Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. But with so many different metrics to track, it can be difficult to know which ones are the most important.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top 10 email marketing KPIs you should be tracking in 2022.
By tracking these KPIs, you’ll be able to more effectively measure the success of your email marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments to improve results.
What are KPIs?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are a type of performance measurement. They are often used by organisations to measure progress or success and to set goals.
Why are KPIs important?
There are a number of reasons why KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are important;
- They provide a way to measure progress towards objectives.
- They can help identify areas where improvements are needed.
- They can serve as a motivation for employees to improve their performance.
- Finally, they can help assess the effectiveness of different business strategies.
What are some good KPIs examples?
KPIs can be financial or non-financial depending on the business or organisation. Examples of financial KPIs are:
- Profit
- Revenue
- Cost
- Cash flow
Examples of non-financial KPIs include:
- Customer satisfaction
- Employee satisfaction
- Retention rate
- Safety record
How do you choose KPIs?
There are a few factors to consider when choosing KPIs. The first is to consider what your goals are. Once you know your goals, you can choose KPIs that will help you measure progress towards those goals.
You’ll also want to make sure that your KPIs are realistic and achievable. Finally, you’ll want to choose meaningful KPIs for your team and stakeholders.
Email marketing KPIs
Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. However, success with email marketing requires more than just sending out a few emails.
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels, with a high return on investment. It’s no wonder that marketers are always looking for ways to increase their email subscriber lifetime value.
Marketers need to track certain email metrics to ensure a consistent flow of revenue. This post will reveal the top 10 email marketing KPIs you need to track to achieve your revenue goals.
Why is it important to analyse email marketing KPIs?
Most professionals check their email 15 times daily, making it one of the most popular online activities. Email is also one of the most effective marketing channels, with a return on investment of 4,200%.
To really see the results of your email marketing efforts, you need to be tracking the right email marketing KPIs (key performance indicators).
Doing so will help you understand what’s working and what’s not, so you can make necessary adjustments.
Top email marketing KPIs to track
1. Email open rate
Email open rate is a metric that measures how many people open an email campaign. This metric is important because it gives you an idea of your email campaign’s success.
Open rates for email are affected by a number of factors, including the sender’s reputation, the subject line, and the time of day the email is sent. However, a good email open rate is generally considered to be between 20-30%.
This figure varies by industry. The chart below shows email open rates by industry.
How to improve email open rates
If your email open rates are low, there are a number of things you can do to improve your email open rate, and we’ve listed a few of the most effective methods below.
- Use attention-grabbing subject lines
- Keep your sender name consistent
- Send your emails at the best time
- Optimise your email for mobile
- Personalise your emails
- Segment your list
- Test, test, test!
Open rates for email are determined by how many recipients open the email compared to how many were sent.
How to calculate it
The open rate is usually expressed as a percentage and is calculated by dividing the number of opened emails by the number of total emails sent, multiplied by 100.
There are a number of ways to measure open rates, but one of the most common is to use an email tracking service or use Porter Metrics– the world’s easiest no-code reporting tool.
2. Email click-through rate
Email click-through rate (CTR) is one of the most important email marketing KPIs. It measures how often people who receive your email click on a link or button.
A high CTR means that your email content is relevant and engaging, and that your call to action is effective. CTR is a key metric for measuring email campaign success, and it should be tracked on a regular basis.
The average person receives around 121 emails per day. That’s a lot of emails! With so much competition for attention, it’s important to make sure your emails stand out.
One way to do this is to improve your click-through rate (CTR). Mailchimp says the average click-through rate across all industries is 2.91%.
If your email’s click-through rates are lower, your email marketing campaigns might end up being a waste of time and effort. There are a number of reasons why your email click-through rate (CTR) might be low.
Maybe your subject lines are uninspiring, or your content isn’t relevant to your audience. It’s also possible that your emails are going to spam, or that you’re not segmenting your list properly. In any case, low CTR is a problem that can be fixed with little effort.
How to improve your email click-through rate
If you’re looking to improve your email click-through rate (CTR), there are a few things you can do.
- Make sure your email subject line is clear and concise. People are more likely to open an email if they know what it’s about.
