How do you measure email success?
Now that you have hit send, how can you tell how your emails have performed? There are many metrics that measure how an email program is performing. Having access to all of them is important to not only evaluate how your campaigns are performing, but also identify where any problems may be occurring.
For example, if your latest campaign had a two percent open rate, you might assume your subject line was unsuccessful and focus on creating a more enticing subject line for your next campaign. However, it’s possible that only 40 percent of your messages actually reached the inbox—and you’d never know it without checking your inbox placement rate. Unless you look at the problem holistically, you may end up trying to fix the wrong problem, and the real issue will continue to harm your future campaigns.
Having access to the right performance metrics—and understanding how to use them—is crucial to the success of an email program.
Metrics to Measure Overall Program Performance
The first metrics you want to monitor are those that track the performance of your email program as a whole. These are the metrics that measure whether your messages are reaching the inbox.
Bounce rate: Bounce email is the opposite of delivered email. These are the messages that fail to get delivered, regardless of the reason. There are two different types of bounces: hard and soft. Both are further defined below.
Delivery rate: Delivery rate is calculated by dividing the volume of emails delivered by the volume of emails sent. Note: “delivered” doesn’t necessarily mean your email hit the inbox—just that it wasn’t bounced or rejected.
Hard bounce: Hard bounces are messages that are permanently rejected, typically due to issues with list quality (e.g., invalid email addresses or domains).
Inbox placement rate: Inbox placement rate measures the percentage of sent email that actually lands in the subscribers’ inbox—a far more accurate measure than delivery rate.
Rejected rate: Rejected email is a subset of bounced email, and includes only those messages that fail to get delivered due to reputation issues (e.g., complaints, spam traps, blacklisting).
Soft bounce: Soft bounces are messages that are temporarily rejected, typically due to issues with the recipient’s mailbox or server (e.g., mailbox too full or server down).
Metrics to Measure Individual Campaign Performance
These metrics look at how specific campaigns are performing. Tracking these metrics and comparing them to previous campaigns can provide insight into subscriber preferences and help you create more effective campaigns in the future.
Click-through rate: Click-through rate is calculated by dividing clicks by the volume of email delivered.
Click-to-open rate: This rate is measured by calculating the ratio of total clicks to total opens. Click to-open provides valuable insight into the effectiveness of your email content and design.
Complaint rate: Complaint rate is calculated by dividing the number of spam complaints by the number of emails delivered. Complaints are a strong indicator of negative engagement and this metric is useful for identifying patterns and sources of complaints
Conversion rate: Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of visits. Although a strong indicator of subscriber engagement, this metric typically speaks more to the quality of landing page or website content than email content.
Open rate: Open rate is calculated by dividing the number of emails opened by the number of emails delivered.
Unsubscribe rate: Unsubscribe rate is calculated by dividing the number of unsubscribes by the number of emails delivered. Be cautious of using this metric in isolation, as a declining unsubscribe rate can result from various things such as improving engagement, where subscribers don’t want to unsubscribe, or decreasing inbox placement, where subscribers don’t see your email to unsubscribe from it—two very different situations.
