Email metrics can be invaluable tools for sales people, but if you’re unfamiliar with how they work and what you should be looking for, metrics just seem like garbled information. 

If you have an email marketing newsletter, you’re well on your way when it comes to content marketing. When people sign up for your email newsletter, they’ve given you explicit permission to market to them, and this is huge. This is an opportunity to win them over to your service and products and also to yourself as a professional and trusted expert.

When sales people begin email campaigns, they often think about how they can quickly convert prospective buyers into regular customers, and this is a great goal to have in mind, but before you get too far ahead of yourself, pay attention to the following 3 email metrics to help you get your feet firmly planted on the ground.

1. Delivery Rate

Delivery rate is calculated by subtracting the number of bounce backs from the total number of emails sent and then dividing it by the total number of emails sent. This metric answers the following question: Will people even see my newsletter? If your delivery rate is low, your newsletter is probably going straight to the spam folder, and people won’t even see it to open it.

2. Open Rate

Open rate is calculated by dividing the number of emails opened by the number of emails delivered. If your open rate is lower than you’d like it to be, you should be working especially hard on one particular aspect of your email campaign: the subject line. If your subject line is boring or spammy, people will not open your emails.

3. Click-to-Deliver Rate

This rate is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the total number of emails delivered. In our opinion, the Click-to-Deliver rate is the big one, the one you should really focus on. By trying different strategies and monitoring the metrics with those different strategies, you can find out what makes your readers tick. Do they like text messages? Do they click more often when you send images? You can also compare customers in different parts of the country and by various demographics. This is where your experimentation can pay off, but it only pays off if you really pay attention to your click-to-deliver rate.

As you use email metrics to improve your communication with current and potential customers, you’ll find that you build a loyal network of people who look forward to your messages. The value of this is that they forward your best and most valuable content to friends and associates who are also interested in what you have to say.

Stick with your efforts to improve your email marketing. Yes, it takes a while to build your newsletter list, but your efforts will pay off for many years to come. Email marketing has greater longevity and a higher impact than social media. Use its power by paying attention to email metrics.