1. Open Rate: Your Email’s First Impression
The open rate indicates the percentage of recipients who opened your email. It’s a primary indicator of how well your subject line performs. Industry benchmarks vary, but a good open rate is generally considered to be around 20-25%. To improve your open rates, focus on crafting compelling, concise, and personalised subject lines.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measuring Engagement
CTR measures the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in your email. It is a direct indicator of how engaging and relevant your content is to your audience. A higher CTR means more people are interacting with your email content, leading them to your website or a specific call-to-action. Aim for a CTR around 2-5%, which is the average across industries.
3. Conversion Rate: The Ultimate Goal
Conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who completed a desired action, such as making a purchase or booking a service, after clicking on a link in your email. This metric is crucial as it directly relates to your ROI. Improving your conversion rate involves aligning your email content closely with your audience’s needs and making the conversion process as straightforward as possible.
4. Bounce Rate: Keeping Your List Clean
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of your emails that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. There are two types of bounces – hard bounces (permanent issues like invalid email addresses) and soft bounces (temporary issues like a full inbox). A high bounce rate may indicate problems with your email list quality or issues with your email server.
5. Unsubscribe Rate: A Metric of Relevance
While nobody likes to see subscribers go, the unsubscribe rate is an important metric for understanding how relevant and engaging your content is. A high unsubscribe rate could indicate that your content is not meeting your audience’s expectations or that you’re emailing too frequently.
6. List Growth Rate: Tracking Your Reach
This metric measures the rate at which your email list is growing. Regularly gaining new subscribers is vital for expanding your reach and compensating for those who unsubscribe. Promoting your email list through your website, social media, and during customer interactions can help maintain a healthy list growth rate.
7. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate: Extending Your Reach
This metric tracks how often your email is shared or forwarded. It’s a good indicator of the quality and relevance of your content. Encourage sharing by including easily accessible social sharing buttons and ‘email to a friend’ options in your emails.
In Summary
Understanding these metrics provides a clearer picture of how your email marketing efforts are performing. By regularly analysing these metrics, you can make informed decisions to enhance your email campaigns, leading to better engagement and more conversions.
At Onside Online, we not only help tradies craft effective email marketing campaigns but also provide insights into tracking and interpreting these key metrics. Explore our Google Business Profile and Marketing Automation services for more on how we can help you measure and achieve your marketing success.
Let’s use these metrics to guide your journey towards more effective and successful email marketing campaigns.