- keep your email content relevant to the subject line. People are less likely to click through if your marketing email doesn’t match the subject line.
- Use images and other visuals to break up your text and make your email message more visually appealing.
How to calculate email click-through rate
To calculate your email click-through rate, simply divide the link clicks in your emails by the number of emails delivered and multiply by 100.
CTR = Number of People Who Clicked A Link / Number of Emails Delivered Successfully x 100
3. Email unsubscribe rate
When it comes to email marketing, unsubscribe rates are important email marketing metrics to pay attention to. This is because they can indicate how many people are no longer interested in receiving your emails.
If your average unsubscribe rate is high, it may be time to take a look at your email content and see if there is anything you can change.
A high unsubscribe rate indicates that people are not interested in the emails being sent, while a low unsubscribe rate indicates that people are generally happy with the emails.
Email unsubscribe rates can be affected by a number of factors, including the quality of the emails, the frequency of the emails, and the relevance of the emails.
How to calculate the email unsubscribe rate
The email unsubscribe rate is a metric that measures the number of people who unsubscribe from an email list divided by the total number of people on the subscriber list.
Email unsubscribe rate = Number of people who unsubscribe/number of emails on your subscriber list
4. Email conversion rate
Email conversion rate is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) for email marketing. It measures how successful your email marketing campaigns are in terms of generating leads and sales.
There are two types of email conversion rates:
1. Lead conversion rate:
The percentage of people who sign up for your email list after receiving your email.
2. Sales conversion rate:
The percentage of people who buy something from you after receiving your email. Ideally, you want to have a high email conversion rate for both types of conversion.
However, sales conversion rates are generally more important because they directly impact your bottom line. Here are a few tips to improve your email conversion rates:
- Use a clear and concise subject line:
Your subject line is the first thing recipients will see when they receive your email, so make sure it’s clear and concise. Avoid using jargon or confusing terms, and try to keep it under 50 characters if possible.
- Personalize your email:
Recipients are more likely to engage with an email that feels personal, so consider adding their first name or other personalized details in the body of your email.
3. Keep your message focused:
When crafting your email, be sure to keep your message focused on a single topic. This will help ensure recipients don’t get overwhelmed or lose interest before reaching your call-to-action.
4. Use strong calls to action:
Your call-to-action should be clear, concise, and easy to spot in your email. Avoid using generic phrases like “click here” or “learn more”
How to measure email conversion rate?
Email conversion rate is a measure of how many people who receive an email marketing message take the desired action. The desired action could be anything from making a purchase to signing up for a newsletter.
To calculate your email conversion rate, divide the number of people who took the desired action by the total number of people who received the email.
Email conversion rate = number of actions taken/number of delivered emails
5. Email deliverability rate
Email deliverability is the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to a recipient’s email address.
A high email deliverability rate is essential for any email marketing campaign, as it ensures that your messages are reaching their intended recipients.
There are a number of factors that can affect email deliverability. They include the;
- quality of the recipient’s email address
- number of delivered emails
- number of hard bounce email addresses
- spam complaint rate
Tracking the right email deliverability metrics is essential for any email marketer, as it can help you identify and fix delivery issues before they cause irreparable damage to your campaign.
A high email deliverability rate is generally considered to be around 95%. If the deliverability rates of your emails from your email marketing campaign are below 95%, one or more of these factors might be responsible for it;
- email content
- sender reputation
- server configuration.
Email deliverability rate is the percentage of emails that are successfully delivered to their intended recipients. Improving your email deliverability rate can be beneficial for both your personal and professional life.
A higher deliverability rate means that more people will receive and be able to read your emails, which can lead to improved communication and better relationships. Additionally, a higher deliverability rate can also lead to more opportunities for business and networking.
Here are some tips on how to improve your email deliverability rate:
- Use reliable email service providers.
- Keep your email list clean and up-to-date.
- Use a double opt-in process for new subscribers.
- Monitor your email sending reputation.
- Avoid spam triggers in your email content.
By following these tips, you can improve your email deliverability rate and ensure that your email messages are getting to where they need to go.
