Email analytics: 15 best email marketing KPIs and metrics in 2024 

Email marketing is like the secret weapon in your digital marketing arsenal. It’s powerful, ubiquitous, and, when used right, can deliver stunning results. 

After all, currently, a staggering 4.3 billion people use email, and by 2025, it’s expected to grow to 4.5 billion. So, it’s no wonder businesses across the globe are harnessing their potential to reach their customers and distribute content. 

But let’s face it – more than effort is needed in email marketing. It’s not just about how many emails you send or how beautifully they’re designed.  

Their impact truly matters – the tangible, measurable results they deliver. That’s where email marketing KPIs step into the spotlight. 

Each KPI tells a unique story. From lead generation to subscriber growth, from boosting product purchases to enhancing brand awareness, there’s a KPI for every goal you’re chasing.  

And understanding these KPIs in depth can make all the difference between a campaign that falls flat and one that flies high. 

So, buckle up as we embark on a journey to decode the language of email marketing KPIs. We’ll explore them in all their glory, helping you navigate your way to email marketing success. So, let’s dive right in! 

What are email marketing KPIs?  

Email marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential measurable metrics used to gauge the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns. Your emails are monitored for several factors: delivery, open, click-through, and conversion rates.       

These KPIs offer insightful data marketers can use to improve engagement, optimize email campaigns, and boost return on investment (ROI).   

The KPIs tracked depend on the goals of the email marketing strategy, but irrespective of the objectives, they’re essential for measuring success and informing plans. 

Email marketing KPIs & metrics you need to track in 2024

Email marketing KPIs and metrics will be vital for gauging campaign success, understanding customer engagement, and optimizing ROI in an ever-evolving digital landscape. 

Below are the most important KPIs for email marketing: 

1. Delivery rate 

Definition: The delivery rate represents the percentage of emails that successfully made it into your subscribers’ inboxes. 

Importance: The delivery rate is vital because it shows how well you can get past email filters. If your delivery rate is low, your emails are being rejected by email servers or marked as spam, reducing their effectiveness. 

How to Improve Delivery rate: Improve your delivery rate by regularly cleaning your email list and removing inactive or invalid email addresses. Also, maintain a good sender reputation by sending valuable content and avoiding spammy behavior. 

2. Open rate 

Definition: The open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email from the total number of emails delivered. 

Importance: It measures the first level of engagement with your emails and reflects the effectiveness of your subject lines. 

Factors affecting open rate: The primary factors affecting the open rate are the subject line, sender name, and the time the email is sent. 

Strategies to improve open rate: Craft compelling, personalized subject lines to improve open rates. Also, experiment with sending times to find when your audience will most likely open emails. 

3. Click-through rate (CTR) 

Definition: The percentage of email receivers that clicked on one or more links within a specific email is known as the CTR. 

Importance: The click-through rate is a crucial indicator of how well your email message resonates with your audience. A high CTR means your content is relevant and engaging to your subscribers. 

How to increase CTR: To increase the average Click through rate, make your content and links within your emails more compelling. Use clear calls to action, make connections and buttons stand out, and ensure your content provides clear value. 

4. Conversion rate 

Definition: The conversion rate is the proportion of email receivers carrying out the requested action, such as purchasing or signing up for a webinar. 

Importance: It’s the ultimate measure of the success of an email marketing campaign, showing how effectively your emails drive subscribers to take action. 

Strategies to increase conversion rate: To improve conversion rates, ensure your email content is aligned with your call to action and that your landing page delivers on what your email promises. 

5. Bounce rate 

It is best to keep your primary focus on conversion rate and click-through rate for measuring engagement. According to a survey, an unsubscribe rate of 0.5% is considered good. Keep in mind that a higher number of unsubscribers can negatively impact the deliverability rate. 

6. Bounce rate 

Definition: Bounce rate is the percentage of your total emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. 

Importance: A high bounce rate can damage your sender’s reputation and decrease email deliverability. Maintaining a clean email list is important for a bounce rate. 

