Chapter 6 – Understanding and Tracking Mission-Critical Email Marketing Metrics

You’ve heard it before.

The mantra that’s so cliche and repetitive that it verges on annoying.

“Data is king.”

But in the world of email marketing, nothing quite reveals how engaging you are, how impactful you are, how profitable you are like the data does.

Of course, to claim that data is king is to claim that it has some semblance of influence over the actions you take, too. That is to say, the data doesn’t just report the current situation, but informs your future strategy — it doesn’t just tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong, it tells you how to fix it.

And that’s true, if you’re good at interpreting the data.

Which is exactly what we’re going to talk about in this chapter.

We’re going to discuss which email marketing metrics you should pay the most attention to, what they mean, how you can calculate them, and how to improve them if they’re suffering.

But first…

The email marketing funnel and how it changes your perception of the data

On the side of your subscriber, a few simple things happen when they find your email in their inbox. First, they read your subject line and they decide whether or not your email is worth opening. Then, assuming they open it, they read or scan your email copy, subconsciously determining whether your CTA is worth clicking.

If they click, they finish by deciding whether they’re going to pay for whatever it is that you’re offering on your landing page.

But before any of that happens, some other (just as critical) things take place.

Once you send the email, the email must necessarily get delivered. It’s only after those two things happen that the subscriber’s decision-making funnel comes into play at all.

From start to finish, the entire email marketing funnel looks like this.

Why is this important?

Well, a lot of email marketers make the mistake of working to get a higher open rate when they actually have more of a delivery rate problem. Similarly, many beginners try to convert more leads when they have a click-through rate problem.

But, of course, that’s a waste of time.

You should only work to improve the funnel chronologically — that is, you should only try to improve one part of the funnel (i.e. click-through rate) once all of the previous steps have been optimized (i.e. sent, delivered, and opened).

In other words, don’t get caught up in trying to prematurely fix one metric when there is a separate independent metric problem preceding it in the email funnel.

How do you know which metric deserves your attention first?

Well, you need to know how each piece of the funnel is performing — which metrics are healthy and which are suffering. Then, chronologically work toward fixing each from the top down.

Now let’s talk about all the metrics you need to understand.

Note: Your ESP will automatically track most if not all of the metrics mentioned in this chapter. However, so that you fully understand how these metrics are calculated, we’ll provide you with the formula for each.

Delivery Rate

What is it and why does it matter?

Delivery rate is the percentage of emails that get delivered in a given campaign.

Internet Service Providers (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc) will put your incoming emails in the recipient’s spam folder for lots of different reasons. Sometimes it’s because your subject line had too many words associated with spam emails. Other times, it’s because people on your list have marked your past emails as spam, contributing to your a poor reputation with the ISP.

If your email goes to a recipient’s spam folder, it’s practically invisible. Plus, get a large enough spam percentage and your IP address’ reputation will spiral out of control and you’ll struggle to deliver any emails straight to people’s inboxes.

Additionally, some emails “bounce”, which means that the email didn’t get delivered at all. This may happen in one of two ways. When an email address has gone bad or is no longer valid, it is an example of a Hard Bounce. When the recipient’s inbox is full or your email gets blocked for an extremely poor sending reputation these are examples of Soft Bounces. A good Email Service Provider will differentiate between “Hard” bounces and “Soft” bounces.

Too many spam box emails and bounced emails lower your delivery rate and hurt your IP address’ reputability.

Tracking formula

Delivery Rate = (Emails Delivered/Emails Sent) x 100%

How to improve it

To improve your delivery rate:

• Stay compliant with CAN-SPAM and GDPR regulations. We talked about this in detail in chapter 2.
• Ask subscribers to whitelist your emails. Your subscribers have the ability to tell their ISP of choice that your emails are trustworthy — thus increasing your IP address’ reputability. If they like and appreciate your emails, all you have to do is ask them to add you to their contact list or address book. By so doing, your delivery rate will improve.’
• Make sure your IP address isn’t blacklisted. With too low of a delivery rate, your IP address might get blacklisted by certain Internet Service Providers. You can use Sender Score to check your IP address reputation.
• Be wary of phrases associated with spam emails. ISPs watch subject lines and email copy for trigger phrases that they associate with spam emails. Phrases like “$$$” or “F r e e” or “Re:” often give your emails a higher chance of going to spam and hurting your delivery rate.
• Scrub your email list. To avoid a high bounce rate, clean up your email list. Look for misspellings in email addresses that may have caused a “hard” bounce to occur (hotmial.com vs. hotmail.com, for instance) and delete any email addresses that consistently increase your bounce rate.

Open Rate

What is it and why does it matter?

Open rate is the number of people who click on your email once it hits their inbox — the percentage of people who “open” a given email campaign.

And it matters because if subscribers don’t open your email, then they can’t read your email, they can’t click your CTA, and they can’t buy from you.

Plus, it hints as to what percentage of your subscribers engage with your emails consistently.

Tracking formula

Open Rate = (Emails Opened/Emails Delivered) x 100%

How to improve it

To improve your email open rate, try…

• Making your subject line shorter. Some people view your emails on mobile, where less of the subject line shows up.
• Using merge tags to include the subscriber’s first name in the subject line. A bit of personalization can sometimes increase your open rate.
• Using a consistent “From” field name. Try using your own name and your company’s name to see which gets a better open rate (run an A/B test), then stick with that option so people can build a relationship with that name.
• Sending email at different times of day. Most people check their emails at the same time every day. Your audience probably has a cadence of their own. Play around with when you send emails to determine what the ideal time of day is (and even day of the week) for your audience.

