demystifying e-Mail statistics

Email is the most cost effective form of direct marketing. Email brings faster response than any other marketing vehicle. One of the key benefits of email marketing is its accountability. But how do you know how good your email marketing efforts are? What do the statistics actually mean?

 

Let's look at some statistics in more detail. Let's say we run an email marketing campaign to your address list and send you a bunch of numbers back telling you what happened to those emails: a so-called metrics report.

 

Here's an example:

Sent: 363

Bounces: 0.8%

Opt-Outs: 0.3%

Opens: 36.1%

Clicks: 36.9%

 

You see a line marked "Opens." The number 36.1% is the open rate for that email. It is often expressed as a percentage of the number of emails delivered to recipients. So in this case, 363 emails were sent out. Three of these emails bounced, which means they didn't get delivered. Of the remainder, 36.1% were "opened": 130 individuals "opened" that email.

 

Now, let's look at the meaning of these statistics in a little more detail. Here is a quick guide about what you need to know about email statistics.

 

Bounces:

These are the number of messages which didn't make it to the subscribers' inboxes. There are two types of bounces: Hard Bounce - this is caused by a permanent problem with a recipient's email account - for example that email account is no longer active (your contact may have left the company). Soft Bounce - this is a temporary issue with the delivering to the recipient - commonly caused by their inbox being full or a delay caused by network issues at the recipient. It usually means that the message reached the recipient's server and was then rejected. Sometimes a soft bounce message will be successfully delivered later, or may become a hard bounce.

 

Opt-outs or also referred to as Unsubscription Rate:

Any email campaign you send must carry an unsubscription link, and you should be able to see how many subscribers use this link to stop receiving your messages. It tells you how many people no longer wish to receive communications from you.

 

Open Rate:

This statistic shows the number of unique users who've opened your message. It tells you the number of unique people that actually loaded up the images in your campaign. This could be by properly opening your message or viewing it in the preview screen of their email client. The open rate gives you an overall impression of the success of your campaign compared to previous campaigns. Really, there is no typical open rate. The rate obtained for any list, or group of lists will depend on how it was measured, when it was sent, the size of the list and a zillion other potential variables. There is no shortage of benchmark numbers out there, but even between benchmark figures you will find big variation in the reported open rates. There are certainly some broad trends in open rates. For example: As list size goes up, the open rate tends to fall; possibly because smaller companies are more likely to have personal relationships with their list subscribers. Companies and organizations that are focusing on enthusiasts and supporters, like churches, sport teams and non profits see higher open rates. More specific niche topics, like some manufacturing areas also typically have higher open rates than emails on broader topics.

 

Link Clicks or Clicks or Click-through Rate:

This is the number of unique users who clicked on a link in your campaign, i.e. people who 'interact' with your campaign. Open, click-through and conversion rates combine to drive the ROI and success of your email campaigns.

 

Some food for thought - What drives open and click-through rates?

1. List Quality

2. Message Relevance

3. Compelling Offer

4. Audience Match

5. Email Subject Line

6. Email From Line

7. Creative Design

8. Contact Frequency

9. When the message gets send

10. Html versus text based email

11. List Size

 

If you need any help with your marketing or web design, please do not hesitate to ask, even if it's just some advice you need. Simplicity would be happy to help. Interested to learn how we can help? View our services; or simply contact us to discuss how we can help.

 

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