Email Analytics: 22 Vital Email Marketing Metrics & KPIs To Drive Action

The digital marketing landscape’s rapid evolution instilled a new fear: Is email marketing dead?

But squashing such a myth, 40 percent of B2B marketers say email marketing is critical to content marketing success. Additionally, 73 percent of millennials prefer email communications from a business.

Thus, email marketing is proving alive and well.

An email influences the goal of marketing. But to do so, it must first:

1. Be delivered into a subscriber’s email inbox.
2. Be opened by a subscriber.
3. Be engaged with—clicked, replied to, or forwarded—by a subscriber.

Understanding email marketing metrics and KPIs is the foundation of creating and optimizing email marketing campaigns.

Let’s begin by looking at metrics that apply specifically to emails, then dive deeper into overall email marketing strategy health.

A successful marketing email should reach the inbox, get opened, and be engaged with.

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Additional email marketing metrics will help you understand if you’ve achieved these objectives or failed to influence the desired action. Let’s look at all of them.

1. Deliveries & Delivered Rate

Delivery Rate measures how many emails were accepted by subscribers’ servers – a vital metric in understanding if your content is adequately received.

How to Calculate:

Example: ((500 Emails Sent – 20 Bounces) ÷ 500 Emails Sent) x 100 = 96% Delivery Rate

Source

The best email campaigns can be successful by following deliverability best practices.

2. Opens & Open Rate

Opens and Open Rate refers to the number of email recipients who open an email.

Represented as a percentage, Open Rate can:

• Indicate how well a particular campaign is performing
• Identify the relationship strength between a brand and its email subscribers
• Evaluate the quality of content sent through an email
• Assess if an email has reached the ideal target audience

Example: (7,500 Emails Opened ÷ 10,000 Emails Sent) x 100 = 75% Open Rate

3. Clicks & Clickthrough Rate

Clicks and Clickthrough Rates measure the percentage of people who click on a hyperlink in an email.

This percentage reveals the success of an email marketing campaign and helps determine if the copy and subject line were effective in capturing users.

How to Calculate:

Example: (500 Individuals Clicked A Link ÷ 2,000 Individuals Saw The Link) x 100 = 25% Click Through Rate

4. Conversions & Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate is the percentage of email recipients who completed the desired action after receiving an email campaign.

This valuable metric is vital in moving customers through the marketing funnel and understanding the success of a singular email campaign.

How to Calculate:

Example: (500 Individuals Completed A Desired Action ÷ 10,000 Total Delivered Emails) x 100 = 5% conversion rate.

5. Revenue Per Email

Revenue Per Email is the monetary value of a subscriber on an email list.

Revenue helps determine how well an email campaign performs and how committed an existing list of subscribers is to a business.

How to Calculate:

Example: $3,000 generated in revenue ÷ 10,000 delivered emails = $0.3 revenue per email

6. Email Shares/Forwards & Sharing Rate

Email Sharing Rate is the percentage of email recipients who forward an email or hit the share button.

Sharing works wonders in generating new leads, and it is completely free.

How to Calculate:

Example: (30 shares ÷ 10,000 total delivered emails) x 100 = 0.3% email sharing rate

7. Unsubscribes & Unsubscribe Rate

Unsubscribes and Unsubscribe Rate refers to the users who opt out of a mailing list after an email marketing campaign. These individuals have chosen not to receive any further newsletters.

While it is certainly painful to see contacts moving on, maintaining a subscriber list of individuals who genuinely want to receive emails is vital. So, unsubscribes – within reason – is a good thing.

Check here for healthy unsubscribe rates across various industries.

How to Calculate:

Example: (20 individuals unsubscribe ÷ 10,000 emails delivered) x 100 = 0.2% Unsubscribe Rate

Source

8. Bounces & Bounce Rate

Bounces and Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of email subscribers who did not receive a message because a mail server returned it. In other words, the email “bounced” back.

A full inbox, server issue, or invalid email address can cause bounces. If untreated, bounces can be detrimental to future email marketing campaigns.

How to Calculate:

Example: (20 Bounced Emails ÷ 10,000 Delivered Emails) x 100 = 0.2% Bounce Rate

9. Spam Complaints

Spam Complaints reports made by email recipients against unwanted emails.

Emails resulting in an excessive number of complaints could result in being blocked by ISPs.

How to Calculate:

Example: (10 Emails Marked As Spam ÷ 10,000 Delivered Emails) x 100 = 0.1% Spam Rate

10. New Email Subscribers

Email Subscribers are internet users who allow periodic emails from a brand. But finding new users to email is challenging.

To tackle such difficulties, read email list-building tactics to grow your email subscribers.

To tackle such challenges, start here.

How to Calculate:

Example: 1,000 Opt-Ins – 300 Unsubscribes = 700 Subscribers

11. Email List Growth Rate

Email list growth rate is the progression at which an email contact list grows.

The average email list naturally suffers a 22 percent decay each year, so understanding subscriber growth rate – and maintaining a healthy size – is vital.

How to Calculate:

Example: ((300 New Subscribers – 15 Unsubscribers) ÷ 10,000 Delivered Emails) x 100 = 2.85% Growth Rate

12. Active/Engaged Email Subscribers

Email marketing – if used correctly – creates a personal conversation between a brand and a subscriber.

To track that success, Active Email Subscribers refers to the number of subscribers consistently engaging with content.

How to Calculate:

Example: (300 Subscribers that Engage ÷ 1,500 Emails Delivered) x 100 = 20% Active Email Subscribers

13. Engagement Over Time

Engagement Over Time compares subscriber participation across a given time.

Source

14. Domain Open Rate

Domain Open Rate refers to the number of email opens for users on a given domain (Gmail, for instance).

Its measurement is useful when examining how email campaigns perform under different email providers. For example, is deliverability an issue in a particular domain?

How to Calculate:

Example: (300 Emails Opened in Gmail ÷ 500 Emails Delivered to Gmail) x 100 = 60% Domain Open Rate

15. Domain Click Rate

Domain Click Rate refers to the number of email clicks by users on a given domain (Gmail, for instance).

This measurement helps see how email campaigns perform under different email providers.

How to Calculate:

Example: (300 Email Clicks in Gmail ÷ 500 Emails Delivered to Gmail) x 100 = 60% Domain Click Rate

16. Unsubscribe Rate

Unsubscribe Rate is the percentage of users who have opted out from an email list.

Such a metric helps understand what campaigns negatively impact an email list, highlighting future outreach ideas.

How to Calculate:

Example: (10 Unsubscribes ÷ 500 Emails Delivered) x 100 = 2% Unsubscribe Rate

17. Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of undelivered emails.

It helps see the inaccuracies or outdated information of an email list. For example, you may discover invalid email addresses on your list.

How to Calculate:

Example: 10 Undelivered Emails ÷ 800 Emails Sent x 100 = 1.25%

18. Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate is the percentage of email recipients who completed the desired action.

This valuable metric is critical in moving customers through the marketing funnel and understanding the overall success of email campaigns.

How to Calculate:

Example: (500 individuals completed the desired action ÷ 10,000 total delivered emails) x 100 = 5% conversion rate.

19. Revenue Per Subscriber

Revenue Per Subscriber is the amount of revenue generated by each subscriber.

It provides a direct insight into which strategies directly translate into dollars. Understanding Revenue Per Subscriber will drive ROI.

How to Calculate:

Example: $10,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue ÷ 500 Active Subscribers = $20 in Revenue Per Subscriber

20. ROI

Return on Investment (ROI) refers to the monetary value produced from an email marketing campaign versus its cost.

ROI is a popular profitability metric used to evaluate how well a campaign has performed financially.

How to Calculate:

Example: (($500 gained – $100 Cost) ÷ $100 Cost) x 100 = 400% ROI

21. Mobile Open Rate Vs. Desktop

Mobile Open Rate vs. Desktop refers to the ratio of email recipients who open an email on a Mobile Device vs. Desktop.

81 percent of all individuals prefer to use a mobile device to open emails. In comparison, 21 percent of individuals still prefer desktops.

Marketers must prioritize responsive design to drive the best possible outcome for mobile email campaigns.

How to Calculate:

Example: (500 Unique Mobile Opens ÷ 2,500 Total Recipients) x 100 = 20% Mobile Open Rate

22. Mobile Click Rate Vs. Desktop

Mobile Open Rate vs. Desktop refers to the ratio of email recipients who click on a hyperlink in an email on a Mobile Device vs. on a Desktop.

However, despite mobile open rates rising, desktop users are 40 percent more likely to click a link than mobile users.

How to Calculate:

Example: (600 Mobile Clickthroughs ÷ 4,000 Total Recipients) x 100 = 15% Mobile Clickthrough Rate