Sending e-mails is an increasingly common digital marketing strategy. Its return on investment (ROI) is estimated at 28.5%. 35% of marketers send 3 to 5 e-mails to their customers every week.E-mail marketing helps to attract new prospects while building customer loyalty. Once you've set up an e-mail campaign, you need to analyze its performance. The aim? To use the results obtained to improve future campaigns. In this guide, we give you an overview of the emailing KPIs you need to monitor.
- Deliverability rate
In France, the average deliverability rate for marketing e-mails is around 95%. This is the starting point for other emailing KPIs. The deliverability rate gives you a precise idea of the percentage of recipients who actually received the e-mail. To calculate it, use the following formula:
Deliverability rate = (number of e-mails delivered/number of e-mails sent)*100.
Wondering how to increase your deliverability rate? Discover our tips for improving the performance of your e-mail campaigns:
- Reduce the number of non-existent or inactive e-mail addresses;
- Stop instant subscriptions;
- Prevent your e-mails from being considered spam;
- Facilitate the unsubscription process;
- Personalize e-mail content as much as possible.
- Opening rate
The open rate is a measure of whether or not e-mails are opened. The higher the open rate, the better for your e-mail performance. This rate can vary according to the day and time of sending. Find out how it's calculated :
Open rate = (number of opens/number of e-mails sent)*100.
Want to know how to boost your open rate? Work on the subject and pre-header of your e-mails. These are the first elements your recipients see in their inboxes. They can encourage them to open your e-mails or, on the contrary, to archive them. To arouse their curiosity, they need to be as striking as possible. Another tip is to avoid noreply forwarding addresses.
Last but not least, personalize the sending times according to your targets' habits. As a general rule, the best time to send an e-mail marketing campaign is Saturday. This day has an average open rate of 45.2%. Friday comes2nd, with 40.7%, followed by Tuesday, with 38.7%.
Good to know: Top 5 sectors with the highest opening rates
- Hardware, with an opening rate of 46.8%.
- Health and well-being, with 44.7%.
- Tourism, with 44.5%.
- Wines and spirits, with 44.3%.
- Culture, with 43.7%.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
The click-through rate corresponds to the proportion of recipients who opened your e-mail and then clicked on one of the links. This performance indicator reflects your recipients' commitment to your e-mail marketing campaign. It is calculated as follows
Click-through rate = total number of clicks on a link/number of e-mails sent)*100.
Want to know the secrets to optimizing your CTR? Here's a selection of the best:
- Choose a simple object;
- Write content that makes people want to click;
- Highlight the call-to-action or CTA ;
- Add a visual.
Good to know: What are the 5 business areas with the highest click-through rates? ?
- Hardware, with a 5.4% click-through rate.
- Games, with 4.8%.
- Culture, with 4.6%.
- Mode, with 4.2%.
- Decoration, with 3.7%.
- Bounce rate
This is the percentage of undelivered e-mails. There are 2 types of bounces:
- Soft bounce. This refers to an email address error. It may be due to a saturated inbox or a server failure. It prevents the e-mail from reaching the recipient.
- Hard b ounce. This is a permanent error. It concerns e-mail addresses that don't exist or have been deactivated. After sending the message, you will receive an error notification.
Discover the formula for calculating the bounce rate :
Bounce rate = (number of undelivered e-mails/number of e-mails sent)*100.
The goal of every brand is tohave a low bounce rate. To improve it, it's important to clean up your database regularly.
- Conversion rate
It shows whether the objectives set have been achieved. The conversion rate measures the proportion of recipients who :
- Visited your landing page (via your link or CTA) ;
- Performed the expected action (click, download, form).
This emailing KPI directly determines your return on investment (ROI). It is calculated as follows:
Conversion rate = (number of conversions/number of e-mails sent)*100.
To boost it, encourage your recipients to take action with visible, easy-to-click CTA buttons. Be sure to segment your audience correctly.
- Unsubscribe rate
This is the number of recipients who clicked on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail. The average is 0.10%. The number of people who consider e-mails irrelevant. It is calculated as follows:
Unsubscribe rate = (number of unsubscribes/number of e-mails sent)*100.
If you want to reduce it, send the right messages to the right subscribers. Pay attention to the design of your e-mails.
- Reactivity rate
It is used to determine the engagement of an e-mail marketing campaign. Find out how it's calculated:
Reactivity rate = (number of clicks on a link/number of e-mails opened)*100.
- Complaint rate (number of e-mails reported as spam)
This is the number of e-mails declared as spam by the recipient. The aim is tohave a rate as close to 0 as possible. A reader reporting your e-mail as spam from his mailbox greatly weakens the reputation of your sending domain. Too many complaints can cause your next e-mails to fall automatically into the spam folder.
To evaluate this emailing KPI, perform the following calculation:
Complaint rate = (number of complaints/number of e-mails sent)*100.
Want to reduce it? Limit marketing pressure by avoiding sending e-mails too often. Use the double opt-in (the contact receives an e-mail to confirm their registration). Finally, don't forget to include an unsubscribe section.
Distribute your performance-based email campaigns to Dataventure ' s 400 opt-in partner databases. Contact us to find out more.
