Email Measurement

One of the key benefits of digital communication is the ability to measure it’s impact. While there are many elements of email communications that can be measured, it’s a good idea to look at the aims of your communication and focus on measurements that relate specifically to your objectives.

Standard email measurements include:

- Deliverability rates - these give you insight into the cleanliness of your database – see article ‘Maintaining your email database’, and how SPAM friendly your content is. It’s a good idea to run each email through a SPAM checker before each send

- Open rates - open rates give you an indication of how interested your audience is in the content you are sending, how effective your subject line is, and when is the best time to send an email to your database

- Clickthroughs - give you an indication of which information your audience is most interested in

- Unsubscribes - it’s beneficial to monitor unsubscribe rates when you vary your communication in any way, including content or frequency – spikes may indicate your customers don’t like the change!

- Forwards - if your email content is compelling, people are more likely to send the email to a friend!

Other things that you can measure to maximise your email communications are:

- Offers – A/B testing different offers to a small sample of your email database prior to a promotion can highlight which offer is most effective and increase your overall uptake rate.

- Conversion rates – measure the number of customers that went on to complete a specific action after clicking a link in your email (updating their profile, registering interest in a new product, downloading a product brochure, or signing up for an event just to name a few examples).

- Subject lines – do an A/B test using different subject lines to see which achieves a higher open rate. Learn about what motivates your customers to read your emails!

- Best send times – review when emails are opened after a send to see when the majority of your customers are receptive to receiving your communications. You can also do A/B testing by send emails on different days of the week to see when the highest open rates are achieved.

- Email design – does a short, sharp newsletter perform more effectively than an eNewsletter style communication? Be mindful that shorter emails may get higher clickthrough rates because less information is presented on the email.