Reading time: 6 minutes
To check how effective your letters are, you need to analyze email newsletters. As with any other marketing tool, it is important to monitor the indicators and adjust the strategy in time. Here are the main key indicators efficiency:
Email open rates
The open rate is affected by what addresses are in your database, how you collected this database, and how interested your subscribers are in your mailing lists. A good open rate is an average of 20% or more. If your open rate is less then check:
- How clear is the subject of the letter and does it arouse interest?
- Does the content fall into the field of interests of the recipients?
- When was the last time you cleaned the base?
- How do you work with the database: how often do you send letters, use segmentation?
Click-through rate of emails
Delivery error rate
A delivery error is a situation when, in response to a letter, a server message was received stating that the letter was not delivered. The most common cause is a server error or the address does not exist. If the error rate exceeds 3%, then you have a clear problem with the quality of your subscriber base.
To see the key metrics for your mailings in your Mailigen account, go to the Reports tab. Below is detailed statistics for each section and a timeline. 
These data provide a holistic view for evaluating results. Here you can see how many subscribers opened your mailing list, what time your emails are opened better, how many clicks and how many unique ones, which email clients are used more often. Keep an eye on the unsubscribe rate as well – if you start unsubscribing frequently, then it’s time to change something in your campaigns.
Download the report in XLS or PDF format to make it easier to evaluate your email campaign. For a more in-depth analysis, use the In-Depth Statistics, which opens when you switch between the four sections.
In-depth statistics provide the following information:
Browsers and devices used by subscribers
The number of programs and applications is growing, and your letter should look perfect in any of them. Use the information in this block to find out which software and gadgets are most popular with your subscribers. This will help you understand how best to design: for phones, for desktop, or to make sure that the design changes depending on the device. Do not forget about email clients: there are versions for browsers, there are mobile browsers, and there are applications - in all three cases, the same letter will be displayed differently.
Geolocation
Find out where in the country and the world your subscribers are located using a convenient map. This information will be useful to understand when it is better to send letters or to segment subscribers by city: you do not need to send a promotion for subscribers from Moscow to residents of Chelyabinsk. Tip: in-depth click statistics are more reliable, because, for example, Gmail can register open on its server, and the letter will be listed as open in the US, although it was actually opened somewhere else.
Detailed customer statistics
Here Accounts clients. Find out their activity level, IP address, devices on which they read your emails, the time at which the mailing list was opened, country or email client.
Many marketers focus on open rates, however, this metric can be misleading. For example, a letter is considered open only if the recipient has downloaded an embedded image. There may be problems with this: some programs and applications for reading e-mail block pictures, so some of the opened letters will not be reflected in the statistics. It is better to evaluate the open rate of the mailing in comparison with the open rate of previous letters sent to the same database.
Number of unsubscribers
Another indicator that does not always reflect the real state of affairs is the unsubscribe rate. A large proportion of subscribers who do not want to receive your letters do not waste time unsubscribing - they simply ignore your newsletter. Therefore, it would be more correct to assess the growth or decline in the interest of subscribers by increasing or decreasing the number of clicks on links. Unsubscribes, of course, are also worth tracking, but it’s better to look at the dynamics over a long period.
Achieve more with Google Analytics
The integration of the mailing service and Google Analytics will allow you to analyze data more deeply, for example, to find out how many site visitors came to it through links from emails, and how many through other advertising channels. Don't forget to track the conversion rate of your marketing campaign in terms of registrations, orders, etc., and judge how well your email marketing investment is paying off.
Do not be afraid of the volume of statistics
After a careful analysis of the statistics of your email campaigns, you will fully understand what place email marketing occupies in the overall strategy for promoting your company. Remember: to accurately evaluate the result of your work, set measurable goals. Track the success of each specific mailing list, keep track of the progress of email marketing in general, and don't forget to clean your email database regularly. Don't be intimidated by a large amount of statistics - love it, because it helps you better understand your subscribers!
