Analytics for email marketing are important to track in order to measure the success of your campaigns. By tracking things like open rates, click through rates, conversions, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, spam complaints, email shares, list growth, and revenue per email, you can optimize your campaigns for maximum success. Let’s take a closer look at each of these analytics for email marketing and see how they can help you improve your email marketing strategy!
The Open Rate
The open rate is the percentage of people who opened your email. This metric can help you determine how effective your subject line was in enticing people to open the email. You can improve your open rate by testing different subject lines and seeing which ones get the best response (that’s called A/B testing).
It’s important because it can give you an idea of how well your email was received by your audience. If you have a low open rate, it may mean that your subject line wasn’t enticing enough or that your email content wasn’t properly targeted. You can use this information to improve your email marketing strategy. When analyzing analytics for email marketing, this is one of the key indicators I use to determine how relevant and valuable a subject line is to subscribers.
The Click Through Rate
The click through rate is the percentage of people who clicked on a link in your email. This metric can help you determine how effective your content was in getting people to click through to your website or offer. You can improve your click through rate by making sure your content is interesting and relevant to your audience. In other words, this analytics for email marketing metric can indicate content quality.
You can also improve your click through rate by using eye-catching visuals and including Call to Actions (CTAs) in your email. CTAs are buttons or links that encourage people to take action, such as clicking through to your website or signing up for your offer.
The Conversion Rate
Conversions are the number of people who completed the desired action on your website or offer. This metric can help you determine how effective your email was in driving people to take the desired action. You can improve your conversion rate by making sure your email is clear and concise, and that the call to action is easy to find and follow.
Let’s clarify… This analytics for email marketing metric is dependent upon the strength of the landing page!
It’s a measure of how successful your email was. This could be anything from completing a purchase on your website to filling out a contact form. You can also improve your conversion rate by making sure your email has clear direction and focus. Keep your email message on a very specific subject. Keep your message short and sweet! Be sure to pay special attention to this analytics for email marketing metric, and keep tracking it – Always!
The Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the number of emails that are returned to the sender (you), because the message could not be delivered for some reason. The bounce rate is the percentage of emails that are bounced back to the sender. This metric is important to track because it can help you determine whether your email marketing campaigns are actually reaching your audience. There are two types of bounces, hard bounces and soft bounces.
Hard Bounces
Hard bounces are emails that bounced back to the sender because the message couldn’t be delivered at all, like when a email address is invalid or doesn’t exist. If you have a high number of hard bounces, it means that your email marketing campaigns are not reaching your audience. This could be because the emails addresses you are using are invalid (you need to clean your mailing list), or your messages are being blocked by spam filters.
Soft Bounces
Soft bounces are emails that bounced back to the sender, but the message could still be delivered later, if certain conditions were met, like when an email address is temporarily unavailable for some reason (often it can be a technical reason). If you have a high number of soft bounces, it means that your email marketing campaigns are reaching some people, but not everyone. This might be because your messages are too large to fit in someone’s inbox, or they’re getting caught in spam filters too.
The Unsubscribe Rate
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of people who unsubscribed from your email list after receiving your email. This metric can help you determine how effective your email was in keeping people interested and subscribed to your list. You can improve your unsubscribe rate by making sure your emails are relevant and interesting.
If a high number of people unsubscribe after receiving your email, it means that your email was not relevant or interesting enough (it could indicate poor content). Again, you can improve your unsubscribe rate by making sure your emails are relevant!
Spam Complaints
Spam complaints are the number of people who reported your email as spam. This metric can help you determine how effective your email was in avoiding the spam folder. You can improve (lower) your spam complaint rate by making sure your emails are relevant and interesting, and by using a reputable email service provider.
If a lot of people reported your email as spam, it means that your content wasn’t relevant or interesting, and you need to improve your strategy. A low spam complaint rate means that your emails are more likely to reach the recipients’ inboxes, which is a good thing. You can also reduce the number of spam complaints by also ensuring your subscribers have double opted-in to receive your emails.
Double Opt-In
Double Opt-In means that a person has subscribed to your email list, and then confirmed their subscription (via an automated opt-in email they receive). That way you know for sure that they want to hear from you, and you won’t have the problem of people unsubscribing because of spam complaints.
It’s a good idea to just always use double opt-in as that is also ensures you are compliant with anti-spam legislation.
Email Shares
Email shares are the number of people who forwarded or shared your email with others. This metric can help you determine how viral your email was. You can improve your email share rate by making sure your content is interesting and relevant, and by including a call to action to share the email with others.
If more people are forwarding or sharing your email with others, it means they think your content is interesting and worth sharing. This is a clear signal showing you how you can improve your future campaigns – Why? Because a higher share rate clearly means people find the subject matter important – So you can dive deeper into in for future email campaigns!
Subscriber List Growth
List growth is a calculation to determine if your mailing list is growing, or shrinking. It’s easy to determine. Here’s the formula:
(New subscribers – Unsubscribed) ÷ Total Subscribers x 100 = List Growth %
So for example, if you had a list with 35 new subscribers and 4 unsubscribed, leaving you with a list of 1562 subscribers, that would mean:
(35 new subscribers – 4 unsubscribed) ÷ 1562 total subscribers x 100 = 1.98% list growth
Often list growth is not a typically provided (by default) analytics for email marketing metric – You might want to maintain a spreadsheet.
Naturally, you’ll want to watch that the number of new subscribers is higher than the unsubscribe rate. This metric can help you determine how effective your email was in getting people to subscribe to your list (and keep them there). You can improve your list growth rate by making sure your email is relevant and interesting, and by including a call to action to subscribe to your list.
This is a critical metric to monitor in your analytics for email marketing stats. Be sure to track the ebb and flow over time.
Remember… Always provide value in your email campaign. Be sure to address the “What’s in it for me” aspect for your email audience.
Revenue Per Email
Revenue per email is the amount of money you made for every email you sent. This metric can help you determine how effective your email marketing strategy was in terms of generating revenue (and hits at improved conversions). You can improve your revenue per email by making sure your emails are relevant and interesting, and by including a call to action to buy or learn more about your product or service.
Often this analytics for email marketing metric is not automatically tracked (but there are tools for this). However with regards to sales from your email campaigns, Mailchimp (among others) is all over this with their QuickBooks integration. Check out their video below.
They also have a great tutorial about analytics for email marketing: About Email Campaign Reports, when using them as your ESP (email service provider).
Your email should be very targeted (on focus) and should be well-written. Encourage readers to buy or learn more about your product or service. If you can persuade people to take action after reading your email, you can significantly increase your revenue per email.
It also helps to leverage segmentation, which is a terrific method of improving revenue per email. In fact when tracking your analytics for email marketing, it’s a good idea to maintain and track separate reports on each segment.
Email segmentation is the process of dividing your email list into smaller, more targeted groups (where your email is more relevant, and attractive, to these specific people). This allows you to send more relevant and pertinent emails to each group, which can result not only in higher revenue, but also in higher open rates and click through rates, as well as increased conversions and revenue.
Conclusion: Analytics for Email Marketing
Analytics for email marketing are important because they give you insights into how well your campaign is performing. By understanding which metrics are most important for success, you can work to improve your email marketing strategy and see better results. For success, you can work to improve your email marketing strategy and realize better results.
You can learn much more about email marketing (including analytics for email marketing) by visiting our Small Business Email Marketing posts. As well as find out more about Email Analytics.