Alexis Souchoroukof July 28th, 2022

Email analytics: What should you be tracking?

Email remains an effective way to increase brand awareness and increase sales. However, with more brands using email as the main distribution channel the competition is becoming more apparent. 

To get ahead of the curve, you must craft content that considers each subscriber's unique preferences and interests. 

To accomplish such a challenging task data analytics and reporting are crucial. Analyzing your data will enable you to design more effective marketing emails.

Why email metrics are vital for your success?

With more significant insights into your email campaigns, you can better understand how your subscribers interact with your material. Without measuring your stats, you won't understand how your content resonates with your audience.

Future email marketing initiatives you run will also benefit from tracking your analytics, and you'll know what changes to make once you can tell what works and what doesn't.

For instance, your subject lines might get your readers' attention, but when they open the email, they will find that the content isn't very interesting. 

Another example is that your emails can constantly be marked as spam, which might cost you many subscribers. You may solve the issue and expand your audience by realizing the root of all these problems.

Pro Tip: Having one of the best email marketing software can help you make this challenging task easier with a dedicated dashboard with analytics and other tools to improve your email marketing efforts all in one place.

Which email metric to track?

You might experiment with various email marketing software with dedicated analytics tools to determine how well your emails are doing in the long run. But first, you need to understand which email metrics you should be paying attention to.

Metric: Open Rate

This is a measurement of how many recipients are opening your email messages. Several tactics can raise your open rate if it is lower than you might want. 

A crucial factor for this scenario is your subject lines. For example, adding a sense of urgency to your subject line can help you get more opens. A pro tip would be to leverage Moosend's free subject line tester which refines your subject lines to increase open rates.

An alternative solution to increase open rates might be changing the hours and days you send your emails. B2B emails might receive more responses in the morning, but you may find that B2C communications have better results over the weekends.

It's crucial to note that tracking this metric is a little challenging due to Apple's new Mail Privacy Protection feature. Since recipients can restrict access to senders' information, including email openings, this indicator might not be reliable, especially if many of your subscribers utilize Apple Mail.

Metric: Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Your CTR measures the percentage of subscribers who opened your email and clicked on the links inside it. When a single individual repeatedly clicks on your emails, it's reasonable to assume they're a well-qualified lead. A high click-through rate (CTR) indicates a lot of interest in your product or service, which is ideal for converting your leads into buyers.

Your success with this metric may depend on several factors:

  • Do your customers click through and make purchases more frequently when highlighting a product? 
  • Does having responsive emails for mobile devices help? 
  • Do you have better results when you include a price in the email or when it appears on the page after they click through?
  • Which are the colors that help your email convert best?

Your success in this area can be significantly increased by experimenting with these variables to determine which tactic produces the best results. Try A/B testing to understand what works best for your audience. Alternate wording, colors, or fonts for one of the links in your email if it isn't getting a lot of clicks.

Pro Tip: Create special tracking codes in each email to discover more about who is visiting. These codes might help you identify the potential customers exploring your website. 

Metric: Conversion Rate

When a recipient takes the desired action that you want them to take, this is referred to as a conversion. This indicator shows the quality of your subscriber engagement overall and the strength of your contact list. 

A high conversion rate indicates that your message piqued your audience's attention. With conversion rate, there isn't a magic formula that can skyrocket this metric. You need to have a solid understanding of your separate metrics and improve your campaigns to better appeal to your specific audience.

Metric: Unsubscribe Rate

For a variety of reasons, not every subscriber will remain loyal. However, if you observe a pattern of unsubscribes, it's a warning that you should examine your emails to identify any potential issues.

You might want to think about sending fewer emails each week or each month to avoid unsubscribes from recipients on your email marketing list. 

Even while it may seem to go against your sales objectives, if you don't often bombard subscribers with emails, they're more likely to stay engaged with your brand. 

Send emails to your consumer base only when you have important announcements or special offers to discuss. Pay attention to your email design to craft a simple, high-converting message.

Metric: Bounce Rate

The percentage of emails that couldn't arrive at your email list is measured by the bounce rate and has two types, soft and hard bounces.

A soft bounce is typically a problem with the recipient. These could be issues like a full inbox or a server problem from the receiver. A hard bounce is a sign that something is not right on your end. Perhaps the email address you're sending to is wrong, or the recipient's mail server has blocked your email, which often means you've been flagged as spam.

To overcome these issues, leverage a double opt-in feature when subscribers sign up for emails to reduce bounce rates. One approach to accomplish this is by asking them to confirm their email address and their desire to be added to your email subscriber list by an automated email.

Pro tip: A great way to reduce bounce rates is surveys, which can help you segment your audience and send more personalized campaigns that appeal to the right people.

Metric: Deliverability Rate

The percentage ?f emails that reach your subscribers' inboxes is known as the email delivery percentage. A delivery rate of 95% or greater is regarded as a good number by the majority of marketers.

High bounce rates, limited subscriber engagement, and recipients reporting emails as spam are all variables that might impact email deliverability. 

If you want to improve email deliverability, it may be time to start reviewing your email lists and eliminating email contacts that don't engage with your campaigns.

The Takeaway

Email metrics are vital for accomplishing your business goals. A solid email marketing software can help you with a dedicated tool to monitor your campaigns and gain real-time data about your campaigns.

Bad data can often lead to major marketing budget losses so having a professional tool in your arsenal and the knowledge to understand the different metrics is essential. In this article, we analyzed several metrics that can make or break your campaigns. Back to you now, with a new mindset on how to leverage this information.

Until the next one, keep using your data to make stronger email campaigns.

Featured Image by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash

Alexis Souchoroukof

Alex is a content writer at Moosend. He leaped faith in the digital marketing world from an architecture background and has never looked back. You will find him traveling in places around the world in his free time.

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