Reading time 15 minutes
Email marketing- a tool that helps to increase profits and build long-term relationships with your customers. Its effectiveness must be measured in order to timely adjust the strategy of interaction with subscribers. In this article, we will look at:
- main mailing metrics for analysis;
- metrics that are often underestimated;
- how to improve performance;
- life hacks that will help further stimulate sales.
Why is it important to measure performance indicators?
Some marketers, when conducting an email newsletter, neglect its analysis. Others only look at email open rates (OR) and return on investment (ROI). Still others conduct a deep analysis of their indicators and get larger results.
Measuring performance indicators and their subsequent analysis allows you to adjust your email strategy in time, more accurately interact with users, give them what they respond to more actively. The email marketing channel is one of the most profitable, so the right interaction with the reader will allow you to recoup your investment several times over.
What are the indicators?
Indicators are external and internal. Internal indicators reflect everything that happens with the letter from the moment it is sent to the transition to the website, social network or application. External ones show the impact of the email newsletter on the business: how many customers came to the business from the newsletter, how much they ordered.
Metrics are expressed in relative and absolute terms. Absolute indicators are accurate: how many people opened the mailing list, how many clicks were made, what links were clicked. Relative indicators help track the dynamics of absolute indicators: they tell how many times or by how many percent the indicator has changed. Pay attention to absolute numbers, not just relative ones.
A simple example: you have 50 addresses in your database, you conducted a mailing list, calculated that 90% of your subscribers opened your letter. On the one hand, it's great: after all, almost everything has been opened. And on the other hand, it's only 45 people, there is something to work on.
What are the ways to measure indicators?
- Statistics of your mailing service. Most services provide detailed data for each submission, their analytics, and the performance of the entire campaign. You just have to interpret them correctly.
- Connected metrics of third-party services. The most famous are Yandex.Metrika and Google.Analytics. Thanks to them, you can trace the subscriber's path through your site, the time he spent on it, and the targeted actions he took.
- Excel spreadsheet with customized formulas. Another way is to enter data into an Excel spreadsheet. This is a laborious process, but if you have a good command of Excel, you have time to fill in the data, then you will get reliable indicators.
Key performance metrics for email campaigns
The division into main and additional indicators is conditional. It is based on the popularity of specific features and how often they are used by marketers.
Deliverability (deliverability / delivery rate)
Reflects the percentage of letters that reached the recipients. Even the highest quality mailing will be useless if readers do not receive it.
Deliverability is the number of emails that reach the inbox, from total number sent. This characteristic does not take into account server errors, letters rejected by postal services, as well as letters that went to the Spam folder.
Deliverability of 98% and above is considered ideal, while deliverability below 96% indicates the need to clean the database and check spam lists.
It is also important to note that many indicators should be calculated from the number of delivered rather than sent letters, so that there are no data errors.
Returns (bounce rate, BR)
Directly related to the previous one. Bounces are undelivered letters, and the indicator reflects their number from all that were sent. The more letters that have not reached the addressees, the worse it is for the mailing list reputation and statistics.
There are two types of returns: soft" (soft bounce) and " hard» (hard bounce).
With a soft bounce, emails are sent to a valid email address but cannot be delivered due to temporary difficulties, such as the recipient's server being down or the inbox full. With a soft return, the server makes attempts to deliver the letter to the addressee within 3 days.
With a hard bounce, the letters do not reach, because they were sent to non-existent email addresses. Feel free to delete from the subscription base addresses to which messages have not reached: release the base, do not harm the reputation of your domain.
The lower this figure, the better for your newsletter. Ideally, when undelivered letters are 0-4% of the total base.
How to improve deliverability and reduce returns?
- timely clean the database from incorrect addresses
- check the presence of the IP address and domain in the stop lists, black lists and spam lists.
Spam complain rate (SCR)
Shows the number of subscriber complaints out of the total number of emails delivered. Considered as a percentage. Mailings without complaints are rare, so there are norms allowed by different postal services.
Mail.ru gives indicators of complaints that should not be exceeded:
Subscribers forget why they signed up for your mailing list in the first place, so they may think you're spamming. A large number of complaints will negatively affect the reputation of the domain and lead to blocking.
