Following the best email marketing tips and practices can help create successful email campaigns that keep readers engaged and eager for more, but it won't matter how optimised your emails are if you aren't tracking the results.
When sending an email, businesses should review the purpose of their email marketing and figure out which metrics they will need to track to determine how they're progressing toward their overall goal.
Open Rate:
The open rate is the percentage of recipients who opened your email. By tracking this, you get an insight into how engaged your subscribers are. Your subject line is the most important factor affecting your open rate so if your open rate is particularly low you might want to re-examine your subject line strategy. Using a compelling or creative subject line will make readers want to read the content. Don't settle for overused lines like ‘February newsletter'; use language that will engage readers to read further. Decent open rates range between 15% and 25%.
Click-through rate (CTR):
An email's click-through rate is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in an email. To calculate an email's CTR, businesses need to divide an email's total clicks by the number of emails delivered. CTR lets businesses quickly calculate the performance of every individual email they send. CTR is an important metric for all businesses engaging in email marketing to track, as it provides a direct insight into how many people on their email list are engaging with the email's content and are interested in learning more.
Conversion rate:
An email's conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on a link within an email and completed the desired action, such as downloading a newsletter or purchasing a product. An email's conversion rate is tied to the email's call-to-action, and since the email's call-to-action is linked to the overall goal of the email campaign, the conversion rate can help determine the extent to which a business is achieving its objectives.
Bounce rate:
The bounce rate is the percentage sent emails that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox. There are two types of bounce rates businesses should track; “hard” bounces and “soft” bounces. Soft bounces happen due to problems with valid email addresses, such as an inbox being full or an issue with a recipient's server whereas hard bounces are due to invalid, closed, or non-existent email addresses. It is critical that businesses immediately delete hard bounce addresses from their email list as internet service providers (ISPs) use bounce rates to determine an email sender's reputation. A sender with a high hard bounce rate will look like a spammer in the eyes of an ISP.
Unsubscribe Rate:
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of recipients who have unsubscribed from your emails. Tracking this will allow you to see how relevant your email marketing is and if it is keeping audiences engaged. A good way to discover the reasoning behind a subscriber leaving is to add a question or short survey for when people unsubscribe. This may help to improve your email marketing and reduce further people unsubscribing.
