Tracking the performance of your email campaigns is crucial to understanding what strategies and tactics are working. With the right metrics and tools, you can optimize your emails for higher open rates, clickthrough rates, and conversions.
Why track email campaign performance?
Here are some of the key reasons you should track your email campaign metrics:
- See what subject lines, content and design is resonating with your audience
- Identify high performing segments to send more emails to
- Find out which days and times get highest engagement
- Monitor engagement over time to see impact of optimization
- Understand subscriber behaviors and preferences
- Calculate return on investment from email campaigns
In short, tracking campaign performance allows you to iterate and improve your email marketing strategy over time. The more data you have, the more informed decisions you can make about what works.
Key email metrics to track
Here are some of the most important email marketing metrics to track:
Email sends
This metric shows how many email messages were successfully sent out in a campaign. It provides the baseline volume you are working with.
Bounces
Bounces occur when emails are returned undeliverable due to invalid or outdated addresses. Tracking both hard and soft bounces allows you to clean up your list by removing defunct email addresses.
Opens
Opens represent the number of recipients who opened your email. This indicates your subject line was compelling enough for them to engage.
Unique opens
Unique opens refer to the number of individual recipients who opened the email. This prevents multiple opens by the same person distorting your data.
Open rate
Open rate is the percentage of total recipients who opened your email. Benchmark this against your industry average.
Clicks
Clicks measure how often your call-to-action buttons, links and other clickable elements were clicked in the email content.
Clickthrough rate (CTR)
Clickthrough rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked on links in the email out of total successful sends. Aim for a CTR of 2-5%.
Click-to-open rate (CTOR)
Click-to-open rate reveals how many people clicked compared to how many opened the email. This shows content relevance.
Unsubscribes
Unsubscribes are when recipients opt out of your mailing list via email preferences. Keeping an eye on unsubscribes helps avoid spam complaints.
Conversions
Conversions represent any desired goal from your email – signups, downloads, purchases etc. This is the true ROI of your campaigns.
Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who completed a conversion out of total sends. Use this to determine email content effectiveness.
Revenue
For ecommerce brands, track how much revenue came directly from your email campaigns. This shows the monetary return you are getting.
Tools for tracking email metrics
Now that we’ve covered the key metrics, here are some tools to track them:
Email service providers
Leading email service providers like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, GetResponse and Benchmark offer full reporting on opens, clicks, bounces and more right within their platforms.
Google Analytics
Adding campaign tracking parameters to your email links allows you to view clicks, conversions and other engagement in Google Analytics. This gives you flexibility on analysis.
CRM platforms
If you have a CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot, you can import email metrics to segment leads and track the subscriber journey over time.
UTM links
UTM links (Urchin Tracking Module) appended to your links provide visibility on traffic sources, channels, landing pages and other dimensions.
For example:
https://www.example.com/offer?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale
Marketing analytics software
Tools like Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude and Heap provide event tracking and analysis on how users interact with your emails to uncover behavioral trends.
Surveys
Asking subscribers directly through surveys and polls provides qualitative data on how they perceive your emails. This brings out subjective feedback.
Now let’s look at how to analyze and segment your email data…
Analyzing campaign performance
Once you’ve tracked email metrics over time, here are some ways to make sense of the data:
Compare against past campaigns
Look at open, clickthrough and conversion rates compared to your previous email sends. Are the numbers increasing or decreasing over time?
Compare against industry benchmarks
How do your campaign metrics stack up against industry averages? Refer to benchmarks by sector to get context.
Industry | Open Rate | Clickthrough Rate |
---|---|---|
Education | 26.09% | 4.41% |
Media & Publishing | 20.81% | 2.77% |
Software | 21.5% | 3.05% |
Retail & Ecommerce | 20.81% | 5.31% |
Compare campaign elements
For a single campaign, break down performance by different elements like email layout, subject line, content topics, calls-to-action, day and time sent etc.
Analyze behavior flows
Use a funnel report to view how subscribers progressed from open to click to conversion. Where are dropoffs happening in the workflow?
Image source: business2community.com
Compare subscriber segments
Break down your list by customer persona, demographics, location, purchase history etc. See which segments engage the most.
3 steps to segmenting your email list
Let’s look at how to slice your email list into different segments with a simple 3 step workflow:
1. Import subscriber data into your email service provider
– Bring in customer information from your CRM, support desk, sales team, web analytics etc.
– Relevant data includes demographics, psychographics, behaviors, purchase history, support tickets, behavioral traits.
– Data can be imported via API integrations, CSV uploads or connected cloud storage.
2. Create segments based on attributes
– Use filters to create groups based on gender, location, engagement metrics, order history, content preferences etc.
– Dynamic segmentation automatically updates groups as subscriber data changes.
– Create both one-time and ongoing reusable segments.
3. Send targeted campaigns to each segment
– Customize email content, offers and creative for each subscriber group.
– Personalize subject lines and body copy with merge tags.
– A/B test different elements on your segments to optimize further.
– Analyze the open, click and conversion rates for each segment.
Segmenting your subscribers allows you to deliver hyper-relevant messaging and maximize the impact of your email campaigns over time.
5 creative ways to increase email engagement
Here are some innovative strategies to boost opens, clicks and conversions from your email campaigns:
1. Personalized subject lines
Adding subscriber first names and personalized attributes in subject lines boosts open rates by up to 26%.
2. Behavioral targeting
Send follow up emails when subscribers browse products, abandon carts and show relevant behaviors on-site.
3. Dynamic content
Change email content blocks, images and offers based on subscriber location, past purchases and more.
4. Send time optimization
Test different days and times and see when your subscribers are most engaged. Optimize send times.
5. Lead scoring
Focus campaigns on subscribers with high lead scores based on recency, frequency and engagement metrics.
Email reporting best practices
To get the most out of your email reporting, here are some best practices to follow:
- Export and save reports frequently for comparison
- Look at long term trends rather than individual sends
- Use A/B testing to reduce bias when evaluating changes
- Personalize your reports with key metrics and filters
- Integrate email data into your other reporting dashboards
- Review reports with stakeholders to spot optimization opportunities
- Document your learnings and share broadly for education
Common email metrics mistakes
Here are some common email reporting mistakes to avoid:
- Focusing solely on open rates rather than conversions
- Not comparing similar campaigns to identify trends
- Failing to look at bounce rates and list hygiene
- Not segmenting your list to analyze performance
- Looking at individual sends rather than longer time periods
- Not A/B testing subject lines, design and content
- Not surveying subscribers to get qualitative feedback
Conclusion
By consistently tracking open, click, bounce and conversion rates, you gain visibility into what is resonating with your subscribers. Compare email metrics to previous performance, industry benchmarks and across segments.
Tools like email service providers, Google Analytics, CRM systems and dedicated marketing analytics software provide comprehensive email reporting and insights. Use A/B testing and data-driven segmentation to optimize your campaigns.
The key is to look at long term trends rather than individual sends. And don’t forget to survey subscribers directly for qualitative feedback. Comprehensive email reporting takes your results to the next level.