How to Reduce bounce rate:  

• Regularly clean your email list. 
• Remove inactive subscribers. 
• Use double opt-in methods to ensure subscribers’ email addresses are valid. 

6. Unsubscribe rate 

Definition: The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who opt to unsubscribe from your email list after receiving an email. 

Importance: A high people unsubscribe rate can indicate dissatisfaction with your email content or frequency. 

How to minimize unsubscribe rate: To minimize unsubscribes, keep your content relevant and valuable. Also, don’t overwhelm subscribers with too many emails; allow them to adjust their email preferences.

7. List growth rate 

Definition: The list growth rate measures how quickly your email list expands while accounting for new subscribers, unsubscribes, and complaints about spam and email. 

Importance: A positive list growth rate is essential to expanding your audience and offsetting natural attrition from unsubscribes and inactive users. 

Strategies for list growth: To grow your list, offer incentives for signing up, use multiple channels to promote your email list, and make the sign-up process straightforward. 

8. Email sharing/Forwarding rate  

Definition: The email sharing/forwarding rate is the percentage of recipients who share your email with others or forward it to others. 

Importance: When subscribers share your emails, it amplifies your reach and can lead to new subscribers, making it an important organic growth indicator. 

How to encourage email sharing: Encourage sharing, include simple share buttons in your emails, produce quality material suitable for sharing, and consider providing rewards. 

8. Spam complaint rate  

Definition: Spam complaint rate is the percentage of your recipients who mark your emails as spam. 

Importance: High spam complaint rates can damage your sender’s reputation, impacting your email deliverability rate. It’s also a clear signal that your content isn’t resonating with your audience or you’re emailing them too frequently. 

How to reduce spam complaint rate:  

• Ensure you only send emails to people who have opted in to receive them. 
• Be specific about the type of information they’ll receive and how frequently. 
• Make sure your material is worthwhile and pertinent.  

10. Subscriber lifetime value (LTV) 

Definition: Subscriber LTV is the total revenue generated from a subscriber during their time on your email list. 

Importance: With the help of this KPI, you can determine the worth of each subscriber to your company and determine how much money to allocate toward subscriber acquisition and retention. 

How to increase subscriber LTV: Improve your email content to increase engagement and conversions. Also, consider implementing a loyalty program to encourage repeat purchases. 

11. Subscriber churn rate 

Definition: The percentage of email subscribers on your list who unsubscribe within a predetermined time frame is known as your subscriber churn rate.  

Importance: High churn rates can be a sign of dissatisfaction with your emails and can limit the growth of your email list. 

How to reduce subscriber churn rate: Regularly survey your subscribers to identify issues and areas for improvement. Test different types of content, delivery times, and frequencies to see what your subscribers prefer. 

12. Mobile click-to-open rate 

Definition: This is the percentage of recipients who open your email and click a link within the email on a mobile device. 

Importance: With the rise of mobile device usage, understanding this KPI can help you optimize your emails for mobile viewing and interaction. 

How to improve mobile click-to-open rate: Use responsive email designs, make your calls to action easy to tap on a mobile screen, and ensure the landing pages you link to are also mobile-friendly. 

13. Revenue per click 

Definition: Revenue per click is the average revenue generated each time a recipient clicks a link in your email. 

Importance: This KPI helps you understand how valuable each click is, which can inform decisions about how much to invest in improving your CTR. 

How to improve revenue per click: Optimize your landing pages to increase conversions. Test different types of offers and calls to action to see what generates the most revenue. 

14. Email read rate 

Definition: This is the percentage of recipients who not only open your email but also spend significant time reading it. 

Importance: A high read rate indicates that your content is engaging and relevant to your subscribers, not just compelling enough to get them to open the email. 

How to improve email read rate:  

• Write compelling content. 
• Use subheadings and bullet points to make your email easy to skim. 
• Keep your emails concise. 

15. Hard bounce rate 

Definition: Hard bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that are returned by the recipient’s mail server as permanently undeliverable. 

Importance: A high hard bounce rate can damage your sender’s reputation, leading to lower deliverability rates for all of your emails. 