The main reasons why users complain about spam:
- They don’t see the unsubscribe button or it takes a long time to unsubscribe (extra pages when clicking the button or obsessive attempts to keep the subscriber)
- You didn't provide a reason why you're writing to them (for example, you don't have a sentence like "You received this email because you watched my webinar on learning English")
How to improve?
To reduce spam complaints, make your unsubscribe quick, make your unsubscribe button prominent, and always include your reason for writing to your readers.
Unsubscribed users (unsubscribe rate, UR)
Shows the number of unsubscribed users out of the total number of users. People unsubscribe for various reasons: they lose interest, the newsletter is no longer relevant for them, they don’t remember why they subscribed. There can be many reasons.
Do not forget that the number of subscribers is dynamic: new ones are added, uninterested unsubscribe. Therefore, look at how many users you take as a basis. Decide first what you take as a basis: days of the week or letters (unsubscribes after a specific message).
A small percentage of unsubscribes is acceptable. A high percentage of unsubscribes negatively affects the reputation of the domain. The norm is 1.5-2% of the total number of subscribers.
How to improve?
- adjust your email marketing strategy,
- conduct tests that will help determine what your audience likes best.
Open rate (OR)
Shows the number of open emails out of the total number of delivered emails. One of the main parameters in email marketing. The open rate is closely related to the trust readers have in you and the wording of the topic. To calculate this indicator, only unique clicks are taken into account, that is, the first clicks of each visitor.
Openness is called one of the main metrics by which one can judge the effectiveness of a strategy. On average, 20% open rate is considered normal. However, this indicator is just average, and the open rate depends on your niche. For a niche with low competition (for example, Banking services, retail) 20% will not be enough, but for a niche with high competition (for example, e-commerce) - great.
How to improve?
- conduct tests that will allow you to understand what content your readers are more interested in;
- offer readers different topics. The more open, the more interesting topic for the subscriber;
- experiment with headings, use preheaders. Avoid Caps Lock, Fence, repeating characters and signs, and spam words. Add one or two emojis to the title;
- personalize mailings. Mentioning the name of the reader or the city in which he lives will prompt him to open the letter;
- Do not overdo it with intrigue in the subject line. In some mailing lists, simplicity and benefit to the reader work best;
- analyze on what days, at what time of the day users read your letters. If you have subscribers from different time zones, segment your base and send emails at different times.
Click through rate (CTR)
Shows how many readers performed an action: they opened the letter, clicked on the links in it, went to the site. It shows the percentage of clicks from the number of delivered emails. This is an indicator of reader engagement and their desire to interact with the brand. It is directly related to openness.
Clickability is important. She talks about achieving 3 main email marketing goals:
- increase in profit (obtaining additional);
- increasing reader confidence;
- the importance of the brand in the market and its expertise.
CTR depends on the niche of the business. Its norms are approximate, so be guided by your own data in the analysis.
The ratio of opens and clicks (click-to-open rate, CTOR)
More accurate characterization compared to the previous one. It reflects the percentage of unique clicks from the number of opens.
This indicator more accurately reflects the quality of the content sent. Compare:
| Delivered | Open | clicks | OR | CTR | CTOR | |
| letter 1 | 12000 | 2600 | 1000 | 21,6% | 8,3% | 38,5% |
| letter 2 | 12000 | 5000 | 1000 | 41,6% | 8,3% | 20% |
The table shows data for comparing two hypothetical letters. Their CTR is the same - 8.3%. If you look at it, you can decide that the content in both cases worked about the same. But the CTOR parameter does not agree: the content of the first email performed almost twice as well as the content of the second email.
It is important to look at both of these parameters. CTOR also talks about content quality and customer trust.
How to improve?
- make sure that the content matches the title - seeing a loud statement without confirmation, the user will not follow the link;
- work on the quality of content and mailing plan, test new topics;
- check for call-to-action - call to action. Add a specific call (“follow the link”, “download the link”, etc.), if there is one, try changing it to a similar one, formulate it differently.
The last two improvements can be done in split testing mode or a/b testing, in which traffic is directed to two different versions of the page with a change in one element.
