Click rate & opening rate – newslet­ter KPIs in e-mail marketing

The classic key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors (KPIs) in e-mail marketing include the click rate, the opening rate, the delivery rate, the un­sub­scribe rate, and the bounce rate of a newslet­ter. However, there are a number of other newslet­ter KPIs that are used to analyze in­di­vid­ual campaigns. You should be aware of these so you can measure and optimize your newslet­ter’s success. To be able to analyze a newslet­ter suc­cess­ful­ly, you need various data, which you can obtain quickly and easily using suitable newslet­ter software. We explain the most important in­di­ca­tors for e-mail marketing:

To analyze a newslet­ter campaign, you need different metrics, which you can then use to calculate KPIs. Here is some of the most essential in­for­ma­tion:

• Amount dis­trib­uted: the number of e-mails sent within a newslet­ter campaign. This amount indicates the number that have been sent out, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly whether they have actually arrived in the re­cip­i­ents’ inboxes or not.

• Bounces: these are the e-mails that haven’t been delivered within a newslet­ter campaign. In this case, the mail server should send a bounce message to the sender to inform them that there was an error with the delivery. There are many reasons why an e-mail can’t be delivered. One ex­pla­na­tion is that the recipient’s inbox is so full that there’s no space for your newslet­ter. Since this is usually only a temporary problem, this is referred to as a soft bounce since there might be enough capacity in the inbox when the next newslet­ter is sent out. However, if this e-mail address continues to generate bounce messages with different campaigns, it could be that this e-mail address doesn’t exist anymore. This is then known as a hard bounce and the e-mail address should be deleted from the newslet­ter address list.

• Openings: the number of e-mails that are opened. The opening rate is detected by tracking tech­nol­o­gy used in newslet­ter campaigns.

• Mobile openings: the number of emails opened on a mobile device, which has been detected by tracking.

• Clicks: the number of times a link has been clicked on in a newslet­ter campaign.

• Un­sub­scrip­tions: the number of people un­sub­scrib­ing from a newslet­ter.

The above values are required so that the essential KPIs can be de­ter­mined. We will show you some of the most important in­di­ca­tors for newslet­ters and how they can be cal­cu­lat­ed. We also explain the con­clu­sions that can be drawn from the re­spec­tive KPI values.

Delivery rate

The delivery rate refers to the per­cent­age of e-mails that have landed in re­cip­i­ents’ inboxes. The rate should be rel­a­tive­ly high (95% or more) – otherwise you should check the reasons for the weak delivery rate: it’s possible that you have several e-mail addresses in your list that don’t exist anymore. It could also be that the newslet­ter content has been marked as spam by the mail server and has therefore been blocked. There is a simple cal­cu­la­tion to determine the per­cent­age of suc­cess­ful e-mails:

The bounce rate is the opposite of the delivery rate. It reveals which portion of the newslet­ter e-mails hasn’t reached the re­cip­i­ents.

The opening rate indicates how many re­cip­i­ents have actually opened the newslet­ter. If the opening rate is very low (the average value is usually only 15-30%), you should examine the subject line more clearly: you should briefly explain the contents of the newslet­ter.

If your newslet­ter software can reveal whether or not the e-mails are opened on a smart­phone or tablet, the opening rate can be further specified. If many sub­scribers open the e-mails on their mobile devices, you should make sure that your campaign is tailored to smaller screens so that the content can be displayed properly. Use the following formula to determine how many re­cip­i­ents have opened the newslet­ter on a mobile device.

An e-mail marketing campaign usually includes at least one link and sometimes even several links, es­pe­cial­ly in e-commerce. Most of them are trans­ac­tion­al: the link content should persuade the recipient to carry out a certain action (con­ver­sion), such as ordering a product or down­load­ing something. The click through rate reveals whether the newslet­ters were clicked on by the re­cip­i­ents.

When it comes to the click-to-open rate, only opened newslet­ters are included in the cal­cu­la­tion. The quota specifies the per­cent­age of re­cip­i­ents that have clicked on the embedded links. If you aren’t satisfied with the click-through rate, it may be that you have placed too many links in the newslet­ter. Rather than adding lots of links choose to include fewer, but ones that are more mean­ing­ful. Finally in this respect, links should always be clearly iden­ti­fi­able.

The un­sub­scribe rate is useful if you want to know how many sub­scribers have opted out of your newslet­ter. A common reason for re­cip­i­ents un­sub­scrib­ing is that too many newslet­ters are being sent out, which can be annoying for obvious reasons. If you notice a lot of people opting out and you tend to send your newslet­ters in short intervals, you should try reducing the frequency at which you send them out. Redundant content is another reason why many people cancel their sub­scrip­tion.

The social sharing rate can be de­ter­mined by tracking the newslet­ter’s 'social shares' (sharing of content on social media). A sat­is­fac­to­ry social sharing rate can only be achieved by offering SWYN (Share With Your Network) links in newslet­ters. Your content then reaches further beyond the pub­li­ca­tion in your re­cip­i­ents’ social media networks.

You should set a concrete goal for each campaign, revealing what you plan to achieve with it. The more detailed, the better. Many companies hope for more con­ver­sions with their marketing efforts. In email marketing, con­ver­sions refer to certain actions that the newslet­ter re­cip­i­ents carry out after being prompted to by the content i.e. buying or reserving a product or a service, down­load­ing files, reg­is­ter­ing on a website, or clicking on an article on a website. The con­ver­sion rate can be obtained by linking an e-mail marketing program to Google Analytics. It expresses how many of the con­ver­sions are at­trib­ut­able to the newslet­ter campaign.