How to reduce hard bounce rate: Regularly clean your email list, remove unengaged subscribers, and use a double opt-in process to ensure 

How to know which email metrics to track, based on your goals? 

Choosing the right metrics for an email to track can be challenging, given the array of KPIs available.  

The metrics you choose to focus on should align with the goals of your email marketing campaigns. Following are some tips for choosing which metrics to monitor based on your goals: 

1. Increase subscriber engagement

If your goal is to boost engagement, focus on KPIs such as open rate, click-through rate (CTR), and click-to-open rate. These email marketing metrics indicate how well your recipients interact with your emails.   

By examining these indicators, you better understand the material that engages your audience and modify your strategy as necessary.  

2. Improve deliverability 

If you need help getting your emails into your recipients’ inboxes, you need to monitor metrics like delivery and bounce rates. Your email service provider typically provides these email marketing analytics. A high delivery rate and a low bounce rate indicate successful email campaigns. 

3. Reduce unsubscribes

If reducing your unsubscribe rate is a goal, closely watch your unsubscribe rate metric. If this KPI is high, you may need to reassess the content, frequency, or target audience of your email marketing. 

4. Drive conversions 

When email marketing aims to encourage activities like buying something, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a free eBook, the conversion rate is one of the greatest KPIs to use.   

This KPI tells you the percentage of email recipients completing the desired action after clicking an email link. If the conversion rate is low, it may indicate that your call to action needs to be more compelling or that your email content isn’t persuading recipients to take action. 

5. Grow your email list

If your goal is to expand your subscriber list, track your list growth rate. This email marketing KPI measures how quickly your subscriber list is growing.  

If the growth rate is slow, it may be time to revisit your list-building strategies, like offering a free eBook or access to exclusive content in exchange for an email address. 

6. Evaluate campaign performance

If your goal is to assess the overall performance of your email marketing campaigns, a comprehensive overview of all your email marketing metrics & KPIs is crucial.  

This includes tracking delivered emails, open rate, CTR, unsubscribe rate, bounce rate, and conversion rate. Using a campaign monitor tool can help you visualize these metrics and identify successful campaigns. 

Why is it important to analyze email marketing KPIs? 

Analyzing email marketing KPIs is key to measuring campaign success and guiding future strategies, ensuring optimal audience engagement and ROI. Below are some of the important metrics to analyze email marketing KPIs: 

1. Understanding audience behaviour

Email marketing metrics offer valuable insights into subscriber behavior. Metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) can clearly show how recipients interact with your emails.    

Are they engaging with your content, or are your emails being left unread? By analyzing these email marketing KPIs, you can gauge the level of engagement and plan future campaigns accordingly. 

2. Improving email deliverability

One of the key performance indicators in email marketing is the delivery rate. This KPI measures the number of emails delivered to the recipient’s inbox compared to the total number sent.  

If your delivery rate is low, your emails may end up in spam folders, meaning your subscribers need to see your messages. Monitoring this KPI can help you troubleshoot delivery issues and improve future email campaigns. 

3. Reducing unsubscribe rate 

The unsubscribe rate is another critical email marketing metric. A high unsubscribe rate could indicate a disconnect between what your subscribers want and what you deliver.  

By keeping a close eye on this KPI, you can adjust your email marketing strategies to better meet your subscribers’ needs and keep your unsubscribe rate low. 

4. Boosting conversion rates

Conversion rate is one of the most important KPIs for email marketing. It calculates the proportion of recipients that clicked on a link in your email and carried out the intended action, such as buying something or completing a form. 

By tracking this KPI, you can determine whether your email marketing efforts are generating the desired results. 

5. Assessing campaign performance

Email marketing analytics tools allow you to measure the overall performance of your email campaigns.  

You can assess your campaign’s success and identify improvement areas by tracking email campaign metrics such as open rates, CTR, bounce rates, and conversion rates. 

6. Optimizing future campaigns

Email marketing KPIs provide a wealth of data that can be used to optimize future email campaigns. For example, A/B testing different subject lines or call-to-action metrics can help you determine what resonates most with your audience, enabling you to tailor future campaigns for maximum impact. 

