EMAIL METRICS - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - Nov 15 2016

I am a metrics person.  I believe that if you don't know where you are going you won't get there and if you don't measure your successes you can't win.  Email marketing is one of those areas of marketing that you would think would be easy to create metrics for.  However, I believe we generally do a SOUR job of this based on my experience.

Since these are internal measures, my commentary will be around what these are and should be, what we all should care about and how to set up some good dashboards and metrics to allow for understanding and continual improvement.

First, what are some of the standard metrics that are bandied about in email marketing?

Sent Emails
Delivered Emails
Open Rates
Click Through Rates
Unsubscribe Rates
Bounce Rates (hard and soft)

Other less used metrics include:

Inbox Placement
Earnings Per Email (click or open)
Conversion Rate
Complaint or Abuse Rate
Forward Rate (sharing rate)
Churn Rate (or list growth rate)
ROI

Seems like a lot and some of these are not very well understood and are treated differently in the ESPs.  Let's take a brief look at each.

Sent Emails - When you hit the "send" button, the number of attempts or the number of emails in your list.  While this metric is important, it is of limited value in understanding the performance of your campaigns and can be problematic if you have poor list hygiene or sign up processes.  For example, if you have invalid formats or old email addresses in your list, this metric could be misleading.  However, it is needed to calculate a delivery rate and warn you of any problems in that area.

Delivered Emails - This is the total number of emails that actually land in someone's inbox.  It does not tell you where in the inbox and without the "send" figure to calculate a rate of deliverability, it is of limited value. It should be tracked and trended however to insure you are not getting caught in spam filters or black listed.  Be sure to dive deep and look at this metric by ISP as it can help you diagnose if and where you might have deliverability problems and how to fix them.

Open Rates - While important to measure and trend, this metric can be misleading mostly because quite a few people read emails in preview pane and never open them.  Different ESPs may also measure open rate differently, for example based on images downloaded, but if these are done automatically, it may record an open even if the reader didn't look at the email.  Text emails may be excluded from open rates also.  It is a good directional indicator of engagement and awareness of your communications however.  Be aware and be sure you understand exactly how your ESP measures and reports this.

Click Through Rates - This metric is often spoken of as a highly important one, however, it is totally in the marketers control and without context really tells you nothing.  If you measure click through rates, be sure to include a metric on click through opportunities.  Any one email could have no click through opportunities or ten.  If you do not have an understanding of that, you won't have a true measure of success.  When creating reporting templates, be sure to include a field for the click opportunities in each email and then you can categorize click through rates based on that percentage versus just an overall percentage that does not speak to if the reader could have clicked.  Also look at where the click through was - did they click on your logo, on a particular piece of content, or on more than one occasion.

Unsubscribe Rates - This is a must have metric that does a good job confirming you are not a SOUR emailer.  ESPs typically do a good job of capturing this as it is triggered by a direct action from the email recipient.   This can be manipulated as well by you based on how you handle the unsubscribe process.  If you make it difficult for people to unsubscribe (as I have addressed in an earlier post), you may be under representing the sentiment.  Also, if you have failed processes, you may be over counting.  For example, my favorite SOUR emailer Younkers, as I mentioned in a previous post, has received numerous unsubscribe requests from me as it didn't appear to be working and I continued to receive their emails even though I asked them not to send.  I will report that I have finally quit receiving their emails (for now).  I wonder if they saw my post and finally did something about it!

Bounce Rates (hard and soft) - This is another metric that could be different based on how your ESP handles it.  Some will count a hard bounce after a send has failed three times, but some may allow you to control how often the fail has to happen to count as a hard bounce.  Soft bounce means the delivery was temporarily not available, but again can be altered.  Be sure you understand exactly how your ESP handles these and measure appropriately.  If you have a high hard bounce rate, you can also put yourself in a position of having your emails blocked by ISPs as being SOUR and on the verge of SPAM, so be sure to watch these rates closely to stay on those white lists and not be a SOUR emailer.

Secondary Metrics:

Inbox Placement - This is a lesser used metric, but as the ISPs get more aggressive at filtering and automatically moving incoming emails (especially Gmail), your well crafted message may never even receive the opportunity for the recipient to see if it is placed into a sub-folder without the email owners knowledge.  It is difficult to combat this as well since like SEM algorithms, it can be ever changing and different based on the ISPs practices.  At least be aware of this and attempt to understand if you are doing things that are making your emails more likely to land in the wrong place.

