Email has long been established as one of the most cost-effective marketing channels, but in terms of what email can achieve, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
According to a recent study by Litmus in their State of Email Innovations Report, 72% of brand managers are no longer focusing on ROI. Instead, they are ensuring that newsletters and automations connect with their audience and meet their expectations.
Now, for many, this isn’t ground-breaking stuff – those of us that have prioritised customer needs, added value, created relevant content and personalised emails, know the impact of a happy and fully-immersed subscriber base. They engage, they advocate, they share their experiences and, arguably most importantly, they stay loyal to your brand.
Should you be tracking the same metrics for every campaign?
The short answer? Probably not. Ideally, email marketers should be rotating metrics as the intent behind a campaign changes, as illustrated in the examples below:
- To increase engagement, measure read time, CTOR, and CTR.
- For boosting referrals, focus on forwards, shares, and social media activity.
- To drive conversions, optimise for conversion rate, product link clicks (intent), abandon rate, revenue per email, revenue per subscriber, and subscriber LTV.
- If improving deliverability, monitor spam complaints and unsubscribe rate.
- To grow your list, track list growth rate, subscriber acquisition cost, and unsubscribe rate.
You will find there are times when your objectives cross-over, but there will usually be a primary call-to-action or purpose that each email serves, whether it is educational, a product launch, or a re-engagement campaign.
How to adapt your email processes to report on relevant KPIs
Start by clearly stating the objective of your campaign, as this can impact everything from the copy to the send time. While it may seem obvious, this step provides a solid foundation for your campaign’s success.
When it comes to design, the hierarchy of your content modules will have an impact on which actions your audience are guided to take. If your objective is to educate your audience about a service, remove the navigation or move it to the bottom of the email so users aren’t distracted. In this instance, you could also include a module to record feedback to understand how helpful your recipients found the content.
Generating email performance reports can get complicated when you aren’t measuring consistent KPIs. However, you can instead place emphasis on individual campaign metrics and their prioritisation. For example, you may also have set yourself a quarterly goal to increase list size. In this instance, you would just have to establish the most logical visualisation for your method of storytelling.
Decide whether to report by:
- Campaign performance, including all relevant metrics but highlighting the KPIs most pertinent to the campaign.
- Objective, by setting custom benchmarks/targets and only including campaigns within the relevant reporting group.
If there are broader objectives that other stakeholders need visibility of, you can create a separate section for them. Reporting in this way can give you a clearer understanding of what is working and what steps are needed to reach your targets.
Is it goodbye to ROI?
Not at all! However, it’s important to remember that ROI isn’t the only metric to celebrate. When planning your campaigns, have a clear focus on what you want to achieve, design without distractions, and emphasise the most relevant KPIs in your reporting process.
At Elixirr Digital, we’re full of email marketing ideas and we’re ready to either advise or handle this entire process for you and your team. Get in touch if you’re looking for a custom email and reporting solution that aligns with both your objectives and your customers’ needs.