Email Marketing Metrics 101: What You Should Be Monitoring

The best thing about email marketing automation or digital marketing, in general, is the amount of data you can gather. But your data will only make sense if you know how to generate insights from it and relate them to your performance. To make this easier for us, we look at metrics.

A wise digital marketer knows that doing all the email marketing best practices is not enough because looking at the right metrics is also essential to success. Metrics can guide your next move. It helps you spot the things you need to improve on. In the same way, it allows you to determine what you are doing right.

If you are new to email marketing automation or are already implementing it, be sure to monitor these email marketing metrics.

Delivery Rate

This metric tells you how many of the emails you sent went to the inbox of your recipients because apparently not all your emails are delivered. Low delivery rate may indicate that your email list is consisting of invalid email addresses. It can also mean that email service providers are blocking your email due to its spammy subject line or content.

Formula: Delivery Rate = [(Number of Emails Sent – Number of Bounces) / Number of Emails Sent)] X 100

If you sent 500 emails and got 10 bounces, you have 400 delivered emails. That means, your delivery rate is 80%.

Read more: Why Email Authentication Matters

Bounce Rate

A bounce means that your email was not delivered to recipient’s inbox due to different factors. A soft bounce happens when the recipient’s inbox is full, the server is down or your email content is too large. A hard bounce is what you have to look after as it means that the recipient’s email address is invalid or doesn’t exist. High hard bounce can put you in trouble as ESPs would think that you are a spammer.

Formula: Bounce Rate = (Number of Bounces / Number of Emails Sent) X 100

If you sent 500 emails and got 50 bounces, that’s 10% bounce rate.

Read more: How to Avoid a High Email Bounce Rate

Open Rate

Not all emails you send are being clicked to be read, so open rate tells you how many percent of emails delivered were opened or viewed. Low open rate could mean that you should work on your subject lines more.

Formula: Open Rate = (Number of Emails Opened / Number of Emails Delivered) X 100

If out of 100 successful emails delivered only 20 recipients clicked on it to read, your open rate is 20%.

Read more: 3 Reasons Why People Aren’t Opening Your Emails and How You Can Fix This

Click-through Rate (CTR)

To determine how well your CTAs are performing, check the click-through rate. This metric shows the percentage of recipients who clicked on any link in your email, or in many cases, your CTA. Many factors can affect your CTR such as link positioning, email length, link emphasis or time.

Formula: (Number of Unique Clicks / Number of Emails Delivered) X 100

If you got 100 unique clicks out of 150 emails delivered to recipient’s inbox, then your CTS is 66.67%.

Read more: How to make your call-to-action irresistible

Conversion Rate

Whether it’s inquiry, purchase, or signup, your goal is to convince your email recipients to take your desired action or to convert. Checking your conversion rate lets you know how effective your email campaign is in helping you reach your goal.

Formula: Conversion Rate = (Number of Users Who Completed Your Goal Action / Number of Email Delivered) X 100

If you deliver 300 emails to invite subscribers to sign up for your webinar and you receive 150 signups, then you have a 50% conversion rate.

Read more: How Can Thank You Pages and Conversion Codes Lower Your Advertising Costs?

Overall ROI

Your overall email marketing ROI allows you to find out how much revenue you have earned, or if you are just wasting money. Calculating your overall ROI may depend on your business type as well as your goals, but there is a basic formula for it.

Formula: Overall ROI = [(Amount of Sales Earned from Email Marketing – Email Marketing Costs) / Email Marking Costs] X 100

If you invested $500 in email marketing and earned $2,000, then you have 300% overall ROI.

Monitoring these email marketing metrics is a must to monitor the performance of your campaigns. When you check these metrics through the analytics of your email marketing automation software, you may feel swamped with numbers and data, but knowing their real value to your success will be worth it.

ActiveTrail’s reporting application allows you to monitor your performance

in real-time! Download for free from the app stores: