Email marketing has specific performances that can be measured using KPIs – Key Performance Indicators.

These performance indicators signal valuable insights that continuously improve campaign results.

That’s why anyone who uses email as a communication channel knows that sending campaigns without preparation is not enough to achieve good results.

And preparing a campaign requires two basic principles:

  • Email list validation. This process is essential to avoid sending being interrupted. Recipient spam filters block bases of any size that contain 3% bounces (emails with delivery failures), and validation removes these and other types of emails from lists that damage campaigns.
  • Analysis of results through KPIs. This is the procedure carried out at the end of each campaign to assess what worked and vice versa. In this way, it is possible to create a communication that is more favorable to the marketing objective. For example: sales emails that are closer to the solutions sought by the leads.

Key email marketing metrics

Delivery and Deliverability

Many people confuse delivery rates and deliverability rates. Let’s understand the differences between the two. The former indicates whether emails have been delivered.

However, reaching the recipient’s ISP doesn’t mean much, as emails can be directed to the spam folder. In other words, the message has arrived. But did it reach the inbox or the spam box?

The deliverability rate tells you how many emails made it to the inbox. However, this metric is not exact because each provider has different criteria for forwarding messages to the inbox or the spam box.

It is therefore possible to analyze this KPI using a reasonable forecast. You can do this using the free tool www.mailtester.com, which is useful for professionals who want to study this metric.

Even though this metric is not exact, the use of Email Verification is recommended in order to achieve high deliverability rates, since the removal of harmful contacts from lists is a guarantee that messages will reach the inbox and not the spam box.

Desktops and Mobile devices open rates

Open rates are important for analyzing whether the subject line and preheader copy is getting the reader to open the message.

Low open rates mean that the copy needs to be restructured to make it more persuasive and adhere to the solution the lead is looking for.

An important detail in this metric is the maximum character space, which must not be exceeded. Otherwise, the title is “cut off”, preventing the copy from being viewed in its entirety.

As a result, your email loses a lot of points against so many competitors who present complete and interesting subject lines on the user’s screen.

Each email provider allocates a different amount of space for titles and preheaders. That’s why it’s good to work with an average of 50 and 55 characters respectively.

In the case of cell phones, the subject line should contain around 30 characters and the preheader 20. The tip is to use abbreviations, as long as they don’t impair communication.

Click-through rate

How many people clicked on the links in the email content? This metric, also called Click Through Rate (CTR), is good for measuring the effectiveness of CTAs.

When the lead clicks on a link, it’s a sign that the call to action is persuasive enough to engage the audience, and also that the user has shown an interest in finding out more about the subject.

Click-to-Open Rate

This metric, also called Click-To-Open Rate (CTOR), is a little more detailed than the click-through rate, which doesn’t take into account how many people opened the email.

Here, you can see the relationship between clicks and the total number of emails opened, in order to measure which links were accessed the most out of a total number of messages read.

This KPI is very useful for e-commerce, which usually has several products in its email content with links to checkout pages.

Convertion rate

Ainda mais detalhada que as duas métricas acima, a taxa de conversões revela quantas pessoas clicaram em um link e realizaram, de fato, a ação esperada.

Email marketing opt-out

If your campaign has generated a high unsubscribe rate, it’s a sign that the whole strategy needs to be re-evaluated.

It’s important to take into account that the reader opened the email and, having come into contact with the content inside, asked to unsubscribe. Professionals need to know why.

A high volume of emails, content that is inconsistent with the user’s search, the promise of a title that differs from the content, among many other reasons, can lead to a high unsubscribe rate.

It is recommended that a form is always attached to the unsubscribe button, containing the question “Why are you unsubscribing?”.

The answers can be in multiple choice or in a field that asks the user to explain why.

Knowing the reason for unsubscribing is essential so that professionals can make the necessary improvements.

Spam complaints

Have you built your contact list correctly? What’s more, have you validated the emails that are part of it?

Spam complaints indicate a high level of dissatisfaction on the part of recipients, and there can only be two reasons for this: either you are sending emails without their authorization (which is a spammer action), or you have started sending messages again even after the lead has unsubscribed.

So be on your guard. Spam complaints are very damaging to senders’ reputations, and can lead to their campaigns being blocked and subsequently registered on international blacklists.

Check your emails frequently and avoid this problem.

Bounce rates

Bounces are messages that are not delivered for temporary reasons (box full, connection failures, etc.) or permanent reasons (the existence of disposable emails, spamtraps, unengaged contacts, etc. on the list).

It’s worth remembering that bases containing 3% bounces are blocked by the recipients’ ISPs, thus collapsing all investments in email marketing. This is yet another problem that email verification eliminates.

FAQ

What is the role of KPIs in an email marketing campaign?

Key Performance Indicators are methods of analyzing campaign performance, covering various sectors: delivery and deliverability levels; click-through rates; clicks per email opened; number of conversions; number of unsubscribes, spam complaints and bounces, among other indicators.
The function of these metrics is to help uncover weak and strong points in the campaign. In this way, it is possible to make improvements in the areas that are not generating the expected results and to improve the assertive elements. KPIs act as a thermometer that analyzes the effectiveness of the campaign.

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