Measuring Email Marketing Campaign is Important
By Julia Gulevich
As with all marketing campaigns, it is important to measure your email marketing campaign. What do you measure them for and with? Things like open rates and click through rates. What do these measures mean? They mean a lot to some companies. Often decisions on whether to market a product or not are made on the basis of open and click through rates. So let’s see how to better measure our email marketing campaign.
Open Rates
Open rates are simply emails opened/ (emails sent – bounces). How do you measure open rates? When every email is sent a tiny bit of code is added to it. This code requests a tiny, invisible image from the sender’s web servers. When this image is requested, it is recorded as an “open.”
An open rate is not a 100% accurate measure. Often readers have HTML images disabled in their email client. Also often there are messages shown in the preview pane which display the images and therefore an “open” without the reader opening the image. Since messages are sometimes displayed as open without actually being opened and also due to text only emails, “opens” cannot be accurately measured. The open rate is best seen as an indicator of trends in email marketing.
The typical average open rate is between 20%-40%. If you are giving a great offer or the like sometimes, you may see open rates of 40%-60%. Again, open rates are different for the different types of organizations as well as audience. Churches, sports teams and non-profits can hope to see very high open rates.
It is a good idea to keep certain things in mind when observing open rates. Keep the subject lines powerful and concise. Don’t mislead using Re: in the subject line. This practice is now against federal law.
Click Through Rates
This is always a tough statistic to gauge. What is a good click-through rate depends on to whom you are mailing and what message they are receiving. A good click-through rate can vary from 0.5% to 1.5%. This also depends on a number of factors. You need to factor in the different kinds of offers and the length of relationship with the prospect while measuring click through rates.
For increasing click-through rates, the following must be kept in mind. Put the most important offers or attractions above the fold or at the top of your email. Target your messages based on your subscriber’s demographics, preferences or past purchases.
Do not clutter your email with too many links or offers. This confuses the prospect and can have a negative impact on them. Explain your product with graphics and pictures. Make clickable links of them that can direct the prospects to your website.
Focus on your good responses as well as bounced email. Lastly, work on providing your subscriber value. You can measure value as a discount on sale or as a bit of free and useful information. This helps to increase click through rates.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. However, how much has been eaten needs measurement. It is the same when you measure email marketing campaigns. Remember measurement gives you important knowledge that can change your marketing story.