10 Ways To Measure Success of Your Email Marketing Campaign

10 Ways To Measure Success of Your Email Marketing Campaign

What is the most effective way to measure the success of an email marketing campaign?


To help you best measure the success of your email marketing campaigns, we asked marketing professionals and business leaders this question for their best insights. From using the open rate to tracking how many subscribers reach your predefined goal, there are several ways you may adopt to effectively gauge the level of success your email marketing campaigns.


Here are 10 ways to measure the success of an email marketing campaign:

  • Use The Open Rate
  • Check The Average Click-through Rate
  • Consider The Spam Complaints and Forwarding Rates
  • Look at The Email Conversion Rates
  • Use The Outcomes of A/B Testing
  • Gauge Interest Levels by Unsubscribe Rates
  • Analyze Your Return On Investment
  • Track The Number of People Who Visit Your Website
  • Use The Bounce Rate
  • Track How Many Subscribers Reach Your Predefined Goal

Use The Open Rate

It’s my view that this is the best way to gauge the performance of an email marketing campaign because open rate is the most common metric to look at after running a campaign. Open rate is a metric that measures the percentage of your email recipients who clicked on the link in your message.

There are a lot of variables that go into what constitutes a “good open rate,” such as the industry and the quality of the email list. 18 percent is the average open rate forecast for 2021, according to Campaign Monitor’s recent benchmarks. However, open rates can be influenced by factors such as the sender’s name or subject line.

Gerrid Smith, Fortis Medical Billing

Check The Average Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This is, in my opinion, the most effective way to gauge the performance of an email marketing campaign, as the click-through rate (CTR), which measures the proportion of recipients who clicked on a link within your email, is widely used.

To get a high click-through rate, consider the industry, the topic of the material, the amount of links and calls to action just like you would with open rates. Similarly, a survey by Campaign Monitor found that last year’s average click-through rate was 2.6 per cent. Email campaigns that urge users to visit your website, such as a blog post or an online shop, necessitate a high click-through rate (CTR).

Edward Mellett, Wikijob

Consider The Spam Complaints and Forwarding Rates

Since there are so many possible activities recipients might do after receiving an email campaign, this is my preferred method of measuring its success. Keep an eye on a few of these to see if there are any abrupt spikes or trends. These activities include spam complaints, which measure how many individuals have reported your email as spam in their mail provider. Keep a watch on these metrics, even if you don’t expect any of your email campaigns to be flagged as spam.

You never know when a particular campaign or subject line can cause an increase in spam complaints. The forward rate is a metric indicating how many individuals forwarded or shared your email campaign with a recipient after they received it. By keeping an eye on this measure, you can determine whether or not a piece of content or a particular campaign has struck a chord with your audience and been forwarded to friends, family, or coworkers.

Sumit Bansal, TrumpExcel

Look at The Email Conversion Rates

Take a look at your email conversion rates. This is a great measure of a campaign’s success because it’ll let you know if your audience is interested in what you’re offering and how you’re offering it, but it will also provide some insight as to how your audience prefers to engage. For example, is your audience most likely to fill out a form for more information, or go straight to making a purchase? These considerations are crucial in measuring your email marketing campaigns and in determining what works best for your brand and product/service.

To determine your email conversion rate, divide the total number of completed actions by the total number of emails delivered, and then just multiply by 100! Track this metric, adjust your strategy accordingly, and watch your email marketing campaigns gain more traction over time.

Gigi Ji, KOKOLU

Use The Outcomes of A/B Testing

I believe this is the best way to measure the performance of an email marketing campaign since A/B testing or split testing is an excellent way to test certain components of your email campaign by sending two different versions of an email and comparing the results.

Sending the same email with two different subject lines or the same subject lines but with a different call-to-action (CTA) button works well when only one part of a campaign is being evaluated. With split testing an email campaign, you’ll have access to stats that you can compare directly against each other. Open rates for a specific subject line, for instance, might go up, but click-through rates for a specific CTA button might go up.