Conversion (Email Converse Rate, ECR or Converse Rate, CR)
A conversion is sometimes understood as a sale. This is mistake. Conversion shows the number of targeted actions from the number of delivered emails. Target actions are not necessarily a sale, it can be registration for a webinar, making a purchase, downloading a lead magnet, subscribing to a channel, and others.
Pay attention to content. If the heading and text of the letter contain abstracts that the subscriber will not find on the site, there will be a large percentage of bounces - site visits lasting less than 10 seconds. Analytics services provide such information.
The number of purchases made after switching from the mailing list can be considered a separate parameter - purchases from mailing lists (buy-to-open rate, BTOR). It shows how many of your followers have made a purchase.
How to improve conversion and percentage of purchases?
- work on content, offer the reader such letters that fill his needs and correspond to the offer on the company's website;
- work with the design of the letter, the location of objects inside it, calls to action and their content;
- interact with subscribers not only in the email newsletter; involve them in social networks, display push notifications, etc.;
- maintain a high reputation as a sender, upgrade your personal brand.
Return of Investments (ROI)
This indicator attracts a lot of attention. It shows whether email marketing pays off or not. As a rule, a mailing list pays for itself several times over; with proper development, it can exceed the costs by 40 times.
This metric helps you determine if the email marketing channel is worth it or not worth the investment. It can be calculated in monetary units (currency), as well as in percentage.
How to improve?
- work on the content that you send out, its relevance, compliance with user expectations;
- encourage the user to buy from you;
- talk about seasonal promotions and current offers.
Additional performance indicators
The metrics below are often underestimated, but they can be used to increase email click-through, engagement of your subscribers, and reduce the number of unsubscribed users.
Device type
Now about 80% of traffic comes from mobile devices, people check their mail on the go, and every second person would prefer to resolve the issue using mail rather than a call. Therefore, it makes sense to work on adaptive layout so that letters are displayed correctly on smartphones.
Below are the data for 2015. Even then, almost 2 billion people viewed mail from smartphones. Now there are more such people, as manufacturers upgrade their smartphones, making them more convenient.
Check the layout of your letter and display on mobile devices so as not to lose potential customers. Incorrect layout can lead to the fact that the user will not see all the text, it will not be displayed completely, or it will be impossible to make a click. A subscriber can complain about your newsletter, even if it is useful for him. He just won't see her.
Subscriber base growth
Shows how much your subscription base has increased or decreased. Allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of the subscription page and advertising channels through which subscribers come to you.
In order for the subscriber base to grow, it is necessary to work in two directions: attracting new subscribers and retaining old ones. This is content: email headers, email content, audience segmentation and trigger mailings, creative. Don't be afraid to experiment, but experiment carefully so you don't hurt your database with a spike in unsubscribes and spam complaints.
Social activity
Add links to your social networks and instant messengers in your emails if you are not already doing so. Some users will find it easier to stay in touch with your brand if they, for example, subscribe to your Telegram or Youtube channel. Social networks can be added with small icons with logos. Don't forget to include a call to action to encourage subscribers.
Encourage people to share your content on social media as well. A brand that a subscriber learned about from a friend or saw from a friend on social networks will automatically inspire more trust due to the effect of social proof. Friend enjoys = good brand.
Subscriber interaction with the mailing list (engagement over time, EOT)
This parameter in combination allows you to determine at what time subscribers most actively interact with the mailing list. Below we have presented graphs that were compiled according to the research of the Omnisend portal in 2017. 791 million emails were analyzed 9500 big brands. You can start from this data at the beginning of work with your database, but over time, track the trends of your audience.
On Wednesday, subscribers open emails more often, and on Sunday they click on links.
Please note that the data is averaged, which means that your subscribers can read you better from 12:00 to 14:00 on any other days of the month. Experiment, follow the trends of your audience, test different times for sending, then your newsletters will work more accurately.
Inactive Subscribers
This segment of the audience appears anyway. These are users who do not open letters, do not click on links, do not buy anything from you. You can remove them from the base, or you can reanimate them.
