For those who work with email marketing, eventually some questions as “what is the open rate that I should have?” or “what is the average number of clicks to an email marketing campaign?” arise and the answer generally is always the same. There is no formula, we mean, there are no ideal metrics. Got it? Everything depends on what is sent and to whom. And for those who ask, the doubt persists, since the demand is to find out whether the actions take the right track or if they should be improved.

If this issue was raised a few years ago, the answer would have been very simple and timely.

Openings: 20% to 30%          |          Clicks: 2% to 5%          |          Errors: 1%

Now you must be thinking “these are the data I wanted”. But beware! This return would be satisfactory for some years ago, not anymore. Much has changed since then. The way of making email marketing today is not the same of long ago. This itself influence the numbers.

Metrics that exceed numbers

Several factors can boost or break a campaign. Some of them include your company’s target audience, the segmentation based in common interests and the cleaning on lists to keep them always up to date. So defining a percentage through this formula without taking into account all factors that can influence the interaction would be like a long shot for the future.

If your business is selling cars, for example, your email marketing campaigns might have a reasonable amount of openings, but you can’t say the same for the click through rate. After all, how many times a year a person change the car? If you send newsletters with informative content that generate value to the recipient, your openings can be huge, but with null clicks. Does it mean you are creating emails in a wrong way? No.

Instead of seeking the ideal metrics, direct your focus to define what goals to you want to achieve with your emails. If the search takes into account more openings, clicks or any other type of return. The success or failure can be analyzed by successive comparison among your last sent campaigns.

Reference value also has weight

Beyond the numbers and factors that influence the results of an email marketing campaign, have a reference value is also important. Here comes the benchmarking that can be applied to map the good performance of each message. To help you with this, emailmanager has an evaluation system that assigns scores to the campaigns according to performance.

Each email sent receives a score depending on the quality of the content that directly impacts on some metrics like openings, clicks, errors. The system monitors all activities on the platform. You can track campaign by campaign or a set with the last 10 emails sent, which will bring a global qualification. This way, you can have a more real idea of what you're doing above or below average and study improvements from there.

Conclusion

Having just numbers as the basis for an email marketing campaign is not enough. There is a number of factors that can influence positively or negatively on your results. It’s necessary to consider each interaction, open rates, clicks and errors, or even the lack of one or more of these elements.

It’s also valid to compare the performance of your latest campaigns based on the scores assigned by the system. All the data you can gather will help to create the best marketing strategy for your business.

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