2. Are you tracking metrics that matter?
If you are using an email marketing tool, like Listrak, you have all the tools you need to track subscriber response in great detail. And if your email marketing tool is integrated with web analytics, like Listrak, you can track subscriber clickstream data from your campaigns through your website to determine conversion goals. With the amount of information available to you it is important that you track the metrics that matter most.
Delivery rate: Delivery rate is one of the most important metrics; however, many email marketers look at the wrong numbers to determine the percentage of emails that are delivered. According to a report by ReturnPath, up to 22 percent of all permission-based emails are not delivered to the intended mailboxes. This is an astonishing number that affects every other campaign metric, but many companies do not realize that their number of undelivered emails is this high because they only monitor specific metrics such as hard and soft bounces. While this is important information to track, it does not account for the emails that are delivered to a junk mail folder or filtered by ISPs. To accurately track your deliverability rate, you must account for all of these things. More information on email deliverability follows in the next section of this white paper.
Abuse report rate: Many email clients allow users to report a message as spam without even opening the message, even if the user has subscribed to your list and has requested to receive emails from you. You should monitor this metric very closely as a high spam rate will ruin your reputation and will cause severe deliverability issues in the future. There are a number of steps you can take to ensure your users do not mistakenly report your emails as spam. First, during the opt-in process you should include a delivery schedule so subscribers know when to expect an email from you. And you should always adhere to this schedule. Next, follow subject line best practices by including your company’s name and a specific title explaining what the message is about. Subscribers use the subject line as the gatekeeper – if they do not know what the email is about or who it is from, they will either delete it or report it as spam. Finally, personalizing the subject line will show your subscribers that you have already established a relationship with them because you know their first names. It will also help your email stand out in the dozens of other emails sitting in the inboxes and will, therefore, boost the read rate of your messages.
Read rate: Read rate differs from open rate and some email marketing tools do not measure the difference even though it is substantial. The open rate tracks emails that were viewed in the preview screen of an email client as well as emails that were opened just to be immediately deleted or closed. The read rate tracks emails that were opened and remained open for five seconds or longer, giving the reader time to at least scan the email to see if any headlines capture their attention. While five seconds might not seem like a great amount of time, it is almost twice as long as the general marketing standard of three seconds. Measuring the read rate instead of the open rate will give you a more accurate impression of the number of subscribers that are viewing the information in your email campaigns.
Unsubscribe rate: With every email that you send, a number of recipients will unsubscribe to your list. It is a natural part of email marketing and something that you should expect. However, it is imperative that you closely monitor the number of recipients that opt-out of your list as it could be a sign that your emails are not relevant to your subscribers. If you send emails monthly, a “natural” unsubscribe rate is less than one percent. If you send emails quarterly, your unsubscribe rate could be as high as five percent. But these are just guidelines so you should measure your unsubscribe rate with every email you send and monitor it over time. That way, you will notice any spikes in your unsubscribe rate and you will be able to take action immediately.
Forward rate: Many email service providers offer an easy way for subscribers to forward the email to a friend or colleague. This feature is a great way to expand your marketing scope and reach customers you might not have found through traditional marketing methods. When tracking the forward rate, it is important to look at the overall number of forwards as it confirms that you are sending relevant, interesting messages. However, it is more important to capture the email addresses that your subscribers forward the messages to. That way, if the person converts you will know the exact marketing source that generated the business.
Click-through rate: The click-through rate tracks the number of times subscribers click on a call to action button in your email campaign and visit your website. This number is extremely important as it measures the relevancy of your email offering. However, it is not a measure of end-goal conversion and it should not be treated as such. When tracking this number, you must count the number of unique click-throughs instead of the overall number of click-throughs as it will give you a false impression and could lead you to make assumptions about your campaigns that are not true.
Goal Conversion rate: Integrating web analytics with your email marketing tool gives you an easy and quick way to track the metric that matters most – goal conversion. Google Analytics allows you to set four different goals (such as brochure download, customer representative contact, online demo, and online sale) and, when used in accordance with email marketing, you can track the individual subscribers that clicked-through your campaign to see which ones converted by completing your end goal. This measures the exact success rate of each email campaign. To learn more, read Listrak’s white paper Using Google Analytics to Increase Reporting Capabilities of Email Marketing Campaigns and Boost Relevancy and Response.
While tracking results of these metrics, it is important to remember that each email campaign is different so the results will vary. For example, a monthly email newsletter updating subscribers on corporate happenings will garner much different results from a targeted email offering a free trial of a new product. To gauge actual performance measurements, evaluate results against similar campaigns so you get an accurate idea of which campaigns worked and which ones under-performed.