Earnings Per Email (click, open, delivered) - Getting to the heart of why we email, we should be measuring what we get out of these programs.  While for some, this may be difficult, if you can, try to tie your actual revenue creation to the email function.  Use the base metric that works for you (delivered, opened or clicked), but do attempt to do so. This may require extra work in Google Analytics and your CRM system to properly tag and add parameters to your campaigns, but it will be well worth it.  Also consider what role emails play in the customer journey and how to tap into that.  One thing I saw in my last role is that Google Analytics was showing us huge numbers of "direct" traffic to our website.  We knew we didn't have that high brand recognition to warrant this and after digging in realized that we were not fully capturing the impact of our email programs to reactivate and engage our prospects in our products and ultimately purchase.  Having the proper attribution allowed us to better prioritize our overall efforts and leverage our resources more effectively to the highest return activities.

Conversion Rate - Like earnings rate, this is another good metric that attempts to tie your end goals to the email function.  It can be measured in several ways, but the goal is to understand of those receiving your emails, who is taking the revenue generating action you desire, be it an e-commerce transaction, an appointment or some other metric.  It is different from the earning metric as it measures against people or recipients rather than a volume figure such as earnings.  Pick the measures that mean the most to your business results.

Complaint or Abuse Rate - Similar to unsubscribe rates, these rates are more problematic to your future as they are signals sent to your ISP about you that can cause you to become black listed.  Obviously if someone is at the point of angst that they are communicating to someone other than you about your SOUR email, it spells trouble.  ISPs also facilitate this differently, so look at it by provider to see differences and identify opportunities for improvement.

Forward Rate (sharing rate) - Another metric totally in your control as if you don't provide the opportunity for the forward, there is nothing to measure.  Ask yourself how you can use email, like you use social media, to engage your best advocates in continuing your message.  While this is another topic and subject for marketing improvement, if you do this, measure and trend to find easy wins.

Churn Rate (or list growth rate) - Are you adding new net prospects or is your list stale?  This metric will help you understand where you sit and what you need to do to continue to grow your opportunities and fill the top of the marketing funnel.  If you have a product with a long sales cycle time, this can be an especially important metric for long term forecasting and growth.  Measure how many new email addresses are added to your prospect list after you remove unsubscribes, complaints and hard bounces.

ROI - The ultimate goal of all businesses and marketers - how much did you put in and how much did you get out.  Email marketing has been proven to have one of the highest return on investments of all marketing tactics.  Are you measuring this and trending to insure you improve and grow with this valuable tool?  Again, dependent on your business, attempt to tie directly created revenue to costs which include ESP fees, expenses of content and list development and team costs.

Today's Tips for Better Email Metrics:

-  Be thoughtful and insure you fully understand the nuances of the metrics you choose to use
-  Select the metrics that will insure ongoing success (unsubscribes, ROI, etc.) and allow for insights and actions and relentlessly track
-  Be sure to trend metrics over time; watch for seasonality (retailers especially) and other market conditions that can impact these; most ESPs publish standards and averages at least for things like open and click through rates, so reference those to benchmark how you are doing.
-  Sub-segment emails by types and categories and understand what the trends are.  It is entirely reasonable to expect 90%+ open rates from certain transnational emails, but far less from others.  If you aren't creating segments of emails by type and tracking you will miss problems and opportunities to improve.
-  When looking at your statistics in totality, think about the blend of types of emails and take that into account. You may pat yourself on the back for a big improvement in open rates in a month where perhaps your volume of promotional emails was lower as a percentage of total emails.  It may be that you actually had a problem that was masked because your data wasn't granular enough to obtain a complete understanding.
-  Consider a deliverability audit for a deep dive into where and how your emails are being delivered to unmask any issues.
-  Watch for any red flags that can get you on a black list.  Once you are on, it is very difficult to get off, so make this a top metric.

Overall, email metrics can insure you invest wisely, learn as you execute, continue to improve and drive notable revenue from this valuable channel.  Take the time to build a strategy for you email metrics just like you do for marketing and email overall and put the tools and resources in place to support the channel.  Don't have SOUR email metrics and missed revenue!

TIMING AND FREQUENCY - Anatomy of an Email Inbox - SOUR eMail - Oct 6, 2016

People who have worked with me have heard me talk about timing and frequency of emails many times.  Some of the culprits that soured me the most were the book stores.  What are they thinking?  I don't know about you, but I am a prolific reader, both for pleasure and for work but I certainly don't go to the bookstore every day or even every week and sometimes not even every month.  However, it would never fail that I would get emails from the bookstores that I subscribed to every single day.

