Ecommerce and email marketing: A classic, timeless tale of two inseparable companions that is relevant even in 2022. If you are an online seller, email marketing would be something you have leveraged consistently, owing to its wide range of benefits. Also, it is one of the basic aspects for creating an account on any eCommerce website owing to the wide user base and legal recognition:
So did you check your email marketing performance for the last year and plan an amazing 2022? No matter which of the two you are eyeing (or even both!), this article is for you. As a seasoned professional working at a Klaviyo email marketing agency, I have curated a list of must-measure email marketing metrics for eCommerce businesses. Let’s get started:
Open Rate
For any email marketer, open rate is among the most crucial metrics to track. In simple words, an open rate helps you determine the total number of emails delivered out of the total sends. Thus, it is directly related to the effectiveness of your subject line and preheader text. Also, it gives you an idea if you are targeting the correct audience for your sender’s intent. Email open rate, on an average, is 21.33 percent, although the figures vary by industry. As a Klaviyo email marketing agency employee, I would say that many, if not all, email marketing solutions will display your campaign’s open rate.
Click-Through Rate
Keeping track of your click-through rate (CTR) is critical for understanding how much percentage of your email list interacts with your messages. When a subscriber clicks on a link in your email, the action is termed as a “click,” and even if they click on the link several times, it will only be counted as one click. This helps keep data accurate as it reflects how appealing your email content is to your list subscribers. This also includes your email design game, images, and CTA (call to action) button text.
Conversion Rate
It is essential to know your conversion rates as an online seller, as most campaigns, including promotional, retargeting, remarketing, upsell, and cross-sell, need to be spot on. More conversions indicate better personalization and segmentation apart from other best practices. Also, I would like to tell our readers that revenue is the difference between conversion rate and CTR, so don’t confuse the two. Here, the factors beyond your email are more important as conversion depends on your offering. Improper checkout process, unclear shipping charges, making users fill in too much information in order to complete a single transaction are common causes.
ROI
ROI is the ultimate metric used to assess the efficacy of your email marketing spending. Email marketing ROI is a metric that measures the performance of an investment in a single email marketing campaign or compares the effectiveness of multiple outreach efforts. Many businesses also use lead acceleration as a way to measure their ROI, but in most cases, the below formula works just fine:
(Revenue generated from email marketing − Cost of sales generated from email marketing) / Email marketing costs
As an eCommerce store, you must keep ROI at the center of your efforts since selling is quite apparent when compared to other industries.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of emails that did not reach their intended recipients in your mailing list. Comparing it against open rates can provide you with a more accurate picture of your email list quality. Bounces are two types: soft and hard, with a high number of hard bounces signaling that your list may contain false email addresses, addresses with typos, or outdated email addresses. If your bounce rate is beyond permissible limits, most ESPs track and block your messages. It can possibly get your IP blocked, which is why it’s critical to prevent it. Thus, as an eCommerce store, keeping your list clean has multiple benefits!
Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe rate helps you track the total percentage of people that opted out of your online store’s email list after receiving one of your messages. It can be considered as a crucial signal for your overall strategy and its effectiveness. The usual unsubscribe rate is typically accepted to be less than 0.5 percent, and generally, it is measured over the past 30 days window. Your customers may unsubscribe for a variety of reasons, so have a strategy to fetch their inputs on what didn’t work for them for future improvements.
Spam Rate
One of the horrors to face as an eCommerce email marketer is a high spam rate. Do keep an eye on this metric since it will keep you updated regarding your automation workflows. It will also let you know about the quality of leads you attract and how relevant your efforts are in the eyes of your subscribers. For eCommerce stores, a high spam rate could also be a sign of not handling the campaigns correctly.
Summing Up
In this article, I have highlighted some basic yet effective email marketing metrics that every eCommerce business owner must track. It is necessary that you regularly monitor these email metrics so that you can track if you are progressing as per your goals. While you can get an overall bird’s eye view of your email efforts, it is always better to analyze it for each campaign individually. You can use a platform like Klaviyo, and to make the most of it, you can even outsource the task to a Klaviyo email marketing agency. I hope this article helps you monitor your eCommerce business’ email efforts in 2022 and beyond.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.
