”Without the right marketing metrics, you are shooting in the dark” – Ian Brodie
Email marketing has the power to transform your business by allowing you to nurture those all-important leads and convert them to customers, but not if you aren’t doing it right!
But how do you know what is right and wrong? This can be a stumbling block for many when starting out on their email marketing journey. Cracking email marketing really is a case of trial and error, but the great news is marketing metrics can help guide you in that process.
What are marketing metrics?
Metrics are measurable values used to demonstrate the effectiveness of campaigns. They provide valuable insights helping measure your progress. They are an important part of email marketing as they save a huge amount of guesswork, yet they are often overlooked.
Getting started with marketing metrics…
For each email marketing campaign, you will have different goals. This may be growing your number of subscribers or generating leads. Depending on what you are looking to achieve, the following metrics can help guide you to future success.
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The CTR: Click-through rate
Your click through rate is a common way to tell how well your campaign has done. CTR is the metric for how many people clicked on the links that are in your email. For example, if you were sharing a blog post, this metric will show how many clicked onto that. Typically, you will find this rate lower than open rates.
Amazingly, placement is a huge factor which affects click through rate, the right hand, top corner is favoured by many businesses. Try different positions and measure the results.
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Conversion Rate
This metric allows you to see what number of individuals not only clicked on your links, but then undertook a specific action after. For example, if your link sent your audience to Eventbrite, your conversion rate would measure how many of them then actually went on to purchase a ticket.
Conversion rates allow you see wee what your ROI on email marketing is.
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Open rate
This is the statistic which tracks how many of your subscribers opened your email campaign. It is the simplest way to know how many of your subscribers received your message.
Ideally, you would be aiming at an open rate of over 24%. Use your stats and previous subject lines to steer you in the right direction.
An important thing to remember though is that often the fate of your open rate relies on how enticing your subject line is. Using personalised subject lines, such as ones that include a subscriber’s first name helps. As does using emojis.
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The bounce rates
This helps you know how many of your subscriber email addresses didn’t actually receive your email campaign.
If you find your campaigns have a high percentage of bounces, what you may have are a large number of fake email addresses, or old ones perhaps with errors when entered on the sign-up form. Try and keep on top of these, if you see regular addresses bouncing – remove them from your list.
A fab way to improve this rate is to ask for a double opt-in. This means subscribers are asked to verify their address and you are left with an audience that genuinely wants to receive your emails.
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Unsubscribes
Although this is typically seen to be a negative metric, you can take two positives from it:
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It allows you to narrow your email list down to those who want to see your content. This will lead to better, more accurate metrics.
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Allowing your subscribers to unsubscribe builds trust, as you give them the freedom to select what content they wish to see from you.
To keep this as low as possible, try to ensure that the content you send out is valuable, engaging and best of all – entertaining (where possible)!
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List growth rate
This metric is the opposite to the unsubscribe rate. It allows you to track how your list is growing.
To improve this rate, try focusing on creating engaging and enticing landing pages, outlining exactly what to expect from your email marketing campaigns.
Keep a regular eye on these email marketing metrics to help direct you as to the success of particular campaigns. If you would like more information on our Transpondmetrics, you can visit our extensive knowledge base, here