Kenny Kline, BarBend

Gauge Interest Levels by Unsubscribe Rates

As a consultant, my main method of measuring success for my email marketing campaigns is by monitoring unsubscribe rates in the 24 hours following a newsletter being sent. This is important for me because I’m speaking directly to a specific SEO audience of like-minded consultants and SEO’s, so unsubscribe rates keep me largely in check by outlining a direct correlation between whether the content is being seen positively or negatively by its target audience.

James Taylor, James Taylor SEO Consultancy

Analyze Your Return On Investment (ROI)

To measure the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign, analyze your return from investment (ROI). The profit (or loss) will tell you a lot about the efficiency and profitability of your actions and allow you to plan the next steps. So take a look at gained value and spend value and make calculations.

The basic formula for determining return is: ROI (%) = (Gained Value – Spent Value) / (Spent Value).

However, various online ROI calculators make your life easier. Depending on the score, you see what results your campaign is getting. Executing email marketing campaigns without knowing which strategy is profitable and which is not won’t make your actions successful. ROI is there to tell you whether campaigns generate revenue or deplete the budget.

Nina Paczka, MyPerfectResume

Track The Number of People Who Visit Your Website

This, in my opinion, is the best approach to gauge the performance of an email marketing campaign since it allows you to see exactly what percentage of your total website traffic is a result of your email campaigns. This measure must first be set up in your tracking platform before it can be accessed. All traffic that comes from email will be categorized as “direct” in Google Analytics (unless you help Google tell the difference between email traffic and direct traffic).

Max Whiteside, Breaking Muscle

Use The Bounce Rate

For me, this is the best method for measuring the performance of an email marketing campaign because if you want to analyze your emails’ ability to set goals, focus on the bounce rate of the landing pages connected to your emails. Bounce rates are a measure of how many emails you send but don’t receive any response from your intended audience. Soft bounces and harsh bounces are two different types of bounce rates.

The first can be caused by a fault with the recipient’s server or an overflowing mailbox. Emails can be resent in these situations, but it’s possible that the recipient will receive them after the issue is resolved on their end. A hard bounce occurs when an email is sent to an address that doesn’t exist, is closed, or is otherwise inactive. If you have a high number of hard bounces, your company may be perceived by internet service providers as a spammer.

David Janssen, VPNOverview

Track How Many Subscribers Reach Your Predefined Goal

Each email marketing campaign can have different objectives.
For example, an eCommerce sales email will want a goal around actual product sales. An email newsletter for a B2B company could simply be the amount of subscribers who clicked through to their website.

In some cases, organizations may focus on a vanity metric like open rates as well. Often this is misdirected, however if your email campaign is purely for branding then perhaps this would be a goal in itself.

Miles Burke, Australian Software Guide

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8 Summer Email Marketing Campaign Ideas That Actually Work

Summer Email Marketing Campaign Ideas that Actually Work

What are some summer email marketing campaign ideas that actually work?



To help you launch a successful summer email marketing campaign, we asked email marketers and business leaders this question for their best tips. From creating offline travel reads to presenting seasonal discounts, there are several summer email marketing campaign ideas that have been proven to capture the attention of audiences.


Here are eight summer email marketing campaign ideas:

  • Create Offline Travel Reads to Capture a Captive Audience
  • Think About Parents in Summer Time
  • Connect Your Emails to the Outdoors
  • Prize Draws and Contests
  • Pay Attention to Summer Sales!
  • Offer Summertime Tips and Resources.
  • Send Emails Later in the Day
  • Present Seasonal Discounts in a Travel-themed Newsletter

Create Offline Travel Reads to Capture a Captive Audience

One creative idea for a summer email marketing campaign is to send a series of “travel reads” recipients can save and read later offline while on car trips or in line at the airport. This trick capitalizes on the idle time spent journeying to summertime locations and lends you a captive audience who is likely to pay you full attention. The most crucial part of the plan is to create content that is practical and helpful and not merely advertorial and to include a call to action to draw folks back online.