Unsubscribe Rate

What is it and why does it matter?

Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who opt out of your email list during a given campaign.

A high unsubscribe rate is bad news — sometimes, it means people leave your list faster than they’re joining it, giving you negative net list growth. Plus, with an unsubscribe rate that’s through the ceiling (it generally correlates with higher complaint rates), and ISPs will lose trust for your IP address, making it more difficult to contact the people you most want to contact.

For those reasons, keep an eye on how many people unsubscribe every time you send an email.

Tracking formula

Unsubscribe Rate = (Unsubscribes/Emails Delivered) x 100%

How to improve it

To improve your unsubscribe rate, try…

• Scrubbing your list. Not all subscribers are equal. Delete or send a re-engagement campaign to any email addresses that haven’t engaged with your content for an extended amount of time. A good clean list rarely has a high unsubscribe rate.
• Sending more or less emails. If you have a high unsubscribe rate, it might be because you’re sending too many emails and people are getting annoyed, or it might be because you’re sending too few and people keep forgetting who you are or what you do. Play around with how often you send emails to strike the perfect balance for your audience.
• Sending more relevant content. People usually unsubscribe because they feel you don’t have anything of interest to offer them. Always remember the reason that people signed up for your list in the first place — that’ll be the same reason that they stick around.
• Segmenting your list. We’ll talk more about how to do this in Chapter 7, but separating your lists into different interest-based segments, you can send people content that is specific to them and decrease your unsubscribe rate.

Click-through rate

What is it and why does it matter?

Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click a link or CTA within your email.

Opening your emails is one thing, but if people never click (i.e. take the action that you want them to take) then you’re sending emails for no reason. This is perhaps one of the most revealing metrics in regards to how engaging and persuasive your emails are.

Tracking formula

Click-through Rate = (Emails Clicked/Emails Delivered) x 100%

How to improve it

To improve your click-through rate, try…

• Altering the number of links in your emails. Does your audience click more when you have multiple links within the email or when there’s one single CTA which stands out? Run an A/B test to find out.
• Playing with the wording for each link. The more curiosity you create, the more that people will click your emails. Try changing the wording of a link (whether a button or hyperlink text) to something more enticing.
• Adding a clickable image. Whether you’re promoting a product or a piece of content, try adding a hyperlinked image to your email to see if that raises your click-through rate at all. Run an A/B test to get quality results.
• Segmenting your list. Again, segmenting your list means sending content to people based on their actual interests. This usually increases your click-through rate since people only receive content which is relevant to them personally.

Complaint Rate

What is it and why does it matter?

Complaint rate is the percentage of people that report your emails as spam in a given campaign.

When you send an email and someone marks it as spam, not only does that mean the person dislikes receiving your emails, it also means that their ISP is going to pay special attention to other emails coming from your IP address to determine whether you’re a spammer or not.

Too many complaints means that more and more of your emails automatically go to the spam box — not good when you want your emails to be seen and interacted with.

Tracking formula

Complaint Rate = (Complaints/Emails Delivered) x 100%

How to improve it

To improve your complaint rate, try…

• Getting permission. If you don’t have permission to be contacting the people on your list for commercial purposes, then your complaint rate will likely skyrocket. In the same way that people don’t like a stranger walking into their house without knocking, they don’t want to receive emails without first giving their consent. Check out Chapter 2 to learn more about getting permission from your subscribers.
• Sending fewer emails to avoid list fatigue. There’s no right way to do it. Some audiences will want to receive an email every single day while other lists will only want one email every week. But your list does have a preference. If you’re experiencing a high compliant rate, then it might be because you’re sending them emails too frequently. Try sending less and watch what happens.
• Sell a little less often. Most people didn’t sign up for your list because they want to buy every product you have to offer. They signed up because they wanted to interact with your free content, get free advice, and receive special offers (more than likely). If every email you send is trying to sell something, then you might burn out the relationship and raise your complaint rate. Try sending more types of gratuitous emails that simply offer free advice or content without asking for anything in return.
• Scrubbing your list. The less that people engage with your emails now, the higher chance that they’re going to mark your emails as spam in the future. Reduce that risk by deleting people from your list who haven’t engaged for an extended period of time.
• Segmenting your list. By sending emails that are relevant to the specific interests and desires of each person, you can reduce your complaint rate and increase engagement.
• Ask subscribers to whitelist your emails. Sometimes, asking your subscribers to make a commitment to you and count your emails among the ones they trust can make all the difference. Ask them to whitelist your email within their ISP and you might be surprised at the response.

Note: At this point, you might be wondering, What’s a good benchmark to strive for for each of these metrics? And to be honest, we almost included those numbers in this ebook. But we ultimately decided against it. Not because benchmarks are unhelpful, but because cross-industry benchmarks are. The truth is, every industry is different and every list is different. The best thing you can do is set your own benchmarks over time and try to improve upon those standards. Don’t get too caught up in what other people are doing — they’ve got different lists, different methods, and different products. Trying to compare your own metrics against another person’s benchmarks is comparing apples and oranges. Use your own benchmarks as a marker of success instead.

You now understand which metrics are important to track for your email campaigns. You even know some quick tricks for improving each of those metrics if they’re suffering.

From Chapter 5, you understand what goes into creating and launching a successful email marketing campaign.

And now, it’s time to dive into more detail about exactly how you can improve your open and click-through rates, two of the most vital metrics you’ll measure.