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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