According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), email marketing provides an average 42:1 return on investment (ROI) here in the UK. It’s hardly surprising, then, that email marketing continues to be a central method for reaching customers. Whether emails target cart abandonment, repeat custom, or new signups, 50% of people will buy off the back of these marketing materials at least once a month.
But, with 47% of people also unsubscribing from email lists that send out too many poorly fitting emails, an informed approach to email marketing is the only way to enjoy its potential. By analysing performance via an email performance report that considers consumer responses, interactions, and feedback, brands can make sure of email marketing that’s both relevant and more likely to engage.
In this article, we consider what an email performance report is, and how it can help you to ensure effective email marketing.
What is an email campaign performance report?
An email campaign performance report is a tool that outlines the performance of any email marketing campaign. This provides clear and informed insights that can help brands to understand where email marketing is working (e.g. where the most conversions are happening), and any problem areas that need addressing (e.g. the point where consumers click away).
What are the key email campaign performance metrics?
A reliable email performance report should provide information on every element of marketing performance. Determining ‘key’ email campaign metrics will largely depend on project focuses that might include –
- Retargeting
- New sales
- Loyalty conversions
- Recommendations
- Etc.
That said, some crucial email campaign performance metrics are likely to be relevant regardless of campaign specifics, and they can easily be separated into four key categories as follows –
Outcome metrics are concerned with the overall outcomes of your email campaigns. Broadly, this category will consider the overall amount of emails sent, alongside metrics that include –
Outcome metrics
- Subscriber growth
- Unsubscribe rates
- Open rates
- Click-throughs
- Bounce rates
- Content Metrics
Content metrics consider how the individual content of a campaign is perceived, including things like click-through rates based on email titles, sales depending on the tone of content (does funny content result in more sales than serious emails?), and even how email sequences perform together.
Subscriber metrics
Subscriber metrics consider how subscribers interact with/respond to emails. This will include obvious things like direct sales and repeat custom, alongside success indicators like social media shares, or even positive online feedback/reviews.
Web analytics metrics
Web analytics help to highlight actual ROI and interactions, and include –
- Web traffic
- Leads
- Conversions
How to analyse your performance report
Having broad access to key metrics isn’t helpful if businesses aren’t also aware of how to analyse this information.
To guarantee returns, it’s crucial to analyse any email performance report in the following ways –
- Outline campaign goals: Without understanding what your campaign is attempting to achieve, you can’t know which metrics are relevant. Begin by considering whether a campaign intends to create new sales, retarget loyal customers, or simply remind people who you are.
- Determine a time frame: Think about the most useful campaign time frames to analyse. Most often, this will be at the beginning, middle, and perhaps end of a campaign, but obviously, it all depends on your overall focus.
- Focus on key metrics: While all metrics are broadly relevant to all campaigns, truly actionable insights will come from a focus on key metrics in mind of specific campaign goals. For instance, if your goal is retargeting, then new sign-ups might not be completely relevant.
- Compare results: Comparing the results of various changes/campaign specifics can ensure a full-circle outlook of marketing reports that truly inform improvements.
Adapt your future email campaigns
It’s important to use the insights of any email performance report to adapt and improve future email campaigns. This can result in far more effective campaigns developed based on everything from direct feedback, to an understanding of the right tone of voice, or even the right time of day to send an email. In each instance, you should be able to increase interactions, and ultimately enjoy better sales for each email marketing effort. The more comprehensive and applicable your email campaign performance report is, the better able you’ll be to make changes. Here at Instiller, our white label email marketing software provides detailed insights and analysis on all of our email marketing solutions. Whether your emails have failed to find the right inboxes before, or you simply want to keep people interested, book your free trial today to start creating, analysing, and implementing the best future email campaigns.