When resuscitation, it is important to consider the following main points on resuscitation:
- feel free to delete inactive addresses that the postal service “swears” at and which returned thanks to a hard return;
- set clear deadlines for resuscitation in days or the number of letters that reach the recipient;
- carefully address an inactive audience, try to stir it up with trigger letters;
- work on the engagement of readers who have "woken up" so they don't "fall asleep" again.
2 Unusual Ways to Boost Sales with Email Marketing
Enter promo codes
Make limited-time promo codes that will only be valid for mailing list subscribers. This will additional incentive subscribers to read your newsletter more carefully, open letters more often, and with the help of unique promotional codes you will be able to track subscribers who made a purchase thanks to the newsletter.
Do not make promotional codes often, come up with other ways to encourage a subscriber: a bonus system, for example. The main goal of such a system is to encourage the reader to open subsequent letters with interest and follow the newsletter from you.
Important: be sure to specify how to use the promotional code or accumulate points. If there are multiple ways, list them all.
Compare with sales data
Check the data of your customers, which will be provided to you by sales managers, with the data of your subscribers in the database. So you will analyze the buyers who came to you from the newsletter. You will be able to follow the trend of how the mailing affects your sales.
And for those buyers who are not in the mailing list, you can send a specially designed message with an offer to subscribe. Be sure to tell them where you got their data from, and also attach a link by clicking on which the subscriber will be added to your database.
Do not add subscribers to your database if they have not given their consent. think over welcome letter so that the subscriber understands all the benefits of receiving your newsletter: tell us what you send out, how often you will do it, the benefits that the subscriber will receive (promotional codes, discounts, useful articles, checklists).
What metrics to measure?
- her goal.
For example, if you are running a newsletter, the main goal of which is visitors to the site, then you will be primarily interested in the clickability of letters and their conversion with the main parameter - transitions to the site; if you have a selling newsletter, then you will pay attention to the conversion, but you will already be interested in purchases.
When to look at indicators?
You have decided on what specific metrics you want to track. Now the question arises: when and how often to analyze. There is no single answer, there are only guidelines that you can adapt to suit you.
Indicators for specific letters are looked at no earlier than 48 hours after sending. On average, users check email much less often than social networks, so the letter can be opened a few hours after receipt or the next day. In addition, the mail service tries to deliver letters that received a "soft return", so the number of delivered letters may fluctuate slightly, affecting the performance.
It is better to look at the growth of the subscriber base in terms of the month, because it will be easier to track the trend. On some days, the base may decrease, while on others it may grow much more, for example, due to successful advertising companies. Therefore, the best period for assessing the growth of the subscription base is a month.
What should not be done?
When you start analyzing your campaign, you can make mistakes that distort your calculations and lead to incorrect conclusions.
Mistake 1: Comparing performance in different niches
The main indicators that we talked about differ in different niches. This is primarily due to competition within the niche. For example, in the field of online education, there is high competition for the attention of a subscriber, so it is more difficult to achieve high results than in banking. Compare yourself as much as possible with your direct competitors in the niche, and ideally, look at your performance.
Mistake 2: Comparing Big and Small Businesses
Large companies they have more advanced software, use their own features in their mailing lists, and teams of professionals work on their email marketing. The scale of their campaigns is impressive, as are the budgets for implementation. Large companies often do large-scale personalization, which allows them to more accurately guess the preferences of customers, own large-scale data about each of their subscribers, and build complex algorithms for interacting with them. This is one of the main reasons why big business outperforms the small one. Therefore, it is necessary to share.
Mistake 3: Comparing the metrics of new and built mailings
Before a clear distribution scheme was built, the one who built it must have made many mistakes. A rare marketer can build the perfect newsletter the first time. The point is not so much in the technical part, which can work clearly, but in target audience. Even if it seems that everything is ideally thought up and implemented, different nuances may appear: the topics will not “visit” subscribers, they will not be ready for the material being sent out, the type of content will not hook them.
Test new options, carefully check what your target audience likes best, compare your new performance with your yesterday's to see the increase or decrease in the quality of the newsletter.
