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Emails, hands down, are one of the most efficient forms of marketing. They have high open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Nothing beats email when it comes to building relationships and boosting sales. There are 4.3 billion email users worldwide as of 2022, which is expected to grow to 4.6 billion by 2025. So, it’s safe to say that email marketing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

In fact, it is expected that 333.2 billion emails will be sent by the end of 2022. With so many emails being sent daily, it’s important to stand out in the inbox and deliver valuable content to your subscribers. An important part of any email marketing strategy is tracking the right metrics. This will help you understand what’s working and what’s not. It will also give you insights on how you can improve your campaigns to get better results.

You can’t just keep shooting in the dark and hope that your email marketing efforts will be successful. You need to track specific metrics to gauge the performance of your campaigns. There are a lot of email marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) that you can track. But, which ones are the most important? We have compiled a list of 13 essential email marketing KPIs that you should track to ensure the success of your campaigns.

But first thing first.

What is KPI? In detail

A key performance indicator is a value used to monitor and measure progress. KPIs vary between companies and industries, depending on their priorities or performance objectives. KPI results can be used to identify trends, set goals, benchmark against similar companies, and measure progress over time. The right KPIs will be specific to your company and your objectives. For instance, let’s say you’re a SaaS company that offers a 14-day free trial. A key metric for your business would be the number of people who sign up for a free trial. This metric would be considered a key performance indicator because it’s a good measure of whether your marketing efforts successfully get people to try your product.  Now that we have answered the question, “what is KPI?”, let’s move on to the 13 essential email marketing KPIs that you should track.

1) Open Rate

Open rate is the number of people who open your email divided by the total number of people who received it. This is one of the most important email marketing KPIs because it tells you how many people are actually seeing your email. If your open rate is low, it could be a sign that your subject line isn’t effective or that your emails are going to spam. There are a number of ways to improve your open rate, including segmenting your list, personalizing your emails, and using intriguing subject lines. Open rate is a good metric to track over time to see if your efforts to improve your email marketing are working. If you want to increase your open rate, you can try segmenting your list so that you’re only sending emails to people who are interested in that particular topic.

You can also try personalizing your emails with the recipient’s name or using a tool like ConvertKit to create more intriguing subject lines.

How to Calculate Open Rate?

Open rate is calculated by taking the number of people who opened your email and dividing it by the total number of people who received it. For example, if you sent your email to 100 people and 20 people opened it, your open rate would be 20%.

2) Click-through rate (CTR) (Talk about in Detail)

One of the most important email marketing KPIs is your click-through rate (CTR). Your CTR measures how often people who see your email campaign click on a link. A high CTR indicates that your subscribers are interested in your content and offers. There are a few factors that can influence your CTR. The most important is the quality of your email list. You’re more likely to get clicks if you’re sending to a clean, engaged list. But even if you have a great list, your CTR will still be influenced by the quality of your email content and offers.

How to Improve Your CTR

There are a few things you can do to improve your click-through rate:

• Use engaging images: Adding an image to your email can increase your CTR by up to 42%. But it’s important to use high-quality, relevant images that add to your message rather than detract from it.
• Make your CTA clear and visible: Your call-to-action (CTA) should be the most clickable element in your email. Use a large, contrasting button to make sure it’s clear and easy to spot.
• Use persuasive language: The language you use in your email can influence whether or not people click. Use persuasive words and phrases like “discover,” “free,” and “you,” and avoid words that create a sense of urgency or desperation.

How to Calculate it?

It’s easy to calculate your CTR. Just divide the number of people who clicked on a link in your email by the number of people who received the email. For example, if 100 people received your email and 10 of them clicked on a link, your CTR would be 10%.

