandoned-cart discount codes are most effective.

4. Click Rates

This is where email metrics can start to get a little tricky. There are actually two kinds of click rates you can look at.

The click-through rate shows you the percentage of people who received your email and clicked on a link. This isn’t a foolproof metric to use when evaluating a campaign’s success. It can be skewed by delivery issues, an unusual number of soft bounces, or even events like a holiday — when everyone is slamming their subscriber lists with emails.

Click-to-open rates give you the percentage of people who opened your email and clicked on a link. Because this metric just looks at the people who actually started to read your email, you can get a better sense of how appealing the content and layout is to subscribers who are engaging with your blasts.

5. Unsubscribe Rate

It stinks when someone wants to leave your email list, but you can’t force them to stay. If you see a big spike in unsubscribes after a particular type of email blast, this can be a sign that something isn’t sitting well with your audience. Segmenting and cleaning your email list can help to reduce unsubscribe rates.

Ultimately, the most important email metrics are the ones you can track and feel comfortable doing so. If your email metrics feel like a mess, you’re not sure where to start, or you just don’t have time to follow up on every campaign — we can help! Contact Shawley Marketing to discuss how our professional email marketing services can help you transform your messaging and conversions.