Mistake 4: comparing triggered and regular mailings
Trigger mailing works pointwise and individually, so its indicators will more accurately hit the target, which means that its emails will be opened more often and links will be clicked more often. Such automatic ones are generated when specific events occur (for example, a purchase is made), so the percentage of openings will be large. In addition, subscribers are waiting for trigger and transactional mailings, because it directly concerns them, or it is impossible to complete the action without such a letter. For example, letters for order payment.
Conclusion
Analyzing email campaigns and their metrics is important if you want your email marketing as a customer acquisition channel to grow and recoup your investment. Study your metrics and their relationship, focus on the averages in your niche, but remember that the best benchmark is your own yesterday's data.
We talked about 10 main KPIs that will help analyze the effectiveness of an email campaign. They also shared tips on how to improve performance on these metrics.
open rate
This is the simplest marketing KPI that shows how many subscribers opened an email. Discoveries should be divided into unique and non-unique.
Unique - these are the discoveries of a particular subscriber. Non-unique - all letter openings. If, for example, out of three subscribers, the first opened the letter once, the second four times, and the third did not open it, as a result there will be two unique openings and five non-unique ones.
It is customary to consider the open rate as the base level. If your open rate is lower, then use quick tips:
- create an attractive email subject for subscribers;
- observe the frequency of mailing, do not send letters too often;
- send survey emails to find out subscribers' preferences in content and email frequency;
- segment your subscriber base to send relevant emails.
CTR
The click through rate shows the number of clicks on links within an email and helps determine the effectiveness of an email campaign.
The click-throughs rate is usually lower than the open rate, the average click-through rate for most campaigns is .
You can increase CTR with an effective call to action that encourages clicking on links:
- Make your call-to-action (CTA) button a bright color to make it stand out and place it at the top of the email.
- In the text of the CTA, add result-oriented verbs: get, study, download, pick up. Write in the first person.
- Add an urgency effect to your call to action.
Click to open rate (CTOR)
This metric shows how many unique users who opened the email follow the links and speaks about the effectiveness of the mailing content. A low click-to-open ratio indicates that the content of the newsletter does not meet the expectations and interests of subscribers.
conversion rate
If CTR shows the number of subscribers who clicked on a link within an email, then the conversion rate will tell you how many people clicked on the link and then completed desired action: purchase of goods, registration in the service or downloading material.
The conversion rate gives you an idea of the ROI because you know how much you spent on your email campaign and how many subscribers you converted into buyers.
unsubscribe rate
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who unsubscribed from the mailing list. As long as it's below 1%, don't worry too much about it. It is generally accepted that a good unsubscribe rate is 0.5%
To reduce the unsubscribe rate:
- send relevant content;
- observe the mailing frequency - do not "bomb" subscribers with letters;
- make the link to the unsubscribe page visible, and find out the reason on the unsubscribe page;
- keep the database active, regularly reactivate dormant subscribers;
bounce rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of emails sent that are not delivered. There are two types of bounce: hard bounce and soft bounce.
Soft bounces are messages that are sent to a valid email but are not delivered due to temporary issues such as a server issue or the recipient's inbox is full. Hard bounces are messages sent to non-existent or non-working email addresses.
Regularly audit the database and remove non-working or non-existent addresses to prevent hard bounce. The optimal bounce rate is considered to be 2-5%.
Email delivery rate
The deliverability score displays the number of emails that are delivered to subscribers' mailboxes. Since emails that got into spam or "Promotions" in Gmail are also considered delivered, the Inbox placement rate is considered a more important metric - the number of emails delivered specifically to the "Inbox".
How to improve email deliverability:
- Monitor the quality of the database of addresses. Delete non-working addresses, and reactivate inactive ones.
- Check the reputation of the sender address. Use the postmaster of those services where most of the email addresses of mailing list subscribers are located.
- Always fill in the sender's name and subject line.
- Avoid spam words in email content, keep the balance - 80% text and 20% images. Add files for download as a link, not an attachment that makes the letter heavier.
- Keep posting regularly.
