Email Marketing Metrics Explained: What to Track and Why
Email platforms show lots of numbers. Some are very useful and some can mislead you. Here is what each one means and how to use it.
Open rate
The share of recipients who opened your email. It was once the main measure, but some email apps now pre-load images, which can count an email as opened when nobody read it. Treat opens as a rough guide and compare them only against your own past results.
Click rate
The share of recipients who clicked a link. Clicks show real interest and are usually a more reliable signal than opens.
Click-to-open rate
Clicks divided by opens. It shows how persuasive the content was once someone opened the email, though it shares the weakness of open rate.
Unsubscribe rate
The share of recipients who opted out. Some unsubscribes are normal and healthy. A sudden rise is a warning that the content, frequency or targeting is off.
Bounce rate
- Hard bounces are permanent failures, such as an address that does not exist. Remove them.
- Soft bounces are temporary, such as a full mailbox. Repeated soft bounces should also be removed.
Spam complaints
The share of people who marked your email as spam. Keep this very low, because mailbox providers watch it closely. See deliverability basics.
Conversions and revenue
If you sell something, track what people do after clicking: purchases, signups or downloads. This is the number that connects email to your goals.
What to track by goal
- Selling: clicks, conversions and revenue per email.
- Content: clicks and replies.
- List health: bounces, unsubscribes and complaints.