Last month, we covered the basics of getting started with email marketing, including building subscribers and choosing a provider. This post describes metrics for analyzing performance.
Email service providers begin accumulating performance data immediately after deployment. The data decreases within his 72 hours, as most recipients are engaged or ignored by then.
Key metrics for email marketing include:
- bounce,
- delivery,
- open,
- number of clicks,
- Unsubscribe.
Understand email metrics
Bounce rate. Almost all email deployments have bounces, which are categorized as either “soft” or “hard.” A soft bounce is when email delivery is temporarily blocked, such as when a recipient's mailbox is full. Hard bounces are permanent. Deleted email addresses are a common hard bounce. Most providers will retransmit a soft bounce three times in 24 hours and eventually classify it as a hard bounce if necessary.
Bounce rate fluctuates based on how long the list has been created and how often it's expanded. Frequent email bounces typically result in fewer bounces because the provider can identify and remove bounced email addresses more frequently. In my experience, most e-commerce listings have a bounce rate of around 1% (or less). However, 5% to 10% may be seen on the dormant list.
delivery rate The percentage of emails expanded minus bounces divided by the total. A deployment with 5 bounces for 100 subscribers would have a delivery rate of 95%. Therefore, the bounce rate plus delivery rate should equal 100%. Most delivery rates are between 98% and 100%.Delivery charge please do not Measure your inbox placement. A 99% delivery rate could mean 25% in the primary inbox and 74% in the spam folder. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any software that accurately tracks emails delivered to spam or secondary folders.
open rate. Your email provider will insert a small invisible image into every deployment. The recipient is “open” to download that image. It's an imperfect system. Recipients who do not download images (such as smartphone users) were not previously registered as opened.
But in the fall of 2021, Apple upended email open rate tracking with the Email Privacy Protection feature in its iOS 15 mobile device software. Apple no longer publishes image download information. Instead, all Users with MPP enabled are classified as open, regardless of engagement.
However, the impact of iOS 15 on reported open rates is smaller than most expected. Most marketers experience only a small increase in open reports. A recipient who reads the email on a laptop computer or his non-Apple mobile device is not affected.
Open rates vary depending on audience, subject, and timing. I see e-commerce open rates ranging from low single digits for subscriber acquisition campaigns to over 50% for highly targeted and engaged users. I'm here. Triggered emails, such as transactional messages or important notifications, typically have the highest open rates.
This sample email deployment shows a high open rate of 29.6%. However, it was very targeted, with only 54 recipients. Click on the image to open it.
click rate indicates the recipient's interest in the email message. Measuring clicks is accurate, unlike opening. Unique clicks are the number of recipients who clicked. Total Clicks tracks total volume. For example, if 100 recipients each clicked on your email 5 times, it would represent 100 unique clicks for her and 500 total clicks for him.
Promotional emails have low click-through rates. Transactional and triggered emails, such as abandoned cart notifications, are the most common. Additionally, email calls to action have a significant impact on clicks. Some emails convey information throughout the message without requiring you to click.
Email providers typically report click-through rates as a percentage of total deployments and opens. For example, if 20 out of 100 recipients open your email and 5 click on it. The click rate will be 5%. The click-to-open rate is 25% (5 divided by 20). Typical e-commerce click-through rates hover around 1%, and click-to-open rates range from 5% to 30%.
This email from furniture retailer Bernie & Phyl's promotes an in-store item, so the click-through rate is likely low.
Unsubscribe rate The percentage of recipients who clicked the unsubscribe link divided by the number of emails delivered. (Unsubscribes are not included in email click-through rates.) E-commerce unsubscribe rates are typically less than 1%, but can be higher for initial onboarding to new subscribers. If your unsubscribe rate spikes, you need to take immediate action. Changes in frequency, audience, and message content are common causes.