Did they really think I had the time to read these or that I wanted to?   With email open rates consistently hovering around 20 to 25% and click through rates far less than that, (2 to 3%), we can do better. What happened, which is what happens I suspect, to a lot of emails is they became disinter-mediated from my attention.  I patently ignored them and ultimately unsubscribed from those emails as they were just filling up my inbox with little to no value.  No more waste for me and no more money for them.  SOUR eMail

I took a look at my email box over the last few days and here's what I see.

Loft

Between sender "Loft" and "Loft Card" I have received 7 emails as of 7 am this morning (I know I will receive one more today!) since October 3rd - that is 2 per day (not counting the "sponsored" email).  Now, I love clothes, like I love to read, but do I really need 2 per day?  I can't even tell you the last time I walked into their store or went to their website and I haven't been compelled by their subject lines (another topic coming) to open.  Even, the "Free Shipping + 50% off everything" one is losing out on my attention because I get too many - SOUR eMail!  Loft, you can do better.

I also wonder why they aren't coordinating their lists and emails to reduce both their workload and my irritation.  Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) have automated resting rules that let you set a standard of how many emails you send a day, but if you are using different accounts or have different teams working on these programs, this is being overlooked.  For all of you Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) and marketing leaders, have you developed an email marketing strategy and systems to support this?  It appears from my inbox that this is not happening with Loft and many others.

Side note:  Look at the image below - this view is from a search in my inbox for Loft - you can see that Loft is not titling their documents, so the content I see includes "untitled document" as the description.  SOUR eMail and a big missed opportunity to tell me something of value.

Not to just pick on Loft, here's a few more:

-  Costco - 1 per day

-  Secret Escape - 1 per day

-  Rugs USA - every other day (a little better)

-  White House, Black Market - 1 per day (plus one from WHBM Outlets - again I ask, CMOs', where's your strategy?)

-  VRBO - so far only 1 in 4 days (Yes, I don't take a vacation all the time, not that I wouldn't like to!)

Discount Contact Lens

So who is doing better?  There is a dearth of examples of someone doing well in frequency and timing, but I did have one this week that exemplifies the right way to make email relevant and impactful.  Here's why:

-  I know the brand and they know me

-  They know that I am a customer (good connected databases) and it has been about 90 days since I ordered my last supply of contacts

-  They aren't sending me emails in between my need period (i.e., running out of contacts)

-  They make it personalized by including the exact brand I order

-  They are making the title relevant, telling me they know I am running out

-  They aren't leading with a deal, but are using it to make sure I convert and buy from them (I normally do check for others with a better deal when I'm ready to order - who doesn't like to save money if we can?)

-  When I clicked, it sent me to a landing page with the offer and a reorder button (button could have been higher on the page)

They could be a bit better though:

-  They use sponsored emails to find potentially new customers (but appears they likely aren't screening out their current customers from these, so perhaps a waste of money)

-  When I clicked on the sponsored ad it just took me to their home page rather than a specific location to make it easy for me to respond and see the promotional details

Timing and Frequency

Today's Sample: 291 emails
Overall Grade: D
Top Performer:  Discount Contact Lens - Grade A-

Today's Tips to Improve Your Inbox Anatomy and not be a SOUR eMailer:

-  CMOs and marketers need to have a much more thoughtful and strategic approach to their email programs
-  Database structure and where your data resides across business units and channels is critical to success
-  We need to do a much better job of using the data we have to send fewer but more relevant emails:  collect only the data you need, consolidate it into one database and leverage it to send the right message at the right time to the right person
-  Use resting rules to automate the limits of emails being sent
-  Make sure any landing pages you use are relevant to the reason you are sending the email and make it easy for the recipient to take the action you want
-  Think about your product and frequency of purchase - what is the right communication cadence?  Too many of us over communicate through email.  Test a change to your cadence and measure against open rates, click throughs and ultimately ROI.  Don't forget to consider the opportunity costs of the team members time executing unwanted emails and how they could be better deployed to higher value activities.

The goal of email marketing is to stay relevant, serve our customers and prospects needs when they want and need us and ultimately deliver revenue and ROI to the company.  Email marketing is one of our highest ROI channels, but could it be even better?  Stop SOUR eMail  Let's get smarter about how we execute in this valuable channel before it becomes less so due to our bad practices.

Sources:
MailChimp
MainStreetROI