Email inactivity rate
Shows the number of subscribers who have not responded to the newsletter in any way during the last 6-12 months. This KPI not only speaks about interest in the mailing list, but also affects the deliverability and reputation of the sender.
Once you have identified inactive subscribers, take steps to reactivate them:
- Try to regain interest in the mailing list by sending a special message. Offer a discount, free access, or a gift. Provide an opportunity to unsubscribe from the mailing list if the subscriber is really not interested in it.
- Move those subscribers who responded to the reactivation letter to the active list, and send another message to those who did not respond. Tell inactive subscribers that they will be removed from the mailing list if they do not respond to the email within the specified period.
- Remove from the list those who did not respond. The quality of the list should prevail over the quantity.
Keep your subscription base active. Regularly offer incentives: discounts, coupons, promo codes, invite to participate in contests with prizes to motivate them to read your letters. Periodically ask about preferences in the mailing list by sending survey letters.
Engagement over time
Track subscriber interactions with your mailing list to determine the best time to send emails. According to Omnisend research, subscribers click more actively on the 4th, 13th and 21st days of the month.
If we talk about the days of the week, then on Wednesday there is a high rate of opens, on Sunday there is a high percentage of clicks on links within the email.
ROI
ROI or return on investment ratio is the total revenue from an email campaign divided by the costs. You can make a quick calculation using the ROI calculator or using the formula: subtract the amount of investment from income, then divide by the size of investments and multiply by 100.
Summing up
Key metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of an email campaign:
- Newsletter open rate to know how many emails subscribers open and how many remain unread.
- Link click rate to analyze the persuasiveness of the call to action within the email and the relevance of the content.
- The conversion rate will show how many subscribers completed target action: bought a product or service, registered or downloaded material.
- The ratio of unique clicks to unique email opens will show the overall effectiveness of your email content.
- The unsubscribe rate from the mailing list will let you know what percentage of subscribers the mailing list is not interested in.
- The bounce rate will show the percentage of undelivered emails.
- The deliverability indicator will show how many emails are delivered and how many of them went directly to the subscriber's inbox.
- The percentage of inactive contacts in the subscriber base that should be reactivated or deleted.
- Newsletter engagement metrics to determine when to send a newsletter.
- Return on investment ratio to calculate the profit from an email campaign.
Today, no one doubts the effectiveness of e-mail distribution (as a tool for the rapid promotion of any business). But a lot of questions still remain. How to use e-mail distribution correctly? How to increase the return on each letter? Where to find your first subscribers?We will try to answer these and other questions in this article..
How much will sales increase?
It is clear that one of the most important tasks that are put before an e-mail newsletter will be to increase sales. What result can be expected from a series of letters?
It is extremely difficult to talk about any exact figures. After all, the result depends on the volume of the subscriber base, the quality of the selling text, its design, and much more.
But, as a rule, the first month of launching a competent e-mail newsletter gives an increase in sales of 10% or more.
The maximum effect of e-mail distribution is achieved by a combination of two factors: the relevance of a particular offer and the "expectation" of letters from readers. For example, in our practice, the most impressive result was obtained by an online store that sold fifth-generation iPhones. For one existing and two partner databases, an offer to preview phones was launched. As a result of a series of letters, the number of orders increased by 800%.
How to calculate conversion?
Conversion (the ratio of open emails to sent emails) will help you more accurately predict the result of a launched campaign.
What conversion is considered normal? Again, it all depends on the specifics of the business. But on average, the percentage of open letters from our clients (B2C segment) looks like this:
- mailing up to 100 people - 38%;
- up to 1000 people - 23%;
- up to 5,000 people - 18%;
- up to 10,000 people - 14.5%;
- from 100,000 people - 9%.
It must be remembered that the result also depends on the goals. With the help of a mailing list, you can present new products, increase customer loyalty, remind yourself of yourself, or stimulate sales.
What should be the content of the letters?
Now we need to ensure that the recipient not only sees the letter in the inbox, but also wants to open it. Therefore, your mailing lists should:
a) travel regularly
It is clear that from the very beginning it is extremely difficult to decide in which direction to move. We recommend that you first of all analyze the mailing lists of competitors and social networks. It is also advisable to contact your clients directly to clarify a preliminary list of topics of interest to them.
