It’s a whole lot easier to make decisions when you have all the facts. And while it’s not always possible to have ALL the facts when making business decisions, the preference is definitely to make informed choices over resorting to eeny, meeny, miny, moe. In email marketing, if you had the choice between guessing based on your gut and using analytics to drive decisionmaking, of course you’d choose the latter! But don’t we all know that even if you’re onboard with data-driven decisionmaking, when it comes to email marketing, it’s not always easy to figure out what you should tracking and how you should be using those insights. 

Welcome to our guide to help you do just that.

In case you’re not reading between the lines, let us be clear: You really must track KPIs for your email marketing campaigns. And you should be doing this using a variety of metrics. Understanding how your email marketing campaigns are doing is the first step in maximizing digital marketing efforts. Here are some of the metrics/KPIs you’re going to want to pay attention to, along with brief descriptions:

• Clicks: The number of people who clicked links in your email. Also known as CTR (clickthrough rate).
• Conversions: The number of people who clicked and then followed through by taking an action (making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, downloading a case study, etc.). 
• Opens: The number of people who opened your email.
• Shares: The number of times people forwarded your email.
• Bounces: The number of times your email bounced back. (Learn about hard vs. soft bounces.)
• Unsubs: The number of times people unsubscribed from your mailing list using the link in your email. 

We recommend tracking all the above metrics to get a well-rounded picture of how your email marketing efforts are faring. For instance, by tracking CTR, you’ll get a sense for how engaging your content is. Tracking conversions suggests how motivated people are to interact with your brand as a result of your digital marketing campaign. Tracking opens indicates how effective your subject lines are. (Use A/B testing to get this right!) Tracking shares will give you a sense of how many NEW people you reached as a result of your campaign. And tracking bounces and unsubscribes will give you an idea about how healthy your contact list is at any given moment. 

Of course, there are other metrics, too. Depending on your specific goals, it may be helpful to track analytics like ROI, list growth vs. attrition rates, and time spent viewing emails. No matter what you decide to track, it’s only going to be worthwhile if you translate analytics into action. If you’re not getting clicks, how can you tweak your email content? Come up with a plan and test it out. If you’re getting a bunch of unsubscribes, consider why your contacts aren’t resonating with your content. Adjust (either your content or your list), and try, try again.

Let’s close with a few tips:

1. Decide how often you’re going to sit down and review the metrics that make most sense to you based on your campaign’s goals. Will you make this a priority for each campaign? Monthly? Quarterly? 
2. Don’t get super hung up on opens. If you want an email campaign to be effective, people must first open your email—true. BUT. Open rates can be deceiving, and if your open rate is great but nobody is clicking through and converting, you’re most likely not achieving your goals. 
3. Take action based on what you learn. Each metric can tell you a little something about what’s working and what’s not working in your email marketing campaigns. Tweak, experiment, segment/scrub your list, repeat as needed.

Ready to make sense of your email marketing analytics? We can help.