7. Maintaining a good sender reputation

Hard bounces, spam complaints, and low engagement rates can all harm your sender’s reputation with email service providers. By analyzing these KPIs, you can take steps to maintain a good sender reputation, ensuring that your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes. 

8. Expanding your subscriber list

The list growth rate is another of the best KPIs for email marketing. This metric measures how quickly your email list is growing. Monitoring this KPI can help you gauge the effectiveness of your list-building efforts and adjust your strategy as needed. 

9. Improving email ROI

You can increase your email marketing initiatives’ return on investment (ROI) by analyzing your email marketing KPIs. You may more efficiently deploy your resources and achieve greater outcomes by knowing which techniques are effective and which ones are not.

How to measure KPIs in email marketing?  

Tracking your email marketing KPIs and using email analytics tools to analyze this data is crucial to refining your email marketing strategy and making your future email campaigns more successful.  

The best KPIs for email marketing will vary depending on your unique business goals and the specific objectives of each campaign. 

1. Set clear goals for your email marketing campaigns

Every email marketing campaign should start with a goal. Whether you’re hoping to increase product sales, encourage sign-ups, or boost brand awareness, your objectives will directly influence the email marketing KPIs you need to track. 

2. Choose relevant email marketing metrics

Each campaign goal comes with a different set of KPIs for email marketing.  

For instance, you should concentrate on click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate if your goal is to nurture existing leads. 

If brand awareness is your aim, pay attention to open rates and email sharing/forwarding rates. 

3. Utilize email marketing analytics tools 

There are numerous email marketing analytics tools provided by email service providers. These tools can help you monitor many email metrics, from bounce to unsubscribe rates and even spam complaints. 

4. Track your KPIs over time  

To gauge the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts, it’s essential to measure email marketing KPIs consistently. This will allow you to spot trends, assess the impact of changes to your strategy, and compare the email performance of multiple campaigns. 

5. Segment your subscriber list

Different subscriber groups might react differently to your emails. For example, new subscribers might have a higher click-to-open rate than long-time recipients. Segmenting your data can offer more accurate insights and assist you in tailoring your email marketing strategies. 

6. Use A/B testing to improve email campaign metrics

A/B testing involves sending two versions of an email to separate segments of your subscriber list to see which one performs better. This can enhance various aspects of your emails, from subject lines to calls to action, and ultimately boost your email marketing metrics & KPIs. 

7. Pay attention to subscriber engagement 

While email metrics like open rates and CTR can give you a good sense of overall engagement, digging deeper is crucial. Consider tracking how many recipients read your emails in full, how many click on the same link multiple times, and how many forward your emails to others. 

8. Monitor your delivery rate 

Ensuring your marketing emails are reaching the recipient’s inbox is one of the most important KPIs for email marketing. A good sender reputation and avoiding hard bounces are vital to prevent your emails from landing in the spam folder. 

9. Keep an eye on your unsubscribe rate

An issue with your email marketing campaign may be indicated by a sudden rise in your unsubscribe rate. It’s normal to see some subscribers opt out over time, but if this number increases dramatically, you may be targeting the wrong audience. 

10. Evaluate your conversion rate

The ultimate objective of most email marketing campaigns is to drive conversions. Therefore, you can clearly understand how successfully your campaign accomplishes its goals by carefully monitoring your conversion rate. 

Conclusion 

Navigating the dynamic landscape of 2024’s digital marketing world will hinge on understanding and utilizing the power of email analytics effectively.   

The 15 email marketing KPIs and metrics discussed in this blog are pivotal in understanding your campaign’s performance and informing your strategy, identifying areas of improvement, and optimizing for better engagement and conversions.     

Remember, each email KPI tells a story about your campaign, and understanding these stories is key to crafting successful, impactful email marketing campaigns.   

As we look ahead, continuous monitoring, analysis, and adaptation of these KPIs will be the cornerstone of successful email marketing.  So, harness the power of these email marketing KPIs and metrics, and make 2024 your most successful year yet!