How often to send letters?
Specific days for sending letters will depend on the audience. For example, company executives, accountants and managers to remind themselves better in the morning(on Tuesday or Thursday) or closer to the end of the working day (16-17 hours). Housewives or “long-thinking” audiences respond better to mailings on weekends or weekday evenings.
But the easiest way is to choose the optimal time and frequency of mailing by testing.
What are the stages of the development and implementation of e-mail marketing?
1) Strategy development
At the first stage, goals and objectives are set, the format and frequency of distribution are determined, and technical part and responsible persons are assigned.
First you need to do everything to ensure that each mailing letter does not end up in spam, but in the inbox. To do this, you just need to exclude a few points.
Letters determined servers how spam at availability in them :
- large investments;
- short texts simultaneously with large images;
- broken links;
- voluminous texts and capital letters in the subject line;
- spam words in the subject or content of the email (“free”, “now”, “money”);
- scripts or questionnaires;
- a large number of email addresses in a copy of the letter.
2. Creative and technical implementation of the strategy
It is very important to format each mailing letter correctly (that is, to work on its design).
1) The letter should visually stand out among dozens of other letters that arrive daily in the mail of your potential buyer. At the same time, you should not overload the letter with effects and graphics.
3) Take care of adapting emails for different browsers and devices. Many users now view correspondence not on laptop monitors, but on smartphone screens. For this task, it is better to hire a professional programmer.
3. Analysis of results
Web analytics is one of the cheapest and most accurate tools for analyzing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Such an analysis will answer the following questions:
- How many clicks were made to the site?
- What products and services interest your customers more than others?
- Who is a potential client?
Analysis e-mail newsletters helps to clearly identify your target audience and optimize the content on the site and in mailing letters for it as accurately as possible.
After analyzing the effectiveness of the mailing, work with your base. For example, from time to time it is useful to carry out the so-called "reactivation" - sending letters to inactive subscribers with the subject "You haven't visited the site for a long time!" and a request to add your address to the address book.
The Golden Rules of Email Marketing
1. Never buy a ready-made mailing list. The effectiveness of such an e-mail campaign will be extremely low, and IP addresses may well be blacklisted.
3. Use chains of letters that are desirable to run two or three times a year (for example, for seasonal sales). The concentration of "selling" content in such a subscription should increase with each subsequent letter.
How to improve mailing efficiency?
Subscriber segmentation
The better your base is segmented, the more efficient your mailing list will be. The existing database is quite easy to divide into segments according to the following criteria: gender, occupation, geographic location, age, activity, purchase history.
If there is no such information about subscribers, ask readers to fill out a questionnaire or add a couple of fields to the order form on the site. However, avoid long lists of 30 questions - as users really do not like to waste their time on "unnecessary" (from their point of view) questions.
Dynamic content
Examples
practical application of e-mail
marketing
1. Money Back Center Project(refund of illegal credit commissions)
To begin with, it was necessary to attract potential customers to the project (even before the launch of the project). We decided to look for our target audience (borrowers with a formed credit history) on brokers' websites and legal forums.
(medical consulting)
The company needed to be brought online, create the first online products and increase the subscription base. To the target audience of "Business-Cardinal" we include chief physicians and directors of medical clinics.
Finding their contacts online was quite difficult and time consuming. Therefore, to begin with, we turned to the call center with the task of identifying the interest of clinics in the company's services.
By phone potential clients the question was asked: “Are you interested in receiving a thematic newsletter on such and such a topic?” In response, most of the interviewed respondents agreed to provide their email addresses.
Interestingly, in its first letters, the client company focused not on sales, but on training its subscribers. Each letter of the first mailing covered one or another issue of increasing the turnover of the clinic. The mailing list quickly became popular among senior medical staff. It allowed us to attract several major partners in the regions, receive the first large orders and launch a series of trial online products.
AT as soon as possible managed to achieve brand recognition in the medical services market and a high level of expertise.