1. Set goals

Before you get stuck into measuring your email marketing you need to set yourself goals and benchmarks to determine what “success” actually looks like.

Write a goal statement

By forcing yourself to condense your goal into one or two sentences, you are helping to clarify what it is you want to achieve.

For example, “I want to drive sales from new customers as well as increase loyalty and long term sales with existing customers using regular email communications”

Include your current metrics

If you’re reading this guide then it’s likely you aren’t measuring many, if any, email metrics. However, if you have dipped into email measurement in any form, such as opens or clicks, then include these metrics in your goal and benchmark setting for a (very) rough guide.

Utilise industry averages

Build on your current metrics by utilising industry averages, which provide you with a ready-made benchmark to aim for while you are building up your own reporting history.

There are a variety of email benchmarking reports available, but we’d recommend using the DMA National email benchmarking report.

Ensure your goals are SMART

One way to ensure that your goals are effective and realistic is to set SMART goals. A SMART goal is:

Specific: Your goals must identify exactly what you want to accomplish as specifically as you can manage.

Measurable: Try to quantify the result so that you can know exactly if you have hit your goal or not.

Actionable: Every goal should start with an action verb like “quit” or “finish”, not a to-be verb, such as “am” or “be”.

Realistic: Make sure you are able to work to the goals you set, as opposed to making them unattainable.

Time bound: Every goal needs a date associated with, such as when you plan to deliver it.

To do:

• Write your goal statement
• Utilise your current metrics and industry averages to set benchmarks
• Utilise our benchmarking template to help you set goals
• Ensure your goals are Smart

Worksheet 1 - Set goals

Use our goal setting template to ensure suitable goals and benchmarks are set before you begin measurement

Write a goal statement:

Note down any current metrics you are tracking

	Month 1	Month 2	Month 3	Month 4
Metric 1
Metric 2
Metric 3

Note down industry averages for your relevant metrics

	Industry Average
Metric 1
Metric 2
Metric 3

2. Get the basics right

Chances are you may already be measuring these metrics, but if you’re not, you absolutely should be. If you see a dip in any of the following, then you will need to start investigating any issues as soon as possible.

Bounce Rate

What is it?

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of total emails sent out that could not be delivered to a recipient’s inbox.

Why is it useful?

You can use this metric to uncover any potential problems with your email list. There are two kinds of bounces to consider, hard and soft.

Hard bounces are the result of a closed or non-existent email address which means your emails will never be successfully delivered to them. These should be removed from your email list to improve your sending reputation.

Soft bounces are the result of temporary issues with a valid email address, for instance a full inbox.

How to measure it?

To calculate bounce rate you can divide the total number of emails that have bounced by the total number of emails sent to establish number of bounces per email. Simply multiply your bounce per email rate by 100 to establish your bounce rate percentage.

Deliverability Rate

What is it?

Delivery rate is the percentage of emails that were actually delivered to your recipients’ inboxes.

Why is it useful?

Delivery rate is the foundation of a successful (or unsuccessful) email campaign. To have the chance of engaging with your recipient, your message has to actually get to their inbox!

If you notice your delivery rate decreasing over time then this is an indication of a problem with your list, for instance too many invalid email addresses.

How to measure it?

To measure delivery rate subtract hard and soft bounces from the gross number of emails sent, then divide that number by gross emails sent. You should be aiming for a delivery rate of over 90%.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

What is it?

Click through rate (CTR) refers to the proportion of your recipients who have clicked on one or more links in your email message.

Why is it useful?

CTR is an indication of whether or not the content included in your email was enticing or relevant enough to the recipient; giving you insight into the success of your email campaign.

It’s important to remember that CTR can vary depending on the message type. For instance newsletters often have a much higher CTR than transactional emails. Therefore set your benchmarks accordingly.

How to measure it?

You can calculate CTR by dividing unique clicks by the number of emails delivered.

To do:

• Ensure that reporting is in place to monitor your essential metrics
• Utilise our essentials reporting template
• Measure your results on a campaign basis or a monthly basis

Worksheet 2 - Basic reporting

Use our basic reporting template to track your metrics on a monthly and campaign basis

	Month 1	Month 2	% difference	Month 3	% difference	Month 4	% difference
Bounce rate
Delivery rate
Click through rate

 

	Campaign 1	Campaign 2	% difference	Campaign 3	% difference	Campaign 4	% difference
Bounce rate
Delivery rate
Click through rate

3. Look at the pound signs

The previous metrics are a great way to gauge email marketing and campaign performance, but often the success of your campaigns comes down to the monetary value they generate.

Therefore, the following metrics will allow you to determine how much money your email marketing is making for your business.

Conversion Rate

What is it?

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of your recipients who have clicked on a link within your email and have gone on to complete your desired action, such as filling in a lead generation form or purchasing a product.

Why is it useful?

Conversion rates are considered by many marketers to be the ultimate measure of how successful an email campaign has been. The higher your conversion rate then the more relevant and engaging your campaign has been.

How to measure it

It is important to remember that conversion rates depend on multiple factors which go beyond your email campaign, this could be the quality of your landing page for example.

To measure conversion rates, you will need to integrate your email platform with your web analytics. This integration can be easily performed by creating unique tracking URLs for your email links to identify where your clicks have come from (such as a specific email campaign).

