21 Emails Metrics To Evaluate The performance Of Your Campaigns

Elodie
27/05/2024

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You want to know the top email metrics to follow to evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns?

To this end, throughout the article, you’ll discover:

✅ Best practices in relation to email metrics.
🚨 What not to do in your campaign.
🔝 Calculations of the most important email metrics and how to track them.

Email Metrics #1: Number of Emails Delivered

Just because you are sure that all addresses are accurately noted on your mailing list does not mean that they have been all delivered.

In fact, a 100% deliverability rate is virtually impossible. 😱 And this is for two reasons.

If 80% of your emails make it to the inbox, that means 20% may not exist either. So if you have 1,000 names on your list, that means 200 persons never received your message.
You need to know if deliverability has dropped.

Sometimes, through no fault of your own, you may suddenly find yourself blacklisted by an email provider (especially if you have a shared IP address instead of a dedicated IP address).

Spam blockers at e-mail address providers may also consider you harmful if you’ve used certain wording in your titles and text.

For example, if you’re suddenly unable to transmit an e-mail to someone with a Gmail address, you need to take immediate moves to find out why and solve the problem.

💡 There is a difference between a “sent” and an email that actually arrives in the inbox. It is most likely sent, but will go directly to the unwanted folder.

That’s why more and more marketers are starting to use Inbox Positioning Rate (IPR) as a key performance indicator, so they can measure how many emails actually reach the inbox.

➡️ So, to recap:

Addresses can be wrong.
Emails can be in unwanted’s folder.

✅ To maximize the quantity of emails received, there are a few good practices:

Set up your mailbox = tutorial video.
Avoid spam words = word list.
Test your emails = free tool

Calculate the deliverability rate = (amount of delivered emails / total number of sending) x 100.

Email Metrics #2: Email Open Rate

Reaching the inbox isn’t enough. You also need to consider the email metrics linked to the quantity of e-mails opened. 💌

Let’s go back to our example. 🧐 If 80% of your emails are delivered and 25% have been opened, this is a good open rate! 💟 It means your contacts are paying attention to your marketing messages.

On the other hand, if only 5% of the delivered emails are opened, it means you didn’t reach 95% of your target, and that stings. 🐝

That’s why you need to track and adjust accordingly.

💡 You can compare your open rate with the industry average for reference. However, you should not build your entire digital strategy around this data.

A good open rate is one that increases with testing. That’s mostly what you need to remember! 👩

✅ Proven techniques to boost :

Find out more about your industry and make industry-specific comparisons (some industries, such as finance and hospitality, tend to have higher opening rates).
Perform A/B tests : test the variables one by one (change the title,…).
Find your personas, adapt to your targets and their language. A young target needs to laugh and be surprised.
Once again, do not use spam words.

Warning. 🚨 Keep in mind that some people use the preview pane. This can record email opens that are not actually opened.

Calculation of the opening rate = (Quantity of openings of the email/number of emails delivered) x100.

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Email Metrics #3: Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate (CTR) is an email metric which shows how many persons clicked on a link.

Unlike open and deliverability, however, you have to dig a little deeper to find out how many people were interested in the offer.

For each campaign, you need to know not only which links they are most interested in, but also where to place those links to get the most clicks.

✅ Best practices :

Once again, you’ll have to do A/B tests 😉

For example: Assuming you provide the same link but written in two different ways and one works better than the other, then you can optimize your CTA text accordingly.

Also compare buttons with text links, including :

Click here.👈
Discover the offer.
Learn more.
Boost my sales.
Sign up for free.
Watch the demo video.
Let me be surprised.
Open my gift. 🎁

And other CTAs based on your product or service offering.

Warning. 🚨 Clicking on an unsubscribe link can be considered a click – that’s a bad sign!

Click-through rate calculation = (clicks / impressions) x 100.

Impressions are emails seen, not necessarily read or clicked, but which appeared in the mailbox.

For example, 1000 emails were sent and received (with acknowledgment of receipt, for example), and five persons clicked on the CTA. That’s a 0.5% click-through result for the entire campaign. 🤓

It allows you to know if people who opened were convinced by the offer and/or the approach.

There is no point in comparing the click-through rate to the quantity sent, as this will distort your results.

Why? 🧐 Because, if your deliverability is low, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the email wouldn’t have more to the recipients! 😜

✅ Best practices :

Check if the result is dropping or increasing,
Try to identify why (Title, description, copywriting, visuals…).
Reiterate what works and forget what doesn’t work for your target audience.