Michael Alexis, TeamBuilding

Think About Parents in Summer Time

Summer time can be difficult for stay-at-home parents because they are trying to find constant entertainment for their kids while they’re out of school. While creating a summer email marketing campaign, think about how your product or service could support moms (or certainly dads) that are home with their kids all day. Could you promote something that would distract or entertain the kids? Does your product or service allow the moms or dads to relax once the kids are in bed? Does it make their day easier so they can focus on their children more? Summer means 24 hours of taking care of children for a large group, so create an email campaign that will make their job easier!

Logan Mallory, Motivosity

Connect Your Emails to the Outdoors

Summer invokes thoughts of vacations and theming your email around the positive emotions associated with sunny carefree days is a great way to build a summer email marketing campaign. Reading emails is primarily an indoor activity which is opposite of what we pair with summer, thus, creating a connection to the outdoors and activity is a must in order to build a successful campaign.

Sending emails with fun outdoor activity suggestions, a summer music playlist through Spotify, or best beaches to visit checklist, can tie your business to that theme of fun. When customers receive this email, they will feel those positive emotions and associate with your business, building the connections you desire. By tailoring your email to touch on the positive emotions people associate with summer, you will build a successful marketing campaign that will lead to conversions.

Cody Candee, Bounce

Host Competitions to Begin Conversations

In my opinion, this “begins a conversation in your community with your customers,” which in turn strengthens their loyalty to your company. The Father’s Day holiday is a great opportunity to host a candy guessing or essay writing contest for youngsters. Your summer email marketing campaign will stand out from the crowd of generic newsletters with this added touch of warmth and humanity. Competitions are a great way to develop low-cost, high-return content for your email and social media marketing campaigns. Promote contests and freebies through your newsletter and other online outlets. Prizes in Starbucks’ Summer Game competition are both enjoyable and useful, and the event is seamlessly integrated with the company’s loyalty program.

Jay Bats, ContentBASE

Pay Attention to Summer Sales

Summer holiday sales are an effective marketing campaign because consumers are primed to look for deals and are ready to shop at certain times of the year. Memorial Day and the Fourth of July are holidays where people search for steals on products and services. Back to school is another time when people are ready to spend. Tap into the natural cycle of sales for a compelling summer marketing campaign.

Sumeer Kaur, Lashkaraa

Offer Summertime Tips and Resources

Summer is the time when most people are out enjoying the sunshine. According to Marketing Insider Group, email newsletters have a 23.4% open rate. What happens after people open these emails is entirely up to the marketer. No matter what industry your business is in, you can use related summertime tips and resources in your newsletter. 

For example, if you’re running an online food publication, you can add a new summer recipe to your weekly newsletter. It’s important to include a CTA and link at the bottom like “check out more of our sizzling summer recipes”. This will drive traffic to your website by increasing engagement. Helpful tips such as how to keep your bread from molding during the summer months establish authority for the brand and drive interest by providing useful information that consumers are looking for. Tips coupled with resources create strong newsletters with higher engagement rates than those that simply include company updates or news alone.

John Cammidge, JTC Consultants

Send Emails Later in the Day

In the summer, many people are enjoying the sunshine. They’re outside doing activities. They may even eat dinner later because it gets dark later. So don’t send your marketing emails when your audience isn’t as likely to be reading. Understanding the seasonal lifestyles of your customers is a key to success.

Scott Lieberman, Touchdown Money

Present Seasonal Discounts in a Travel-themed Newsletter

Summer is a time when a lot of people travel. Beach destinations and outdoor adventures in the mountains resonate with people. Using color schemes often associated with summer such as orange, yellow, and light blue can make your email more visually appealing and relevant to summer readers.

Additionally, images of beaches or the wilderness reinforce the idea that summer is in full effect. Once you have a solid email template, write or have an email copywriter create the body of the email. Subject lines like “splash into our summer sale” or “25% off on everything under the sun” can get more people opening your emails.

