In order to measure the effectiveness of your email marketing initiatives, it is important to ask yourself what the overall goal of you operation is. Regardless of what you determine, your next step is to figure out which metrics you need to track in order to identify how well you are working towards that goal.
Here are 5 email metrics you need to measure and how you can use them to improve the performance of your email marketing program overall.
Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate (CTR) is typically the first valuable metric you should be evaluating when looking at the effectiveness of both individual emails and campaigns over time. The click-through rate of your email identifies the number of email recipients that engaged with your content, meaning not only did they open the email, but they clicked on something within the body. Frequently, click-through rate is used when companies would like to conduct A/B testing, with the intention of finding new ways to improve their click-to-open rate. The click-to-open rate, or CTOR, reveals the effectiveness of email content, where unique clicks are divided by unique open and are presented as a percentage.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate of your email measures the percentage of messages sent, but not delivered to the recipient’s inbox. Email bounces are most commonly due to a result of invalid or closed email addresses. You should work to repair or remove email address what have bounced from your list, as they not only inflate your numbers, but overtime they can increase the likelihood of your correspondence becoming spam.
Forwarding Rate
The forwarding rate identifies the amount of email recipients who have forwarded your email to other accounts. This metric is important because not only does it identify the interest of the content you are distributing, but it gives you the opportunity to attract new leads. If applicable, encourage your email recipients to pass along the content to interested friends or colleagues, so you can keep track of how many new contacts come in through this method of referrals.
Unsubscribes
The unsubscribe rate of your email measures the number of unsubscribes divided by the number of messages delivered. The unsubscribe rate is best used to use gauge how interested the recipient of your message was based on the content you delivered. Simply put, the higher the unsubscription rate, the lower the interest.
ROI
Most importantly, you should be measuring the overall return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing initiatives. By evaluating the effectiveness of each of the above four metrics, you will be able to identify how valuable emailing marketing is for your organization overall and where you need to improve your efforts.
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