Metrics

Some of the important metrics you should be monitoring are:

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is the percentage of total emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipients in box.  Typically, these are known as a “bounce’.

There are two types of bounce.  A hard bounce means that there is a permanent problem with the email address such as it no longer exists.  A soft bounce means that there is some temporary issue as to why the email was not delivered to a valid email address such as a full in box.  Your bounce rate will indicate the quality of your contact list and general spam free compliance.

Delivery Rate

The percentage of emails that were actually delivered to recipients in boxes. This is calculated by subtracting the bounces from the total number of emails sent.  As a email marketer you would be looking for a delivery rate of 95% or better. Much lower than this percentage you would need to question the quality of your list.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

 This is the proportion of the total emailed recipients who clicked on one or more of the specific links in an email message.  It can be calculated by dividing the clicks by the number of emails delivered.  Monitoring click rates is a very important analytic because it indicates whether the message was relevant and the offer compelling enough to get the recipients to take action.

Conversion Rate

This is the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within the email and completed a desired action.

Revenue per Email

This is a measure of the return on investment (ROI) of a specific email campaign.  It is calculated by dividing the total revenue generated by the campaign by the number of emails sent.

Other Measures There are a number of other measures that can be calculated in an email campaign but those listed above are the major ones.