Aside from offering seasonal discounts in the newsletter itself, you can include a giveaway on the landing page with travel items or tickets to a coveted holiday destination. Research from Unbounce suggests that giveaways increase subscriptions by more than 700%. With more subscriptions comes more conversions. This is how your newsletter can get more traction this summer.

Dustin Ray, Inc File

The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing

The Do's and Don'ts of Email Marketing

What is the most common mistake brands make with their email marketing campaigns?


To help you identify common mistakes with email marketing campaigns, we asked marketing professionals and business leaders this question for their best advice. From not ignoring email personalization and data to including a strong call-to-action, there are several do’s and don’ts that may help you conduct effective email marketing campaigns for your business.


Here are 12 do’s and don’ts of email marketing:

  • Don’t Ignore Email Personalization and Data
  • Make Emails Natural and Avoid Branding
  • Don’t Neglect Mobile Users
  • Allow Users Control Over Their Subscriptions
  • Avoid Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
  • Don’t be Desperate for Engagement
  • Test Your Email Content for Effectiveness
  • Avoid Obnoxious Subject Lines
  • Do Not Use Black Hat Techniques
  • Make Your Emails Load Fast
  • Don’t Leave Out The Value When You Email
  • Include a Strong Call-To-Action

Don’t Ignore Email Personalization and Data

The most common mistake brands make with their email marketing campaigns is that they do not work on email personalization and don’t rely on data when setting up email campaigns. This results in low open rates, high unsubscribe rates, and high spam complaint rates. To avoid making this mistake, brands should focus on email personalization and use data to segment their email lists. This will help them send more relevant and targeted emails that are more likely to be opened and clicked on. Additionally, brands should also use data to track the performance of their email campaigns so they can continually optimize and improve them.

Iryna Kutnyak, Quoleady

Make Emails Natural and Avoid Excessive Branding 

The first step for a successful email campaign is that people open your email. Second, people need to start reading your content. This sounds easy, but in reality, companies fail on precisely these two steps. Why? Because the email is recognized as an advertisement right away. Email is the one channel where the brand does not help. 

People read emails from people. We consider emails from a company (especially if we do not know them well) as spammy. Therefore, do not brand your emails. Do not use HTML markups too much. Do not try to deliver a shiny brand experience. Instead, mimic how a natural person would write. Just plain text and probably an image. Keep it short. Do not include multiple topics. Just send out the one fact you want to convey without much background noise. People will appreciate reading information. Not an advert.

Stephan Wenger, B2B Marketing World

Don’t Neglect Mobile Users

One common mistake brands make with their email marketing campaigns is neglecting mobile users. If someone cannot read an email at a glance, they will likely simply not read it period. Having messy or warped content anywhere in the preview can put people off from reading an email out of fear it is spam or malware too. Always remember that text, graphics, etc. look different on a computer screen, versus a phone screen.

Tony Chan, CloudForecast

Allow Users Control Over Their Subscriptions

One of the worst email marketing mistakes your company can make is limiting the control users have over their settings. Let your users manage their subscriptions and give them the chance to choose the type of content they want to receive. Not assuming that all of your customers want to sign up for all your emails or newsletters shows them that you care about their preferences and helps you keep them interested. Your customers should feel excited when they get one of your emails, not annoyed.

John Cheng, Baotris

Avoid Spelling and Grammar Mistakes

Simple spelling and grammar mistakes. I just don’t trust a brand when they send me marketing emails and I catch easy spelling and grammatical errors. The company loses my trust immediately because it shows me they don’t respect their customers. If a company can’t put the time and effort into doing a simple spelling and grammar check, why should I expect them to put time and effort into their product, or customer satisfaction? If a company doesn’t respect their customers, why should customers respect them?