Overall ROI

What is it?

Overall ROI refers to the amount of profit which is generated from email marketing activities.

Why is it useful?

Overall ROI is one of the most important metrics for marketers as it helps them to evaluate whether the money they are spending on their email marketing is generating healthy profits for their business.

How to measure it

The mathematical formula for ROI is:

(Earned - Spent) / Spent = ROI as a percentage

In layman’s terms, you need to minus what you have spent on your email marketing campaigns from what you have earned, and then divide this by your email marketing spend.

You will obviously want to include the cost of your ESP, but you may also want to include the time you spend on your email campaigns as a monetary value as well.

To do:

• Utilise our monetary reporting template
• Measure the above metrics on a monthly, quarterly and campaign basis

Worksheet 3 - Monetary reporting

Use our monetary reporting template to track your monetary metrics on a monthly and quarterly basis.

	Month 1	Month 2	% difference	Month 3	% difference	Month 4	% difference	Quarterly %
Conversion rate
Overall ROI

4. Be campaign-specific

The goals of your email marketing may vary from campaign to campaign. Therefore, we have included the following metrics which are particularly useful when measuring on a campaign level.

List Growth Rate

What is it?

This metrics follows on from lead generation but refers to the overall rate that your list is growing, as opposed to individual leads.

Why is it useful?

Monitoring your list growth rate is important as a healthy email list needs to be continually refreshed with new names and data. This metric is particularly useful for gauging a high-level understanding of how well an email campaign performed, without having to delve into specific lead metrics.

How to measure it

Calculate your list growth rate by subtracting opt-outs and hard bounces from the number of new email subscribers gained in a campaign. Then, divide that number by the original list size.

Revenue Per Email Campaign

What is it?

Revenue per email campaign refers to the return of investment from a specific email campaign.

Why is it useful?

This metric is particularly important for e-commerce marketers who generate high amounts of direct sales from email campaigns. It is also useful to gauge the success of specific email marketing campaigns.

How to measure it

This is likely to require an integration between your ESP and your e-commerce or web analytics platform. By using this integration you will easily be able to note any spikes in revenue and relate them back to specific campaigns.

New (or Total) Leads Generated

What is it?

This metric is primarily for B2B marketers and refers to the measurement of leads generated through an email campaign. These leads will often contain email addresses and other data which you wish to capture (such as name or company name).

Why is it useful?

If the goal of your email marketing is lead generation then you should be tracking how many leads you’re capturing every day week and month. You can decide to focus on all leads generated, or only new ones added to your database, depending on your priorities.

How to measure it

To measure the leads you are capturing you will need to utilise lead management software and/or a CRM integration.

You will need to send out lead capturing content within your emails, such as a specific form where recipients exchange their details for free content.

You can then pull this form from your lead management software and use your CRM to determine whether they are new leads into your CRM or existing.

Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate

What is it?

Again, this metric is primarily for B2B marketers and provides a measurement of leads (or prospects) which have been converted into customers.

Why is it useful?

If your goal is to nurture leads (and prospects) into converting as customers then this metric is essential. This metric will also help you to gauge the quality of the leads you are generating, hence why it should be looked at on a campaign basis.

How to measure it

To track this metric you will ideally need an integration with a CRM to monitor your prospects’ statuses. You can then align these statuses to your company’s specific sales funnel to determine when they have become a customer.

To do:

• Utilise our campaign reporting template
• Note down your campaigns for the next 6 months
• Ensure that you are tracking campaign metrics for each campaign

Worksheet 4 - Campaign reporting

Use our campaign reporting template to track relevant metrics on a campaign basis

	Campaign 1	Campaign 2	% difference	Campaign 3	% difference	Campaign 4	% difference
List growth rate
Revenue per email campaign
Total leads generated
New leads generated
Lead to customer rate

5. Don’t be misled

While the following email metrics are undeniably useful, they can sometimes be misleading.

That is why they shouldn’t be taken at face value, instead you should conduct additional research into what they mean for each campaign.

Open Rate

What is it?

The amount of emails which you have sent which have been opened.

Why you should be cautious

An email is only counted as ‘opened’ if the recipient also receives the images which are embedded into that email message. However, a large amount of recipients have image blocking enabled on their email client, meaning the images will not load.

This means that even if they do open your email this will not be tracked in your open rate metrics, leading to underreporting.

Unsubscribe Rate

What is it?

Unsubscribe rate refers to the amount of users who click “unsubscribe” from your emails

Why you should be cautious

Open rates do not offer a reliable picture of your email list health. If recipients are tired of your emails, many won’t actually bother to unsubscribe. Instead, they will simply stop opening your emails.

Therefore you should focus on tracking click-through and conversion rates to gauge recipient engagement.

However, it is worth tracking unsubscribe rates after specific campaigns to note if there have been any particular spikes.

The Simplifying Measurement Process

1. Set goals - Set goals and benchmarks using current metrics and industry averages
2. Measure the basics - Measure basic metrics on a weekly and monthly basis
3. Look at the pound signs - Measure monetary metrics monthly, quarterly and per campaign
4. Be campaign-specific - Measure campaign metrics on a campaign basis
5. Don’t be misled - Keep a cautious eye on any misleading metrics