! Now that you know how to use it well, you need to calculate it. 😍

Calculate the click-through rate= (quantity of clicks / number of opened emails) x 100.

Email Metrics #5 : Reactivity Rate

Nobody talks about this email metric, and yet… 😪

The reactivity rate meters overall subscriber engagement with your emails, combining open and click-through rates to provide an overview of their interaction with your campaigns.

Reactivity rate = (Quantity of unique openings + Quantity of unique clicks/Total number of emails sent) 100

🔎 FYI, a good reactivity rate is about 30%, and a bad reactivity rate is about 10%.

A high reactivity rate is often correlated with 👇🏼 :

Improving the reputation of your domain and IP address. This can increase the deliverability of your emails.
Better ROI as more engaged subscribers are more likely to convert.
Quick feedback on the performance to adjust strategy that does not generate the expected level of commitment.

Email Metrics #6 : Response Rate

The Response rate gauges the proportion of recipients who respond compared to the total quantity of emails sent. That is, the direct engagement of recipients and the effectiveness to generate interactions. 😇

It’s a key indicator of the effectiveness of the campaign in generating direct interactions, as well as the quality of your content or the relevance of your audience.

The response rate is calculated as follows: (Number of responses received/Total number of emails sent).

Here are the key elements to include and optimize to get a good response rate:

Write catchy, attractive and relevant email objects to encourage recipients to open.
Ask clear and direct questions, or ask for feedback to encourage answers.
Send at optimal timing, when recipients are more likely to interact, based on their habits and hour zones.

✅ Tips to analyze it :

Varies by industry, but in general, from 10% or higher is considered excellent, indicating high commitment and a responsive audience.
Less than 2% is often considered low, suggesting that emails do not sufficiently incentivize interaction, which may be due to lack of relevance, personalization or unclear calls to action (CTA).

It’s an email metrics that you can follow with Waalaxy! 👽

Email Metrics #7 : Opt-in rate

The opt-in rate meters the portion of visitors who voluntarily choose to subscribe to your email diffusion. 🕹️

It is important to know this email metric because it offers clues on the effectiveness of your lead generation/ capture strategies and the attractiveness of your offers. 💎

Calculation of the opt-in rate = (Quantity of new subscribers/total number of visitors or registration opportunities)x100

🛟 To support you :

Generally, a 2% to 5% is considered good, indicating that your lead capture offers and methods are effective.
Less than 1% is often considered poor, suggesting that your signup forms, offers or CTAs are not sufficiently attractive or visible to visitors.

Here are some solutions to implement to increase your opt-in rate :

✅ Proven techniques :

Simple forms: Keep registration forms short and simple, asking only the essential information to reduce friction.
Pop-ups and banners: Use well-designed pop-ups and banners to capture visitors’ attention without being intrusive.
Social Proof: Post positive testimonials or reviews to build credibility and encourage registration.

By implementing these solutions, you can optimize your strategies, ensuring continued development and quality of your subscriber list.

Email Metrics #8 : Unsubscribe Rate

We never think enough about these email metrics, and yet it’s super important!

You can learn a lot from the unsubscribe rate (also called the churn or opt-out rate).

For example, it means that people didn’t report you as unwanted, decide to unsubscribe.

Warning. 🚨 If the unsubscribe process is difficult (asks for an address, a phone code, a form), recipients will more easily report you as unwanted because it’s easier for them!

By unsubscribing, they are indicating that they no longer care about your brand, and your offers. They are out of the sales funnel (at least in this way).

Don’t worry. It’s not always negative! Remember, unsubscribers don’t want to be on your list and leave voluntarily, which is much better for the long-term health of your offer.

So, it’s recommended to clean up your databases as you go along. It’s normal for there to be disobedience, don’t try to aim for 0% on this metric.

✅ Proven techniques for analyzing churn :

Check trends in your churn rates, especially after making changes, such as segmentation, template redesign, or new broadcast schedules.
If the amount of unsubscribes suddenly increases in response to the change, you’ll need to reconsider the change.

And above all, don’t spam your interlocutors too much, offer interesting and relevant information. There you’ll see that the results reduce by themselves. 😜

Calculation of churn rate (overall) = quantity of unsubscribed / quantity of persons enrolled) x 100.

Calculation of the unsubscription rate (per campaign) = number of unsubscribed persons / number of contacted persons) x 100.

