Which Email Marketing Statistic Is The Most Important?
A client asked me recently… – “which statistic do I need to review every time I send an email marketing message?”
While I wanted to say to my client – just review this one statistic I could not. There are a few statistics you need to review often and a couple to review every email marketing campaign.
The two statistics that are worth reviewing every eDM campaign are:
- Unsubscribe Rate
- CTOR (or unique click rate)
Unsubscribe Percentage Rate
The unsubscribe rate is the statistic our clients panic about the most (and so do I). It is hard to view unsubscribes positively – as they are seen as negative feedback that we really don’t want.
The percentage of unsubscribes per eDM (email message) is worth focusing on.
Once you know your average unsubscribe rate – you can assess each eDM’s unsubscribe percentage against the average rate. (To get the average rate add up all the unsubscribe percentage rates per eDM and divide by the total number of eDMs).
Now you know the average unsubscribe rate – when you view the statistics of an eDM campaign – at a glance you’ll know if your unsubscribe rate is higher or lower than usual. If the eDM rate is above the average rate we suggest reviewing the eDM’s content and ask the question: Was the eDM content highly relevant to the recipients?
If the content was less targeted – e..g introducing a new service or product that would not usually be associated with your business – a higher unsubscribe rate may be the result. Also a change in the frequency of messages received by your recipients may result in a change in unsubscribe rate behaviour. In your Mobilize Mail account you can review the ‘comments’ left by unsubscribed recipients and this feedback can be invaluable to your business. More often than not the comments will be innocuous too.
Here are some tips for improving your unsubscribe rate >>click here<<
Unique Click Rate
The CTOR (or unique click rate) lets you know how your eDM campaign performed. How many recipients clicked a link in your eDM.
This is the overriding activity you want to review every eDM. A lower click rate can suggest the content is less interesting or you have provided less clickable links.
Generally a higher click rate can be achieved by including more links in the eDM and this can include repetition of a particular link e.g. you may link to the same webpage more than once.