Email outreach for marketers: Measuring and optimizing performance

The past two years have been transformative for the Belkins team, choosing to invest heavily solely in marketing. For me, stepping into his CMO position without any marketing experience was a roller coaster ride.

With a team of 50 people and an ambitious goal of generating 400 new deals every month, the pressure was palpable. It felt like a high-stakes gamble, but we went all in. Still, we strengthened our outreach by testing, learning, and focusing on key metrics.

Let's see how we mastered this and how you can apply our insights to your strategy.

Metrics for measuring email reach

Below is an overview of the core metrics we use to track our outreach performance.

Reach rate

This metric is intended to ensure that your email reaches the recipient's inbox. Here's how it's calculated:

Please aim for a completion rate of 95% or higher.

Response rate

A healthy response rate indicates that your content is resonating with your audience. If it's low, you may need to refine your value proposition or reevaluate your target audience.

Typical interest rates in the B2B sector are between 2.5% and 5%. However, anything above 6% to 15% is very good.

engagement rate

Traditionally, companies have relied heavily on email open rates as the go-to metric for measuring lead engagement. However, changes in privacy controls and continued challenges in email deliverability and spam filtering have made this standard less reliable.

To get a clearer and more comprehensive picture of engagement, we've started calculating engagement rates. This rate assesses the proportion of positive responses (more information, internal forwarding to a decision maker, or “I'll get back to you” messages) to the total number of positive and negative responses. .

To measure it, follow the formula:

For example, 80 positive responses out of 150 means an engagement rate of 53%.

The main task is to process the responses in a way that yields maximum data. If a prospect isn't interested, ask why and see what the problem is. It's likely that the prospect simply needs more time.

Lead-to-appointment rate

This metric shows how effective communication is between your team and potential customers. A high percentage means you're targeting the right people with the right messages at the right time.

Let's get to the formula:

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

This metric is important for uncovering the cost of acquiring new customers, evaluating marketing efficiency, and optimizing outreach to improve ROI.

Let's say you spend $25,000 on marketing and sales and acquire 22 new customers in one month. Here's how to decide if you're getting your money's worth.

So in this case, you spent nearly $1,140 for each new customer.

Return on investment (ROI)

ROI metrics are the ultimate measure of success, showing whether your efforts will increase your profits or blow your budget. See how much you earn for every dollar you invest in your campaign.

If your campaign generated $100,000 in sales and you spent $10,000, your ROI calculation would be:

Dig deeper: What is email marketing and why do we care? A marketer's guide

How can I streamline my results?

Optimize market positioning

Successful email outreach is determined by more than just the channel. Preparation is key. Many of our clients come to us with off-the-mark market positioning and ineffective value propositions. Failure in these early stages or targeting the wrong persona can derail the entire campaign. To be successful, stick to the following basics:

• Understand your purchasing persona: The average complex B2B decision involves 6-10 decision makers, and accuracy of outreach is key. Consider the case of a medium-sized company. Targeting the CMO may seem logical, but while they control the budget, they may not be hands-on in evaluating solutions. It might be the marketing director who makes the decisions. What can you do? Adjust your targeting, focus on your persona's buying pain points, and run A/B tests to ensure you connect with real decision makers, not just top titles.
• Target specific industries:Broad targeting may be ineffective. Move vertically. Instead of a general approach like “finance” you can also focus on a specific niche like “FinTech startups” or “retail banking”.
• Refine your target region: Beyond the general area. Understanding the nuances at the city or county level allows you to refine your approach to fit local needs and trends.
• Refine your value proposition: Tailor your message to address your prospect's specific needs, rather than offering a general list of features. Imagine you're pitching a UI/UX optimization to your marketing director. Instead of offering benefits, highlight your success with improved UI/UX, leading to a spike in visitor-to-subscriber conversions. For marketing directors, this means more conversions and a larger customer base. Messages like this align with your core objective of increasing conversions and growing your customer base.

Compare this:

Adjust technical settings

• Reliable reachability: If you don't set the right domain, you risk not only lowering your security, but also lowering your credibility, making your emails more likely to be classified as spam. That's why it's important to check your domain settings (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and make sure your reputation is perfect before sending a cold email. Note that reputation scores are influenced by spam complaints, content quality, engagement metrics from previous emails, and the email's blacklisted status.
• Adapt to evolving metrics: With Google's privacy updates, it may be time to move away from open rate as a key metric. In fact, if you track them, they're more likely to end up in your spam box. Therefore, consider turning off pixel tracking.
• Streamline link usage: Please include only one link in your email to avoid being flagged as spam. Also, always double-check for broken or misleading links. Links can undermine trust and impact delivery.

Adopt a holistic marketing approach

• Create personalized messages. According to Gartner, personalized content can increase quality purchases by 9%. To keep your emails focused, we explain cold outreach in detail. For example, mention the broad field in which the prospect operates, such as “Staffing and Recruiting,” or a specific niche within this field, such as “Staffing for Healthcare.” The result was a 30% increase in bookings.

• Create consistent follow-up. It is important to be persistent but also considerate. According to Belkins' research, the first follow-up email can increase your response rate by 49%. It helps foster authentic connections, reminds prospects of your value, and solidifies trust. More than just a reminder, it demonstrates your know-how and increases your chances of getting a positive response. We typically follow up on average up to seven times with leads who express interest in re-engaging. It is worth noting that many clients typically only contact us twice.

• Create versatile marketing content. To power your outreach campaign, we created custom landing pages that resonate with your specific industry. As a result, lead conversion rates increased by 6-8%. On average, these pages convert 70-100% higher than typical pages. Additionally, industry-specific case studies incorporated into the follow-up strategy increased response rates from 6% to 9%.
• Build a trusted brand. Potential customers tend to use brands they trust, so establishing a reputation is important. Step one here is to actively engage on review platforms and encourage satisfied clients to share their positive experiences. For example, this strategy has helped my company generate over 100 leads per month from Clutch alone. Additionally, our strategy extends to hosting webinars and podcasts featuring prominent industry experts. The advantage here is that you can reuse your webinar materials in cold outreach to highlight your expertise to potential clients.
• Improve user experience. Recipients are potential site visitors, so ensuring a seamless transition from email interaction to website interaction is paramount. Create an email that seamlessly directs recipients to your website with a clear and compelling CTA button. Finally, make sure the landing page you direct your leads to is easy to navigate and provides concise, relevant information that addresses their pain points.

Learn more: Email marketing strategy: A guide for marketers

summary

Launching an email outreach campaign goes beyond chasing the quick sale. I made the mistake of prioritizing short-term gains, but I realized the importance of measuring the right metrics to ensure I only get quality appointments.

We've had great success using the tactics described here. This is a testament to the transformative power of optimizing your outreach strategy. These metrics aren't just touchpoints; they're a roadmap to long-term success.