Like all others, it is calculated over a given period! For example: from one campaign to another, or from one month to another.

Email Metrics #9: Bounce Rate

To evaluate this email metric, you need to identify the two types of bounce rate. 🧐

A strong “hard bounce” is a permanent output, while a light “soft bounce” is temporary.

Hard bounces are usually caused by invalid addresses. That is, they are directly related to the deliverability scores. Many hard bounces = low deliverability rate.

As a reminder, it can be a false address, a typo, an address that has been deleted …

🚨 Pay attention to high bounces because they show that you are behind in cleaning your prospect database.

It can also indicate that you need to use double opt-in or another method to verify that the email address is entered correctly, you can read more about this here.

On the other hand, temporary “soft bounces” are temporary and caused by a problem in the inbox. For example, the inbox may be full, or the server may be down.

Depending on the email service provider or marketing platform you use, the system will automatically try to resend messages.

✅ Best practices :

Make sure you have good databases at startup.
Delete all invalid addresses without delay.
Keep the addresses where you entered a soft bounce, if after 3 new transmits it doesn’t work, you can delete them from your data box.
Use the double opt-in to check the addresses before sending!

Small free hack 😍 we explain to you in a dedicated article, how to find valid pro email addresses, simply thanks to LinkedIn. 👀

Calculation of the “hard” bounce rate of mails = (number of undelivered emails / total number of sends) x 100.
Calculation of “soft” bounce rate of emails = (quantity of mails delivered but not received by the mail server / total quantity of sends) x 100.

This email metric shows the social engagement. Depending on what you’re looking for, it can be a good indicator, or it may not interest you at all. I present it to you anyway! 🧐

It can be a good indicator of the quality, but the opposite is not true. That is, just because no one shares your email, doesn’t mean your copywriting is bad. It is quite rare, sharing on social networks when talking about email campaigns.

On the other hand, you can be quoted or picked up on LinkedIn, for example. 😍

It might not be bad, to make it easy to share for your readers by adding social buttons. 🚨 But be careful not to have too many buttons and lose your target, they should click on the CTA first!

✅ Our advice : Only use this bias if it is relevant to your strategy. For example, you are a social media influencer, and you also use emails as a mean of communication.

For the calculation, nothing could be easier, just analyze the scores of sharing. Don’t worry if it is low. As I said, shares are very rare!

Calculation of the social sharing rate = (number of shares/emails received) x 100.

Or (to be even more precise) :

Calculation of the social share rate = (quantity of shares / opened emails) x 100.

Email metrics #11 : Email Forwarding

As the term suggests, email forwarding, also known as “Forward Rate” or “Share Rate” is an email metric which calculates the number of persons who have shared your email via a social network or forwarded it to another contact.

It is the same as the share on social networks, it is less important than the other metrics

On the other hand, if some of your mails are forwarded a lot it’s a good sign, it proves their values for your targets. 🎯

It is important to know that all your future customers can be positively influenced by the advice of friends or acquaintances (and their posts on social networks) to make decisions to buy their products/services.

✅ Proven techniques

Identify the emails that were forwarded a lot,
Find the reason (the added value, the trigger).
Repeat the strategy.

Be careful though 🚨. Mails that have worked very well (because they are original, spontaneous, surprising, have an innovative subject…) will never work as well twice.

It’s a bit like a new haircut, you always have more success the first day, then people get used to it. 💇

Calculate the transfer rate = (quantity of mails sent / number of transfers) x100

The results are not very high? Don’t worry, we rather look at the evolution in these cases.

Email Metrics #12: Qualification Rate

The qualification rate is an email metric which gauges the proportion of qualified leads obtained via an email campaign, in relation to the total number of leads generated.

A qualified lead meets the criteria defined by the marketing or sales team, indicating a high probability of conversion. 🤑 It’s therefore important to know how to calculate it:

Qualification rate = (quantity of qualified leads/Total number of leads generated) × 100

Here are a few tips to assist you to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns and increase it :

✅ Proven techniques :

Precise segmentation of your e-mail list to target those contacts most likely to be qualified.
Use specific receiver information to personalize and increase commitment.
Provide high-quality and relevant shares to attract the interest of qualified prospects.
Clear CTA : Encourage recipients to perform specific process that facilitate qualify leads (download resources, register for a webinar, etc.).
Data analysis: Use analytics tools to track interactions and adjust your strategy based on performance.
Ongoing feedback: Collect feedback from sales teams to refine qualification criteria and strengthen future campaigns.