3) Bounce Rate

Imagine you’ve just sent out a beautifully crafted email campaign to your list of subscribers. But alas, it seems that only a small portion of your emails are actually making it to people’s inboxes. The rest are bouncing back undeliverable. Your first instinct might be to panic, but don’t worry – a certain amount of email bounce is normal. According to Campaign Monitor, the average bounce rate for email is between 2%  and 7%. However, a high bounce rate could be a sign that there’s something wrong with your email list. It could be that you’re sending to outdated or inactive email addresses, which is why your emails are bouncing. Or it could be a sign that your emails are going to spam. If your bounce rate is high, it’s a good idea to check your list for errors and clean it up. You can also try sending your emails from a different email service provider to see if that makes a difference.

How to Calculate it?

Bounce rate is calculated by taking the number of people who receive your email and dividing it by the number of emails that bounce. For example, if you sent your email to 100 people and 10 of them bounced, your bounce rate would be 10%.

Strategies to Reduce Your Bounce Rate

There are a few things you can do to reduce your bounce rate:

• Use chatbots: Chatbots can help you collect people’s email addresses by engaging them in conversation. This helps ensure that you’re only collecting valid email addresses, reducing the chances of bouncing.
• Authenticate your domain: Domain authentication is a process of verifying that your email address belongs to you. This helps to ensure that your emails are more likely to be delivered to people’s inboxes rather than being sent to spam.

4) Unsubscribe Rate

Ecommerce businesses rely on email to drive sales and revenue. So it’s no surprise that the unsubscribe rate is one of the most important email marketing metrics. Your unsubscribe rate is the percentage of people who unsubscribe from your email list after receiving one of your emails. An unsubscribe rate is normal and nothing to be concerned about – people change their minds all the time, and that’s okay. However, a high unsubscribe rate could be a sign that you’re not providing enough value in your emails or that you’re not sending relevant content to your list. It could also be a sign that your emails are too long or that you’re sending too many emails. If your unsubscribe rate is high, it’s a good idea to look at your email content and see if there’s anything you can improve.

How to Calculate it?

The unsubscribe rate is calculated by taking the number of people who unsubscribe from your email list after receiving one of your emails and dividing it by the number of people who received the email. For example, if 100 people received your email and 10 of them unsubscribed, your unsubscribe rate would be 10%.

Strategies to Reduce Your Unsubscribe Rate

There are a few things you can do to reduce your unsubscribe rate:

• Revamp your email content: Take a look at your email content and see if there’s anything you can improve. Are your emails interesting and informative? Are they too long? Are you sending too many emails?
• Segment your list: Segmenting your list helps to ensure that you’re only sending relevant content to people who are interested in it. This helps to reduce the chances of people unsubscribing from your list.
• A/B test your emails: A/B testing is a process of testing different versions of your email to see which one performs better. This helps you to fine-tune your email content and improve your unsubscribe rate.

5) Conversion Rate

I personally believe that the most important metric for any eCommerce business is conversion rate. In this case, the conversion rate is the percentage of people who take the desired action after receiving your email. Take it like this – if your goal is to make sales through email, your conversion rate is the percentage of people who buy something after receiving one of your emails. If your goal is to get people to sign up for your newsletter, then your conversion rate is the percentage of people who sign up after receiving one of your emails. And so on. Conversion rate is important because it tells you how well your email marketing campaigns perform. If your conversion rate is low, people are not taking the desired action after receiving your email. This could be a sign that your email content is not relevant or that your call-to-action is not effective.

How to Calculate it?

The conversion rate is calculated by taking the number of people who take the desired action after receiving your email and dividing it by the number of people who received the email. For example, if 1000 people received your email and 100 of them bought something, your conversion rate would be 10%. Ideally, you want your conversion rate to be as high as possible.