6. Email bounces
Email bounces are one of the most important email marketing metrics every serious email marketer must pay attention to. A bounce is when an email is sent to an invalid email address or a soft bounce is when an email is sent to a valid email address but is returned by the server.
A high bounce rate can indicate that your email marketing campaigns are ineffective and that you are not reaching your target audience. In addition, a high bounce rate can also lead to spam complaints.
As an email marketer, your job is to ensure you maintain a low bounce rate.
High email bounce rates can be a problem for businesses that rely on email marketing to reach their customers. This might lead to a drop in sales and loss of revenue for the organisation.
How to prevent high email bounce rates
There are a few things you can do to avoid high email bounce rates:
- Make sure your email list is up to date. Remove any inactive or invalid email addresses.
- Use a double opt-in process to confirm each email address on your list.
- Test your email content before sending it out to your entire list. Send a test email to a small group of people to see if they engage with your message.
By following these tips, you can avoid high email bounce rates and ensure that your messages are reaching your intended audience.
How to calculate it
You can calculate your bounce rate by dividing the number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent and then multiplying it by 100. Your bounce rate should be less than 2% to be considered good.
Bounce rate= number of bounced emails/number of emails sent X 100
7. Revenue per email
Email marketing is a very effective way to reach out to potential customers. To maximise the effectiveness of email marketing, it is important to understand how to calculate revenue per email.
This metric helps businesses understand how much revenue they can generate from each email sent. By understanding this metric, businesses can make changes to their email marketing strategy in order to generate more revenue.
How to calculate it
Figuring out your revenue per email can help you assess the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns and make decisions about where to allocate your resources.
To calculate your revenue per email, you’ll need to track both your total revenue and the number of emails you sent. Once you have those numbers, divide your total revenue by the number of emails to get your revenue per email.
Revenue per email= Number of emails sent/total revenue generated
8. Email list growth rate
The email list growth rate is the rate at which a company’s email list expands.
This can be due to a number of factors, such as new subscribers signing up, existing subscribers forwarding emails to others, or a company’s email list being made available to a wider audience.
A high email list growth rate is generally seen as a positive sign, as it indicates that a company is reaching a larger audience.
Benefits of a high email list growth rate
One of the benefits of a high email list growth rate is that it can help you reach a larger audience. With a bigger email list, you’ll be able to send your message to more people and potentially convert more leads into customers.
Additionally, a high email list growth rate can signify that your brand is growing in popularity, which can attract more investors and customers. This is why it is absolutely necessary you track it.
How to calculate it
Email list growth rate= number of new subscribers minus the number of unsubscribed divided by the total number of email addresses on your list, multiplied by 100
9. Email sharing rate
Email share rate refers to the number of times an email is shared by its recipients. Email sharing is a popular way to spread information and build relationships with others.
When an email is shared, its sender can track how many times it was shared and who shared it. Tracking how often your emails are shared is an ingenious way to audit your email marketing efforts.
By understanding how often your email is shared, you can adjust your content and strategies to engage your audience better.
How to calculate it
You can calculate the email share rate of your business by simply dividing the number of shares by the total number of emails delivered multiplied by 100
Email share rate = Number of email shares/total emails delivered X 100
10. Subscriber lifetime value
Email subscriber lifetime value is the estimated amount of revenue that a business can generate from a single email subscriber over the course of its relationship with the company.
This metric is important for email marketers to track, as it can help them determine the ROI of their email marketing campaigns and identify areas for improvement.
Benefits of tracking your subscribers’ lifetime value
Lifetime value data can be used to improve marketing campaigns in a number of ways. For example, marketers can use this data to segment their lists and target subscribers who are more likely to be valuable customers.
Additionally, they can use lifetime value data to create more personalised and relevant content that is more likely to resonate with subscribers. Finally, marketers can use this data to optimise their campaigns for conversions by focusing on activities that are most likely to result in a sale.
How can businesses increase their email subscribers’ lifetime value?
There are a few ways businesses can increase their email subscribers’ lifetime value:
1. Increase the number of touchpoints:
Make sure you’re regularly sending emails and engaging with your subscribers. The more you stay in front of them, the more likely they are to remember your brand and make a purchase.