The qualification rate is likely to fall when segmentation criteria are not sufficiently precise, resulting in a less targeted audience and messages that are less relevant to recipients. ❌

The lower the qualification rate is, the lower are the chances of transformation. 👇🏼

Email Metrics #13: Conversion Rate

So here we come to my favorite email metrics! 😍

Boosting the conversion is one of the main objectives of an email marketing strategy.

It is a metric that allows you to calculate the number of persons who become customers thanks to your emailing actions.

That is, they went beyond just clicking on a CTA, they went on to purchase.

✅ Good practice for calculating :

Make sure you have different tracking links for each campaigns,
Follow these tracking links to identify which of them is working better.
Adjust your digital prospecting based on the results, asking yourself the right questions:
- What types of emails work best?
- How can you boost the buying process?
- Why don’t the x% of customers go on to purchase after clicking on the CTA?

Warning. 🚨 It’s not enough to know how many buys, but more importantly how many don’t buy and why.

If you can identify what is preventing your targets from taking activity, then you can enhance your conversion tunnel, and therefore, your results will go up.

Email Metrics #14 : Average Conversion Time

⏰ Average conversion time is the moment in between a prospect enters into your sales funnel (for example, by subscribing to a newsletter) and the moment they make a desired action (purchase, registration, etc.)

A good time varies depending on the industry and the type of product or service, but it should always be as short as possible while remaining realistic. In general, the range is from a few days to a few months. 👀

For example, in the e-commerce sector, a few days may be optimal, while for complex B2B products, a few weeks to a few months may be more realistic.

💎 The aim of this email metric is to reduce delay without compromising lead or sales quality.

Average conversion time is calculated as follows. ∑Individual time for each prospect/Total number of conversions

Email Metrics #15 : Cost Per Conversion

The Cost per conversion (CPC) is an email metric which measures of how much it costs a company to obtain it (purchase, registration, etc.) from a campaign. 💸

It is used to determine the financial efficiency of marketing campaigns. Here’s the calculation formula :

CPC = Total campaign cost/Total number of conversions

👀 Knowing this email metric is crucial in assessing the effectiveness and profitability, enabling you to determine whether the resources invested are generating a positive return on investment.

Of course, you also need to know how to recognize good and bad CPC. 👇🏼

✅ Tips to analyze :

Less than or equal to the value of the conversion for the company. For example, if each conversion generates €100 in revenue, a cost of €20 to €50 would be considered good cost, as it leaves a healthy profit margin.
A bad cost exceeds the value generated by each conversion, resulting in a loss. For example, if each one generates €100 but costs €120, it means that the campaign is not profitable and requires a strategic reassessment.

Here are the reasons why conversion costs are likely to increase :

Not sufficiently targeted, resulting in emails being sent to less-qualified prospects and therefore lower rates.
If content is not relevant or engaging, reducing message effectiveness
External factors (increased competition, changes in consumer behavior, higher advertising costs, etc.).
Technical problems, such as poor deliverability or broken links, can also increase this cost by limiting engagement.

🎯 Of course, the aim is to control all these factors to keep the cost as low as possible.

Email Metrics #16 : Retention Rate

The retention rate is an email metric which measures the ability to maintain subscriber commitment over a given period. It indicates the proportion of recipients who continue to open and interact with you. 🤝

Knowing this indicator and knowing how to calculate it is crucial to assess the loyalty and commitment of your subscribers, as well as the long-term effectiveness of your campaigns.

Retention rate = (Quantity of active recipients at the end of the period/Number of active recipients at the beginning of the period)× 100

What is a good and bad retention rate? Of course, it varies by industry, but generally speaking :

80% or more is considered excellent, indicating that the majority of subscribers remain engaged.✨
Less than 50% is often considered poor, suggesting that many subscribers are losing interest or unsubscribing, which may indicate problems with content, frequency or relevance.

✅ Good practices : :

Offer valuable content that meets your subscribers’ needs and interests.
Transmit them at an optimal and appropriate frequency to avoid overwhelming or neglecting your subscribers.
Implement loyalty programs or incentives to encourage subscribers to stay engaged.

Of course, there are other less obvious and more original solutions to implement. 🎨

These practices can facilitate to maintain a high retention rate, ensuring continued commitment and long-term value for your campaigns.

