What Metrics Really Matter? March 15, 2019, | Posted by erin

Free Quote

Call Now

Newsletter Sign Up

Sign Up

Company Cookbook

View Now

Ask five email marketing professionals which metrics are the most important in a campaign and you’re likely to get several different answers, depending on what industry those professionals typically work with. Site Impact has worked in just about every niche, and with businesses large, small, and in between--as a result we have a more global perspective on the issue. While specific campaigns may have variations in what goals they’re looking to achieve, there are certain metrics that are telling of any and every campaign.

 

How to avoid information overload

First, it is important to recognize that not all data is important data, and not all data is relevant. While some information is consistently valuable no matter the specific goals of a campaign--such as open rates--there are too many metrics and not enough time in the fast-paced world of digital marketing in general and email in particular to get hung up on every detail. More to the point, trying to weigh every data point can result in burnout and overload; if you are looking at multiple results at the same time, you can miss out on key insights that a particular metric is telling you. In light of this, before the campaign even begins you should identify three or four key metrics to look at and base decisions on--and stick with it.

 

What are the default good choices?

If you aren’t sure what to look for, or what your specific goal for a given campaign is, there are still some basic metrics that will give you a decent idea of how it is performing. These include:

●      Open rate

●      Click-through rate

●      Conversion rate

●      Total spend

●      ROI

Obviously, more than one of these is a little more complex in terms of data involved; but they all give you baseline ideas of performance of your campaign. For companies that are non-profit, total spend may not be as important a figure, but conversion rate and ROI are valuable indicators for everyone--especially since a conversion can be defined as any of a number of specific actions you’re asking your recipients to take.

There are other metrics that you can look at, and tools that allow you to find out things from which parts of the email your recipients spend the most time on, or which link in particular they click on, but at the end of the day your interest is going to be in who saw your message, and of those people, how many acted on it, and if your message is trying to generate sales, how much they spent. The last one gives you a quick estimate on your ROI--the amount of money you spent versus what you gained from it. That’s an important figure no matter your business or company’s industry and niche.

 

It can be difficult sometimes to know what it is you should be looking at to determine how well your campaign is performing or has performed. At Site Impact, we make the tools readily available, easy to access, and even easier to understand for all of our clients. It’s important to know how your emails are coming across, and to make smart decisions on how to tweak your performance. By narrowing your focus to key indicators, and knowing what it is you want to achieve, you can go a long way towards cutting out the data noise, and get to the heart of your efforts and how they’re being received. Contact Site Impact today to learn how we can take all of the questions out of your email marketing campaign performance.