2. Offer valuable content:
Send subscribers information that they’ll find useful, whether it’s coupons, tips, or behind-the-scenes looks at your business.
3. Build trust:
Show your subscribers that you’re a credible source by providing accurate information and being responsive to any questions or concerns.
4. Make it easy to buy:
Include links to your website or online store in your emails so subscribers can easily make a purchase.
5. Keep your list clean:
Remove inactive subscribers from your list so you’re only sending emails to people who are interested in hearing from you.
How to calculate your email subscriber lifetime value
In order to calculate email subscriber lifetime value, you will need to take into account a number of factors including the average length of time a subscriber remains on your list, the average number of purchases made by each subscriber, and the average amount spent per purchase.
By considering all of these factors, you can get a good estimate of the total value each email subscriber brings to your business.
The Lifetime Value of an Email Subscriber = average revenue per subscriber x average lifetime of a subscriber – the maintenance cost
How to set realistic email marketing KPIs
As a business owner or marketing professional, you may be wondering how to set realistic email KPIs.
Here are a few tips:
- Consider your goals for using emails as a marketing channel. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate leads?
- Once you know your goals, you can start setting KPIs that align with them. For example, if you’re looking to increase website traffic, you might set a KPI of increasing your click-through rate by 10% each month.
- Be realistic in your expectations – It’s important to remember that not all of your email marketing activity will result in direct ROI. However, if you focus on engagement and building relationships with your audience, you’ll be more likely to see long-term success.
- Keep track of your progress and adjust your KPIs as needed. As your email marketing strategy evolves, so should your KPIs. By tracking your progress and making adjustments along the way, you’ll be able to ensure that your KPIs are always relevant and realistic.
Measuring email marketing KPIs: How to get started
Having understood the need and how to set realistic email marketing KPIs, how do you get started in measuring them? Here are a few tips to get started:
- Look at your email analytics: Your email service provider (ESP) should offer some basic metrics, such as open rate and click-through rate. These can give you a good starting point for measuring your email marketing KPIs.
- Use Google Analytics: Google Analytics can help you track more detailed information about your email marketing campaign, such as how many people visited your website after clicking on a link in your email.
- Test, test, test: Try different things in your email marketing campaigns and see what works best for your business. A/B testing is a great way to compare different versions of your emails and see which ones perform better.
By following these tips, you can start measuring your email marketing KPIs and improve your campaigns. As a business, it’s important to measure your Twitter KPIs (key performance indicators) to gauge the success of your social media marketing efforts.
Track your email marketing KPIs with Porter
Porter is a fast and reliable no-code reporting tool for marketers. It gives you a detailed, visual, email marketing report in less than 5 minutes without taking screenshots or having to deal with raw data on spreadsheets.
This means you won’t-
- have to learn how to use a new reporting tool
- be frustrated by tech glitches
- need a developer to integrate your email accounts with a new tool
Top 10 email marketing KPI metrics (summary)
As a business, it’s important to measure your email KPIs in order to gauge the success of your email marketing efforts. But with so many metrics to choose from, it can be difficult to know where to start.
That’s why we’ve put together this guide on measuring email KPIs, complete with a list of the most important metrics to track and a reporting tool to help you do so.
By monitoring the right KPIs, you can align your email activities with your company’s overall goals and better understand what’s working (and what isn’t).
In a nutshell, the Top 10 email marketing KPI metrics include:
- Email open rate
- Email click-through rate
- Email unsubscribe rate
- Email conversion rate
- Email deliverability rate
- Email bounces
- Revenue per email
- Email list growth rate
- Email sharing rate
- Subscriber lifetime value
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What are KPIs for email marketing?
These are metrics that show the overall efficiency of a business email marketing strategy. Examples are open rates, conversion rate, list growth rate, etc.
2. How do I track email KPI?
Email KPIs can be tracked using PorterMetrics, a non-code reporting tool for marketers.
3. How can I improve my email marketing performance?
Your email marketing performance can be improved by setting realistic goals and measuring them with Porter Metrics Email reporting tool.
4. What are the most important metrics for email marketing?
The most important metrics for email marketing are those that directly impact your business goals. If sales is your major goal, your most valuable KPIs will be conversion rate and click-through rate
