8 Key Metrics to Evaluate the Effectiveness of E-mail Marketing


Like all digital marketing tools, e-mail marketing is a tool of character with unique properties and drawbacks. It should not be used unconsciously because e-mail marketing can harm the brand, unlike other tools. Mailing lists are based on the imposition of content that is perceived negatively and irritably in the modern world. If you just launched a business and don’t know your audience, starting with simple messages, checklists, and coupons is better. This way, you will accustom the audience to helpful content, and as you study your audience and A / B testing, you will be able to expand the mailing formats and creatives.

email marketing analysis

When creating content and testing your audience’s interests, you should not rely on luck and intuition. To understand the effectiveness of content, it is better to use numbers and statistics. As contacts grow, the amount of data will only grow, so it’s better to immediately use generally accepted metrics that will help you objectively evaluate the results.

This article will focus on the eight main e-mail marketing metrics, namely:

  1. Open Rate
  2. Click-to-open Rate
  3. Unsubscribe rate
  4. Conversion rate
  5. E-mail bounce rate
  6. Complaint rate
  7. List growth rate
  8. Forward Rate

By regularly tracking these metrics and comparing them over time, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy.

Open Rate

Open Rate is the percentage of users who opened your e-mail. This indicator shows your subscribers’ interest in reading your e-mails in a certain period and how compelling your headline is.

Click-to-Open Rate

Click-to-Open Rate is the percentage of e-mail recipients who clicked on one or more links in your e-mail. To calculate the click-through Rate per open, divide the total number of clicks by the number of unique opens. AB testing often uses this metric to determine which format or creative gets the most engagement.

Unsubscribe Rate

The Unsubscribe Rate is the percentage of recipients who unsubscribe from your mailing list after opening a new e-mail. To calculate the unsubscribe rate, divide the number of unsubscribes by the number of e-mails delivered.

Conversion Rate

The Conversion Rate is the percentage of e-mail recipients who clicked on a link in the e-mail and completed the desired action (For example: purchase, registration, or survey). The conversion rate shows how much your content motivates your audience to take action. To calculate your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the number of clicks.

Bounce Rate

E-mail Bounce Rate is the percentage of e-mail addresses that fail to deliver an e-mail. This metric can be calculated by taking the total number of e-mails bounced divided by the number of e-mails sent multiplied by 100. Generally, the bounce rate can vary by season and time.

Complaint Rate

Complaint Rate is the percentage of complaints received or unsubscribed from your mailing list. In practice, this figure is 0.01% or one complaint per 1000 letters. It is worth paying close attention to this indicator, as it affects adding your account to the blocklist and subsequent blocking. If, over time, the “E-mail Bounce Rate” grows unreasonably, contact your hosting provider or mail service support. They can check the blocklist and apply to remove your E-mail from it.

List Growth Rate

The List Growth Rate is the growth rate of your followers who have self-subscribed. When calculating this metric, subtract the number of unsubscribers from it, then multiply by 100. If you gained six new subscribers and lost two, your list growth rate is 4 percent.

Forward Rate

The Forward Rate is the number of recipients who shared your content from the e-mail newsletter by clicking the share button.