Email marketing has often been regarded the most evergreen form of digital marketing. Despite being around for close to two decades, the popularity of this form of marketing has not abated one bit. A recent MarketingCharts survey found that marketers regard email marketing as the most effective while also the easiest to adapt to. Given the popularity and the relative low barriers to entry, it is imperative that marketers go beyond the open rate and click-through rate while studying the effectiveness of these campaigns. So what other metrics must an email marketer look at? Here are quite a few
Conversion: While measuring conversion rates are pretty much the norm for on-site marketing efforts, it is still not regarded equally important for email marketing campaigns where just a mere click back to the website is regarded success. A click on a link in the email could happen for a variety of reasons including accidental clicks on images. So unless the user engagement is studied in its entirety including their conversion rate on the site, measuring the CTR on email hyperlinks may be a futile exercise.
Unsubscribers per Email Campaign: Marketers routinely measure the rate of email unsubscriptions. But this metric is measured as a percentage of new subscriptions. In effect, marketers merely look at the net subscribers per campaign and as long as the number of new subscriptions is higher than unsubscriptions, it is not considered a cause for concern. However, the rate of unsubscriptions needs to be measured against the number of emails sent. This will give marketers a better idea of the ideal email frequency – marketers could lose on the consumer mindshare due to fewer emails which cause them to unsubscribe. Similarly, too many mails are spammy cause many followers to unsubscribe. Finding the right balance is the key.
Delivery Rate: The delivery rate of your emails is not a question of your own credibility but that of the backend infrastructure you have deployed. It is natural for large businesses to opt for an in-house email server. Similarly, small businesses would choose a free email marketing platform to cut down on costs. In both these cases, the risk of the emails not getting delivered (or being delivered into the spam folder) is pretty high. The reason is that services like Gmail and Hotmail have extremely stringent rules about the email server being used and often err on the side of caution to ensure no spam gets through. It is hence always a good idea to use established email marketing software for your marketing efforts. This also frees up your own IT team from firefighting the deliverability issues.
Subscriber Warmup Period: Every subscriber needs to warmup to your emails before they choose to purchase your product. If you are a daily deals website, this warmup period could be as less as one campaign. However, if you are selling a niche product, the time it takes could be much longer. It is critical to segment your subscribers into groups and experiment with various marketing strategies to see what converts higher and how this warmup period could be reduced.
All said and done, email marketing is all about trial and error. There is no one way to maximize your returns on email marketing. And even if there exists one, it is an evolving medium where consumer habits change over time. It is hence important to keep track of your metrics – what works today may not work in a year's time.
Conversion: While measuring conversion rates are pretty much the norm for on-site marketing efforts, it is still not regarded equally important for email marketing campaigns where just a mere click back to the website is regarded success. A click on a link in the email could happen for a variety of reasons including accidental clicks on images. So unless the user engagement is studied in its entirety including their conversion rate on the site, measuring the CTR on email hyperlinks may be a futile exercise.
Unsubscribers per Email Campaign: Marketers routinely measure the rate of email unsubscriptions. But this metric is measured as a percentage of new subscriptions. In effect, marketers merely look at the net subscribers per campaign and as long as the number of new subscriptions is higher than unsubscriptions, it is not considered a cause for concern. However, the rate of unsubscriptions needs to be measured against the number of emails sent. This will give marketers a better idea of the ideal email frequency – marketers could lose on the consumer mindshare due to fewer emails which cause them to unsubscribe. Similarly, too many mails are spammy cause many followers to unsubscribe. Finding the right balance is the key.
Delivery Rate: The delivery rate of your emails is not a question of your own credibility but that of the backend infrastructure you have deployed. It is natural for large businesses to opt for an in-house email server. Similarly, small businesses would choose a free email marketing platform to cut down on costs. In both these cases, the risk of the emails not getting delivered (or being delivered into the spam folder) is pretty high. The reason is that services like Gmail and Hotmail have extremely stringent rules about the email server being used and often err on the side of caution to ensure no spam gets through. It is hence always a good idea to use established email marketing software for your marketing efforts. This also frees up your own IT team from firefighting the deliverability issues.
Subscriber Warmup Period: Every subscriber needs to warmup to your emails before they choose to purchase your product. If you are a daily deals website, this warmup period could be as less as one campaign. However, if you are selling a niche product, the time it takes could be much longer. It is critical to segment your subscribers into groups and experiment with various marketing strategies to see what converts higher and how this warmup period could be reduced.
All said and done, email marketing is all about trial and error. There is no one way to maximize your returns on email marketing. And even if there exists one, it is an evolving medium where consumer habits change over time. It is hence important to keep track of your metrics – what works today may not work in a year's time.