Karim Hachem, Sunshine79

Don’t be Desperate for Engagement

You know that feeling you get when you walk into a furniture store and a salesman rushes you before you’ve even had a chance to get your bearings? Don’t be that. There are few bigger turn-offs to email list subscribers than being bombarded with front loaded content. Lambasting consumers with emails right after they sign up for your email listing are surefire ways to get labeled as spam in their minds. And we all know where spam goes. Don’t be desperate for engagement. Design your email flow to be conscious of your readers’ time and personal agency. It’s always better to have one email over a six that got tossed in the trash bin.

Alex Chavarry, Cool Links

Test Your Email Content for Effectiveness

We see many brands fail to test how effective their content converts their users. Use split testing methods to make sure the emails you send to generate leads or convert sales are using effective content to do so. Each target audience reacts differently to branded content. The best way for your business to know what they’re using as marketing content is effective is to test the content against other variations until they have optimal results. When you don’t test your content, you make a shot in the dark. To get the best ROI for your business, invest in strategic marketing testing to ensure your business can do what it’s made to do.

Kevin Miller, kevinmiller.com

Avoid Obnoxious Subject Lines

Obnoxious subject lines will deflate any email marketing campaign. Even the best products and promotions don’t stand a chance with consumers if the marketing campaign does not get its foot in the door. Annoying subject lines will get that door shut in an instance. Effective subject lines should peak the curiosity of the target audience and avoid utilizing a salesy tone. Consumers do not want to be sold over email. Email sales pitches equal spam in their mind. A true value add that is visible from the subject will grab the attention of customers. Every effective marketer should also consider testing subject lines in order to see what resonates with their customer base.

Katy Carrigan, Goody

Do Not Use Black Hat Techniques

When talking about email marketing campaigns, most mistakes fall within the category of black hat techniques for improving visibility online. One common mistake that we have experienced is adding people to newsletters that they haven’t signed up for, as well as buying subscribers. These practices might seem like they increase the reach at first glance, but can be very dangerous and harm the authenticity and legitimacy of your email marketing campaigns. This is so due to the fact that as a result of this practice, your emails will be sent to the “spam” folder, and consequently place the connection between your brand and the spam folder for the people that receive those emails. Make sure you avoid that, and only use white hat techniques to improve web traffic and brand visibility, as there are many ways to promote a successful email campaign.

Marco Genaro Palma, Genaro Palma

Make Your Emails Load Fast

If you’re sending an email to a customer or potential customer, make it a priority to create one that loads within two seconds or less of clicking. If a customer has decided to open your email, you only have seconds to make an impression. This shouldn’t mean that you stuff your email with heavy visual content like stock images and videos to a point where it affects the loading speed., set a cap on the number of images used and compress the media as much as possible to get the best of both – a shorter load time and an attractive email. Furthermore, you can consider using impactful content that grabs and keeps the attention of the recipient instead.

Igal Rubinshtein, Home Essentials Direct

Don’t Leave Out The Value When You Email

Marketing campaigns often include promotions that are content-rich, as we wish to entice our target audience by offering value, but somehow, many businesses make the mistake of removing that element in their email marketing efforts. It is important to understand that your business has more than products to offer your customers, it has knowledge and expertise. By designing your email to offer value, whether it is answering questions, providing the latest industry information, or offering helpful tips, you will motivate your customers to open your email. Neglecting to do this, and limiting them solely to advertisement status, will have your quickly losing interest, and you will see your open rates decline, as well as your subscribers.

Anthony Puopolo, Rex MD

Include a Strong Call-To-Action

Many brands neglect to include a strong Call to Action in their email marketing campaigns. One of the necessary components of driving good conversions through email marketing is including a colorful, ‘loud’ request to users to progress through the sales funnel. The best CTA’s pop out from an email, usually in blue, red, or orange, to get users’ attention about a product’s value. When the next steps to buying or browsing a product get lost in the content of a marketing email, businesses lose out on conversions due to expecting users to work harder than they likely will. 

The key to driving the best conversions is to use obvious CTA’s that make progressing through the sales funnel as easy as possible for users. Focus on your emails’ visual appeal and plant strategic CTA’s that grab users’ attention.

Shawn Munoz, Pure Relief

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