Poor conversion rates can be frustrating, but there are a few things you can do to improve them:

• Test your call-to-action: The call-to-action is the most important part of your email, so it’s important to make sure that it’s effective. Try testing different versions of your call-to-action to see which one performs better.
• For instance, you could test using a different color button or a different position for your call-to-action.
• Provide value: How can e-commerce businesses provide value in their emails?
• The answer is by offering coupons, discounts, or free shipping. People are more likely to take action if they feel they’re getting a good deal.
• Make it easy: Make sure that it’s easy for people to take the desired action. If you’re selling products, make sure that the buy now button is prominently displayed and that the checkout process is simple.
• Don’t make people jump through hoops just to take the desired action.

6) Email return-on-investment (ROI)

Email return-on-investment (ROI) is a metric that tells you how much money you’re making for every dollar you spend on email marketing. It’s important to track because it allows you to see how profitable your email marketing campaigns are. If you’re not making a good return on your investment, then you’re not making money from your email marketing campaigns. Let’s say you spend $100 on email marketing and make $500 in sales. Your email ROI would be 400%. This means that for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you’re making $4 in sales.

How to Calculate it?

Email ROI is calculated by dividing the total revenue generated from email marketing by the total cost of email marketing. It will give you a percentage so you can compare it to other marketing channels.

7) Email delivery rate

The delivery rate is the percentage of emails that were successfully delivered to subscribers’ inboxes. A high delivery rate indicates that your email messages get through to your subscribers. A low delivery rate could be a sign that your emails are being sent to spam folders or that there are problems with your email deliverability. What can Affect your Email Delivery Rate?

There are a number of factors that can affect your email delivery rate, such as:

• ESP: The ESP you’re using can affect your delivery rate. Some ESPs have better deliverability than others. For instance, if you’re using Gmail, your delivery rate will be higher than if you’re using other ESPs.
• Sending frequency: How often you send emails can affect your delivery rate. If you’re sending too many emails, your subscribers may start to mark your messages as spam.
• It’s important to find a balance between sending too many and too few emails. How can you do this? Test different sending frequencies to see what works best for your list.
• List hygiene: Keeping your list clean is important for deliverability. This means removing invalid email addresses, bounced emails, and unengaged subscribers.
• The more clean your list is, the higher your deliverability will be.

How to Calculate it?

The delivery rate is calculated by taking the number of emails that were delivered and dividing it by the number of emails that were sent. For example, if you sent 120 emails and 80 of them were delivered, your delivery rate would be 67%.

8) Unsubscribe Rate

This KPI measures the number of people who unsubscribe from your email list after receiving one of your messages. Losing a subscription is normal, but if your unsubscribe rate is too high, it could be a sign that you’re sending too many emails, your messages are not relevant to your subscribers, or that you’re using too much sales language. No businesses want a high unsubscribe rate, but it’s important to track because it can help you improve your email marketing.

How to reduce your Unsubscribe Rate?

If you want to reduce your unsubscribe rate, here are a few things you can do:

• Segment subscribers: Segmenting your subscribers allows you to send more relevant and targeted messages. When your subscribers feel like you’re speaking directly to them, they’re more likely to stay on your list.
• Use triggered emails: Triggered emails are messages that are sent based on a subscriber’s behavior. For example, you can send a welcome email to new subscribers or a cart abandonment email to people who have items in their shopping cart but haven’t purchased them.
• Triggered emails are more relevant and targeted than regular emails, so they can help keep subscribers engaged.
• Use double opt-in: Double opt-in is when someone subscribes to your list and then has to confirm their subscription via email. This helps to ensure that people who subscribe to your list actually want to receive your emails.
• People who confirm their subscription are more likely to engage with your emails, so using double opt-in can help reduce your unsubscribe rate.

Wrapping Up

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. But, in order to be successful, you need to track the right KPIs. Businesses that track email marketing KPIs are more likely to see success than those that don’t. It’s the same as SEO, PPC, or any other digital marketing channel. The KPIs you track will depend on your goals. If you’re not sure which KPIs to track, start with the ones listed in this article. Monitoring your KPIs will give you insights into what’s working and what’s not. This information can help you improve your email marketing and achieve your goals.

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