What's the best way to track the effectiveness of my email marketing efforts?
I send out quarterly newsletters and then periodic updates, but I am not sure how to track the effectiveness of my efforts. I understand that the open rate and click through rates are important, but what are good rates?
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Oct 14, 2014
Either use a CRM like sales force or Sugar or use an online email service like mailchimp or constant contact.
Oct 14, 2014
It look like there are quite a few opinions out there, but really, a good rate should be the standard that you set. An industry average may be a good benchmark, but it says nothing about whether your campaign was profitable. You might want to determine the ROI you want and then back into goals for your campaign. A useful tool that may help over time is at senderscore.org. There you will find tools to see if your IP or domain has a spammy email reputation. Companies use senderscore.org scores to filter emails. So, the better your senderscore rating, the better your chances of not getting filtered and the more people that will actually see your email.
Oct 10, 2014
Good rates are all relative to your needs. I would say 30% is a great Open Rate but you need to measure your Conversion Rate and that is trial and error. What ever you decide to do, measure every thing you can. Email metrics can be very misleading and complicated. Use a simple program like Mail Chimp.
Oct 8, 2014
I found that using an email program such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp give me analytic results. I personally use Mail Chimp and in the analytics report give you an open and click comparison to your industry.
Oct 8, 2014
Ultimately, you will want to know if your newsletters contributed to the growth of the business, so sales are going to be a key metric. From sales, you can track back to each stage of the purchase process and see how your email campaigns affected the numbers. You'll need to have in place tools to do so, such as Google Analytics (tied to sales) and HubSpot.
Oct 8, 2014
The "ideal" rate themselves will vary across industries as the reader demographics and expectations shift.
More importantly, your goals should not be defined by some pie-in-the-sky number you pull from a Google search or Mosaic answer. The REAL goal of analytics and reporting is incremental improvements. Who cares what others are seeing in results - focus on your results and how you want to see them change.
The minute you start letting other companies drive your business' objectives, you've hopped on the train to ruin.
Oct 14, 2014
Having industry benchmarks are a red herring. Case in point: Look at the auto industry. The trend was consistantly managed by all the big auto companies- but it also lead to their crushing implosion that they're just starting to pull out of now.
Had any one of them decided to focus on their internal mentrics and their immediate customer base, rather than measure their performance agqainst competition, they'd have come out farther ahead. Tesla, as an example, cut their own path and was the only auto company to enjoy year after year growth despite the collapsing giants around it.
The argument of what other companies are doing right and wrong (i.e. competitor analysis) are a completely different and altogether separate topic from what's posted here. Carrie was looking for external benchmarks to measure her own performance.
You can measure yourself internally whilst still analysing competition. Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster.
Oct 14, 2014
Patrick ... We'll have to agree to disagree because benchmarking (industry, competition, non-industry leaders) is and will continue to be critical to one's success. How you use it is up to the individual and business.
Oct 8, 2014
IMHO the short answer is track what meets your goals. Is your goal to get them to read the newsletter, or to get affiliates, or sales.
Every email system and process has different stats you can reference but what is really important is Your goals.
1) If you want to grow your list then some social media stats will be more relevant
2) If you want sales then conversions will be more important.
Anyone elses rates are not the real test - the real test is are your rates improving in the areas that meet your goals. If not then how to make them increase.
Oct 7, 2014
Either with a CTA or I prefer HubSpot as a way to monitor. You want to have over a 1% CTR, as well as a 50% open rate.
Oct 7, 2014
One Very Simple Answer! Add in coupons that are specific to the campaign only. Coupons can not be found anywhere else. They MUST have value. If the coupon does not have value the coupon will not be used. If the coupon has value, then it will be used and you will know how effective your email campaigns really are. The rest is pure BS that sounds good. You want to see the end results right? This is how you see the end results.
Oct 7, 2014
Hi Carrie,
Although email marketing has been one of the ancient methods in internet space, but the reality is everyone will give you different advice and they all are right.
You did not mention if you're sending out emails from a specialized email marketing tool like mailchimp or something similar. If you are, you are already getting some basic metrices. Like open,bounce, spam, link clicks etc.
Open rate depends on various factors, major ones are following:
- subject line - how triggering it is.
- Industry
- how those emails were collected, or they were purchased? Make sure you earned the email list for maximum open rate.
- time of the day, day of the week etc.
- frequency of email.
Working/monitoring these factors can greatly improve your open rate.
But the next important question, what happens after the email is opened? There may be various reasons, recipient might not take any action as suggested in email. They might just be lazy or forget.
There is an email marketing/scheduling service, that lets you know when exactly the recipient opened your emails. This gives you a great advantage as you get notified every moment a recipient opens the email. You can simply call them after a few minutes as the information/message is still fresh in their minds. They are most likely to take a decision right then. The service is called http://www.Listboom.com, its a newzealand based start-up.
I can personally guarantee the service is awesome as me and my team were commissioned to develop this complete tool for them.
Hope the information is helpful. Let me know if you need any further information. I will be happy to help.
Best Regards,
Deepak Chauhan
Oct 7, 2014
Lots of good advice. A key indicator of your 'success' with email marketing is the action taken by your recipients. What is your goal for sending emails? Is there a clear CTA? It may be to get clicks through to your website to read your full blog post. It may be to click through and watch a video. What do your blog stats say about traffic from your send? What do your video stats say about traffic/views from your send? If your recipients are taking the action you want, you're doing something right. If they're not, then you need to address that.
Other than that, read all the comments above and links. Hubspot are a marketing machine (from what I've read) - definitely worth reading their free materials (they have a lot).
Oct 6, 2014
If you are going for a registered and authorized email marketing websites they will give you the report of how many clicks and what percentage of people opened your email. Or if you go for any other software, there is an option to view your opened and clicks of your sent email's. You can check it out the effectiveness by dividing your email format in various methods and find the appropriate one.
