Positive and Negative Email Marketing KPIs All Marketers Should Pay Attention to

Marketing today is data-driven. This means that operations are driven by data, both in the strategy generation phase and when taking measurements. What sometimes escapes marketers is that the two phases are continuous: the measurement of a recently launched campaign gives rise to a new strategy, which is then measured to calibrate the next, and so on in a continuous chain. We’ll analyze the second side of the data-driven world, measurement, to show you how to analyze your metrics and stop making decisions on the fly.

Let’s take a look at them in detail, one by one, starting with the positive and then the negative.

Positive Email Marketing KPIs

1. Open rate

This indicates the number of emails opened compared to the total number of emails sent.

How to improve open rates

Write a specific and relevant subject line. The more specific the information is in a recipient’s inbox, the higher the chances he or she will be intrigued to open an email. Studies show that the most opened emails are those with subject lines having between 90 and 119 characters because longer subject lines are also more specific, precise, and detailed.

Instead of selling, tell stories. Marketing increasingly improves with persuasively narrated storytelling. The subject line is the perfect place for outlining the story. The subject line is like a business card: it’s best to avoid dulling it with an invitation to make a purchase.

Make the preheader complementary to the subject line. The preheader is short text in the inbox appearing after the subject. It is copy that integrates information from the subject. A preheader is an element that works as the line that convinces subscribers to open an email and thus, increasing open rates. Our suggestion is to create a preheader that is complementary to the subject, offering additional meaning and more details.

Email Preheader Best Practices

Experiment with emojis Emojis allows explaining the subject quickly and with a better degree of expression. According to a study conducted by Experian, 56% of the brands that used emojis in the subject line of their promotional campaigns found an increase in unique openings.

Find out what works better with A/B testing. The A/B test process implies submitting different versions of the same messages to a segment of recipients. The process analyzes reactions to each version and identifying which one is most effective. Testing is in the DNA of digital marketing.

2. Click-through rate

All emails contain links to external pages whether to a landing page or a web page. This is exactly what CTR measures: how many times recipients click on that link to the external page. The formula to calculate a CTR is to divide the number of clicks by the number of emails delivered.

3. Conversion rate

The conversion rate can be defined as the percentage of recipients clicking on a link in an email to take a desired action. The formula for calculating conversion rate is to divide the number of users have completed the action by the number of emails delivered.

Return on investment. The return on investment or ROI indicates and measures the cost effectiveness of campaigns by stating numbers and values that compares the performance and profitability email campaigns against other marketing campaigns. ROI helps find answers the question that how much email campaigns will make against the costs of implementation.

5. Bounce rate – Bounce rate means the percentage of email addresses that give an error following a sending. The possible errors can be more or less serious:

Hard bounce (permanent): non-existent or invalid email addresses to which the message can never be delivered.

Soft bounce (transient): full email boxes or temporary server problems, meaning the email will be delivered if the problem is resolved. The formula to calculate bounce rate = Bounced emails/Sent emails.

Negative Email Marketing KPIs

1. Email Unsubscribe Rate

Assuming relevant and meaningful email marketing content is at play and recipients have agreed to being contacted, the benchmark email unsubscribe rate should be relatively low—.3%, depending on the vertical. If you want to keep things right with your subscribers send impactful emails to existing customers who haven’t opted out and find a way to reconnect with those who have unsubscribed. Here are some ways to get reconnect:

How to address email unsubscribes

• Ensure stronger engagement with a double opt-in for new email subscribers
• Write and deploy smarter subject lines
• Don’t rent email lists
• Understand when to send transactional and when to send promotional emails
• Create an effective email re-subscription campaign
• Reach email unsubscribes on the other three main messaging channels: push notifications, news feed cards, and in-app/browser messages

2. Abandoned Shopping Cart Rate

Ready for a test in optimism? Abandoned shopping carts (when people add products to their carts but never complete the transaction) amount to $4 trillion in lost sales each year and most (nearly 70%) check-outs that are initiated will never be finished. There’s nowhere to go but up, so start here:

How to address abandoned shopping carts

• Try sending abandoned shopping cart notifications that:
• Create urgency
• Are sent at the right time
• Help solve a problem that may be preventing the purchase
• Include an enticing special offer

3. Push Notification Opt-Outs

It’s no secret that about half of all users opt out of push notifications, and those who haven’t yet are ready to do so the second they receive content they don’t like. So what can you do about this problem? First thing’s first: Acknowledge that there is (almost) always something you could be doing better with regard to push. More personal, more timely, more thoughtful – Let’s look at a couple best practices you and your team can jump on right away:

To address push notification opt outs. start with sending better push notifications to subscribers who haven’t opted out. Make sure you do not send too many messages. You can try the re-permissions or reactivation campaign, customers might have rejected push message, but they would like when the right messages are sent.