October 22, 2018

Guest Post

Email marketing may seem simple, but there are a lot of components that contribute to an optimized campaign. I could discuss common mistakes, show you shining examples of campaigns that work, or even get into detail with optimization, but none of that makes any difference if you can’t determine whether or not your email marketing efforts are succeeding or failing.

Here, I will briefly discuss the ways you can analyze and understand your email campaign results, going over metrics such as bounce rates, unsubscribers, and click-through rates. Before you can measure your results, you need something to measure: a goal at the end of the marketing tunnel.

If you’d like your email marketing campaing to succeed, we’d mastering best practices before diving in.

The Goal-Oriented Email Campaign

Typical email marketing goals include

• Converting leads to customers
• Increasing your subscriber database
• Generating leads
• Recovering lost customers
• Increasing engagement

You can choose any—or all—of these goals. Choosing a goal gives you an aim for your campaign and helps you target, optimize, and focus your efforts to be cost- and time-effective. Whichever goals you choose, measuring your results will give you insight into the effectiveness of your campaign as it relates to that goal.

Metrics for the Win

Now that you’ve set goals, optimized your emails for the specifics, and run your campaign, it’s time to see if your efforts are working. Email marketing, contrary to some opinions, is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. You have to constantly watch for changes in trends, audience opinions, and markets to keep your campaigns producing results. The best way to do that is by measuring email marketing metrics.

While there are many metrics to measure email effectiveness, there are a handful that all marketers should heed, regardless of goals, metrics such as email open rate and click-through rate. If people aren’t opening your emails or not clicking the links inside, your sales funnel has a serious problem.

Bounce rate, unsubscribes, and spam rate are the other metrics you should monitor because they help keep your list clean of useless addresses and uncover problems in your campaign that could be causing dissatisfaction with your email recipients. Measuring metrics like sales, shares, and subscribes are important hallmarks for proper campaign management, allowing you to make adjustments on the fly.

Tracking Metrics: An Essential Email Marketing Skill

To determine whether your email marketing campaigns are effective, you must first understand the metrics analytical reports show you. Otherwise, you won’t be able to strategize and optimize. Below is an infographic that gives you the metrics you need to understand to effectively run an email campaign. Keep this infographic by your side or memorize it by heart—do whatever it takes to know these metrics like the back of your hand.

This infographic first appeared on www.campaignmonitor.com