Email Metrics #17 : Revenue Per Subscriber

Revenue per subscriber is one of the email metrics that tells you how each email is performing.

For example, you send 1000 emails and two persons convert (buy). One email in your campaign generated 100 euros of purchase and another 1500 euros.

The revenue per subscriber formula is: (total revenue / total people contacted).

In our example, this gives: (1600 / 100) = 1.6.

This means that two persons generated revenue, but that this revenue corresponds to 1.6 of your total mailings.

✅ Proven techniques for tracking revenue per subscriber:

Identify the types of people who pay and those who don’t: to refine the target. 🎯
Add people who have paid in all your campaigns to create a specialized customer segment.

Once you determine what types of emails work best, you can optimize your marketing campaigns to increase your long-term profits.

You can also target more individuals when you know the characteristics of your subscribers. 😁

Email Metrics #18 : Email ROI

My second favorite email metrics! ROI = Return on Investment. In other words, you’re not just calculating the benefit, but also, and above all, whether it’s profitable for your company.

And there, often, we have surprises. 😱

You can meter this by taking the revenue you get from the profits minus the amount you spent on marketing, and dividing by that amount.

Emailing doesn’t require a large investment, but it offers the best return on investment compared to other digital strategies.

For example, if you invest €100 in your e-mail campaign, and you generate €800 in revenue,

The calculation of the return on investment of the e-mail is: [(revenues – marketing costs) / 100] x 100

If we keep our example: [(800–100)/100] x 100 = 700%. (you earn 700% more than what you spend.

✅ Tips for calculating the ROI :

Add in your expenses of the tool subscriptions (CRM, email automation tool…) and divide the cost according to the campaigns. For example, if you launch 4 per month, only take 1/4 of the subscription price per campaign cost.
Add the human time. If it takes you 1 hour per campaign, you’ll have to deduct your gross salary + charges for one hour of work.

Email Metrics #19 : Growth Rate

The Growth Rate is an email metric which depends on what type you want to evaluate :

The growth of sales related to emailing,
The evolution of sales KPIs,
The amount of new leads…

For example, if you want to calculate the development of the database, you’ll have to do: (quantity of new leads – quantity of unsubscribes) / total number of leads) x 100.

This is a calculation that allows you to see if your digital strategy is going in the right direction, or if you need to readjust it.

✅ Our advice : Calculate & test the variables only one by one

For example: focus on database development, then focus on sales growth. If you try to assess everything at once, you’ll skew the results. 🤓

Email Metrics #20 : Spam Complaint Rate

This email metric comes last because first you need to really get into email marketing.

But beware. 🚨 Just because it’s 14th doesn’t mean it’s not very important. In fact, it’s one of the most important.

The quantity of persons reporting your email as unwanted counts towards the complaint rate.

It is calculated by dividing the amount of spam complaints by the number of emails sent, and multiplying this amount by 100.

It increases if users find your email irrelevant. The acceptable score is 0.1%

Therefore, make sure your message is meaningful, relevant and personalized.

Spam rate calculation = (Quantity of reports / Number of mails sent) x 100.

The more you are considered unwanted, the more your deliverability drops, and the less you’ll be able to reach your target.

✅ Proven techniques :

Avoid spam words,
Read our article on 14 mistakes to avoid, so it doesn’t happen to you.

Email Metrics #21 : Average read time

📚 Average read time measures how long recipients view your emails, providing insights into your audience’s engagement and interest in the content of your messages.

This email metric is calculated as follows:

Average read time= Read time of each email/Total number of open emails

💡 Knowing it is useful to assess the interest of subscribers in your content, and thus optimize the structure and relevance of your messages.

You should also know what is a good, bad or too long… 👇🏼

✅ Best Practices :

It varies depending on the length and content, but in general, between 15 seconds and 1 minute is considered good, indicating that subscribers are interested enough to read it in full.
Less than 10 seconds suggests that subscribers do not find it relevant or engaging.
More than 2 minutes is often considered too long by subscribers, suggesting that it might be too detailed, poorly structured, too dense or difficult to read. Readers may feel overwhelmed or lose interest, which can reduce the overall effectiveness of the email.

Here are some tips recommended increasing the score :

Attractive design: Use a clear and attractive design with quality visuals to make reading more enjoyable.
Clear titles and subtitles: Use catchy titles and subtitles to guide readers through the content.
Appropriate length: Make sure your emails are detailed enough to be informative, but concise and well organized to maintain attention.