Best Five Email Marketing Metrics for Tracking

Frustrated with your email marketing results (or lack thereof)? It’s okay–if you need help, you’re not alone.

When Alan Mulally took over as CEO in 2006, Ford had been losing market share to competitors like Toyota and Honda. They needed help.

Mulally recognized that Ford needed to change its business strategy significantly to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing automotive industry. To do this, he relied heavily on data to guide his decisions.

The forward-thinking CEO implemented a weekly business plan review meeting, where executives from across the company would share data and progress updates on key initiatives.

Mulally led Ford through a successful turnaround by relying on data to guide decision-making and keep the entire organization aligned and focused.

Under his leadership, Ford became profitable again, regained market share, and introduced successful new models like the Ford Fusion and Ford Explorer.

Why do you care about Ford?

This story highlights the importance of data-driven decision-making. By leveraging data and insights to guide strategic planning and execution, leaders like you can make informed decisions and drive meaningful change within their organizations.

What Is The Best Email Marketing Metric For Tracking?

The best email marketers use data to improve their business because it allows them to make informed decisions based on objective information. If you're using email marketing as part of your overall digital marketing strategy, you may be wondering how best to track its success.

By tracking metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, expert marketers can identify trends and patterns in subscriber behavior and adjust their email campaigns accordingly. This helps them to optimize their messaging, improve engagement with their audience, and ultimately drive more sales and revenue for their business.

You can make informed decisions and optimize your email campaigns for maximum impact by leveraging the correct data and tracking the right metrics.

In this blog post, we will discuss the most important metrics that measure email marketing performance and which metric is the most useful for tracking email success. We'll also share tips on how to make sure these metrics provide an accurate picture of reader engagement and how data can help steer future decisions.

Tracking the Wrong Metrics

It's essential to avoid falling into the trap of relying solely on vanity metrics, which are metrics that may look impressive on the surface but don't necessarily provide meaningful insights into the performance of your email campaigns.

Examples of vanity metrics include metrics like total subscribers or total opens, which don't take into account the quality or engagement level of those subscribers.

To avoid vanity metrics, it's important to focus on metrics that align with your business goals, such as conversion rates or revenue generated per email. These metrics provide a more accurate picture of the effectiveness of your email campaigns and can help you make data-driven decisions to improve your business.

Using data to improve your email marketing is crucial for achieving success, but it's essential to focus on the metrics that matter and avoid getting caught up in vanity metrics that can be misleading.

Best Email Marketing Metrics For Tracking

Now, the part you’ve been waiting for. Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing, and as such, it is essential to track your email campaigns' performance.

Measuring metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates can provide valuable insight into how your emails are performing and how to improve them.

Open rates measure the number of recipients who open your email, click-through rates track the number of people who clicked on a link in your email, and conversion rates measure the number of people who completed a desired action after clicking through to your website.

Email marketers can optimize their campaigns by analyzing these metrics to achieve their desired results. Let’s dive into each in detail.

Open Rate - How Many People Open Your Emails

In today's digital age, email has become one of the most important modes of communication for businesses. However, with so many emails being sent and received daily, getting someone to open and read your message can take time and effort.

This is why open rate is so crucial. The open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email, and it can be a powerful indicator of the effectiveness of your email marketing campaign.

A high open rate means that your subject line and messaging resonate with your audience, while a low open rate may indicate that you need to reevaluate your approach.

Understanding your open rate can help you improve your email marketing strategy and reach more people with your message.

If you want to increase your open rates, here is a fantastic case of study on how The B-Side Gets 60% Open Rates on beehiiv.

Click Through Rate - How Many People Click on the Links in Your Emails

Are your emails getting the engagement they deserve? Click-through rate is a crucial measure of success for any email marketing campaign.

It tells you how many people are clicking on the links in your emails and visiting your website. A high click-through rate means that your message is resonating with your audience and that they are interested in learning more.

On the other hand, if your click-through rate is low, it may be time to reevaluate your approach. Take a closer look at your subject lines, content, and layout to identify areas for improvement.

Optimizing your emails for click-through rate can increase website traffic, generate more leads, and ultimately grow your business.

If you want to increase your click through rates, here is a fantastic case of study on how Fantasy Life Increased Click-through Rates by 200%.

Conversion Rate - How Many People Convert After Clicking Through Your Emails

Conversion rate is a critical metric for any marketer, signaling the effectiveness of their campaigns in converting leads into customers.

It measures the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form, after clicking through an email. A high conversion rate indicates that your message resonates with your audience and drives them to take action.

On the other hand, a low conversion rate could suggest that your messaging is off or that your landing page needs improvement.

By monitoring and optimizing your conversion rate, you can improve the ROI of your email campaigns and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.

List Growth Rate - How Quickly Your List Is Growing Over Time

As a marketer, one of the most important metrics to keep track of is the growth rate of your email list. It's not just about having an extensive list, but also how quickly it's growing.

A steady upward trend means you're successfully attracting new subscribers and retaining current ones. On the other hand, a stagnant or declining growth rate could indicate that your email marketing efforts need some tweaking.

By monitoring your list growth rate, you can make informed decisions about your lead generation strategies, content, and overall engagement with your audience. It's a valuable metric that can help you achieve long-term success.

Engagement Score - The Average Amount of Time Someone Spends Engaging With Your Emails

Regarding email marketing, success is not just about the number of subscribers on your list, but about how engaged they are with your content.

This is where the engagement score comes in handy. Simply put, it's the average amount of time someone spends engaging with your emails. This score can indicate how interested your audience is in what you have to say.

If you are struggling with creating engaging content, here is a fantastic way to use ChatGPT to increase the engagement of your content.

If your engagement score is high, it means your subscribers are taking the time to read your emails, click through to your website, and possibly even make a purchase. However, if your score is low, your emails are not resonating with your audience, and it might be time to rethink your strategy.

Tracking your engagement score can help you improve your email marketing efforts and build stronger relationships with your subscribers.

Start Tracking With beehiiv

Email marketing is a powerful tool to grow your business, but you’ll need to track the right metrics to ensure its effectiveness.

All of these numbers should be tracked to show you how successful your emails are—knowing which numbers perform the best, and why, will help you craft better emails that engage readers and boost conversions.

With the data collected from tracking these metrics, you’ll be able to focus on what’s working best and fine-tune every aspect of your email campaigns for higher conversions in the future.

Not sure where to start? With beehiiv 3-D analytic tool you can track all of these key metrics and deep down into each of them. Sign up for the Scale Plan and lead your email newsletter to a successful 2023.