Oct 6, 2014
I hope this helps. http://mailchimp.com/resources/research/email-marketing-benchmarks/
Oct 6, 2014
Wow great advice form everyone...I'm a professional email marketer and I don't put a lot on open rates, just remember to be consistent and send emails every week.
My subscribers I share different articles, videos and etc, be sure to keep yourself relevant, I would recommend sending emails every month instead of quarterly.
Oct 6, 2014
Well most distribution tools have tracking methods by campaign. (Mailchimp, ConstantContact)
If you are distributing with your own server, you must create links to a landing page on your website and, or put a tracking code in the url.
Good rates for cold leads - people that don't know you 1-2%
Good rates for warm leads- people that know you - 20-40%
The landing pages are unique to this program and the google analytics will show you how many people clicked through for that individual campaign.
Oct 6, 2014
Hi Carrie.
Jeff is right: Open rates don't mean very much as it requires an image be loaded. Typically, a 10-15% open and 1% CTR is reasonable for an organically grown list.
The best way to determine if your newsletter is successful is if you are getting the result you want.
Directed emails where you have a call to action and want someone to do something specific (buy something, sign up for something, download something), you have to measure based on the actual actions taken.
Often, newsletters are more "here's what's happening." Rather than putting the entire newsletter on the email, send it as blurbs with a link on your blog or another page. Again, the best measurement for success is what you want them to do.
Another thing to recognize is who is clicking on your emails. Are they your frequent customers or is it someone who never buys? You really want to determine what's going on there. If it's a frequent customer, I might even consider accelerating them a special offer.
Incidentally, once you have them on your site, you should really consider retargeting which you can then display your wares on ad networks. If you're going to get them to your site, make sure you can extend the conversation after they leave.
Oct 28, 2014
Great comments, Derek. I agree with paragraph three. Measurement based on the actual actions taken gives you the information you can then use for follow up marketing ideas. I agree with others that have stated that many people don't even open emails any more unless they have a specific "Call to Action" in the subject line that makes a person want to learn more about the subject. Short and to the point emails are more effective than long newsletters. The #1 point of an e-blast is "what's in it for the reader"?
Oct 6, 2014
What Role Should Email Play?
Email marketing:
It’s the workhorse of your digital marketing program, the Swiss Army knife of marketing and one of the most widely used digital channels in your marketing arsenal. For most marketers, email costs the least but makes the most money.
You’d think that would be enough to make email king among all digital channels, but it speaks to a very limited perception of what email can really do for your company.
One of the greatest things about email is its versatility, the ability to serve the
needs of other channels such as the Web and the social network. It’s the glue
that binds and integrates your channels together. But if you’re using email just to sell to your customers, you’re missing out on its ability to connect with your customers between campaigns and to solve problems within your own organization. And the digital world is changing, a little bit each day. That means the role your email program plays must shift to help you meet those changes. Email can adapt to those changes and shifts. Can you?
Most email marketers tend to focus on email marketing’s role to generate
revenue or some conversion activity. Justifiably so, because email typically generates the highest ROI across your marketing channels and activities.
However, at its core, email is a communications vehicle, with sales being just one of its many uses. Equally important, and even more so at times like this, it’s the quickest way a company can reach out to its customers. Consider the global financial crisis of a few years ago, when in the United States banks were failing at a rate of more than one per week, and the U.S. government was bailing out major corporations and financial institutions. The current global financial meltdown serves as a great reminder of the broader role email can play in maintaining or enhancing your customer and subscriber relationships.
Oct 6, 2014
Hello Carrie.
I've been working in accounts for one famous email marketing company and I would love to know more about your current state of affairs:
- Which platform are you using for email marketing?
- What is your industry?
- What is the list of countries where you send your emails?
Thank you.
Oct 6, 2014
Carrie ...While email open rates and CTR (click-through rates) are important metrics, open rates can be quite misleading based on how all the email clients read or present emails to the recipient. For example, if the recipient is using MS Outlook and has the preview pane open. The recipient can read the email while not registering as being opened because the photos aren't being load. As soon as the person downloads the pictures then it is marked as read.
You can find some interesting research and benchmarks here http://bit.ly/1oJLmHl.
The following are other factors that affect the open rate:
• Time of day
• Day of week
• Holidays
• Last email received (did it make a good or bad impression)
• From alias
• From address
• Workload of recipient
• Amount of email in recipient’s inbox
• Mood of recipient
HubSpot has an excellent article on email metrics here. http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/metrics-email-marketers-should-be-tracking
Oct 6, 2014
Forgot to mention Hubspot has some excellent research on the science of email. In 2011, Dan Zerrella put on this presentation on the science of email marketing. http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-science-of-email-marketng They also have this ebook on the science of email from 2014. http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-840498906-pdf/Science_of_Email_2014_Full_Report.pdf Also, I would highly recommend going to http://www.epsilon.com/resource-center/research They have great benchmark research on email marketing.
Oct 7, 2014
I thought you might like this as well. Why Consumers Open Brand Emails http://bit.ly/1qaFaaF It's a new report from Marketing Charts.
Oct 6, 2014
If you're using MailChimp, they'll put numbers of industry standards based on their own data in your reports so that you can benchmark against that.
Otherwise, you can do A/B testing on portions of your list to test which version will be more effective. Then when you have the results, send the more effective version to the rest of your list. Just be aware that small sample sizes can give less reliable results.
Patrick ... You're right a business' marketing strategy, tactics and metrics should be aligned with that business' goals and situation. However, having industry-specific benchmarks are necessary to compare where a business is at today to what other companies in their industry are currently achieving so that they can determine what they are doing right and wrong and take corrective action.