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In August 2007, EmailStatCenter.com launched its First Annual State of Email Metrics survey. The survey was hosted on EmailStatCenter.com and sponsored by Campaigner, a leading provider of web-based email marketing software to marketing professionals worldwide. 345 responses were collected from September 6th to October 27th, 2007.
Approximately 55% of respondents were from client side and 45% from agencies or ESPs. We thank all of those who participated in this survey and hope that the results below shed some light on how marketers are using metrics to improve campaign results as well as changes that are needed in the industry.
Frequent Measurement is Integral to Success
First and foremost, measurement is viewed as an integral step towards success by email marketers. Over 95% of the individuals surveyed said that they did measure the results of their email campaigns. When asked how often they measured results, 57% of respondents indicated that they measure results 24-48 hours after deployment. However, only 18% indicated that they measured results on an annual basis.
Luc Vezina, Vice President of Marketing & Product Management at Campaigner feels that measurement should be constant throughout the email life cycle. “One thing that I find noticeable is the lack of revisiting campaigns and their metrics on a more frequent basis. In order to truly use email metrics for the betterment of your campaigns and gather key learnings from them, marketers must continually evaluate and benchmark their campaigns, in addition to looking at them immediately after the send.”
Nevertheless, email professionals agree that measuring email campaigns is extremely important. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being not at all important and 10 being very important, respondents gave an average rating of 9.14 when asked how important it is to measure email campaigns in order to improve overall email marketing success.
Click Through and Deliverability Rank Tops with Professionals
EmailStatCenter.com asked professionals to rank eight different email metrics in terms of the importance of measuring. Click through rate and deliverability ranked the highest with professionals whereas total subscribers and forwards were among the lowest ranked metrics in terms of importance. Surprisingly, metrics tying directly to financial return such as ROI, conversion and revenue fell in the middle of the pack. Metrics Not Widely Used for Budgeting Though email marketing professionals agree that testing is extremely important, only 50% use metrics for budgeting/forecasting purposes while 35% do not and 14% were unsure. This presents an opportunity for professionals especially as the busy planning period is already well underway. Marketers should use metrics such as average click through rates, revenue and conversion rates to build revenue forecasts to help justify future expenses.
Email Metrics Miss the Mark in Terms of Quality
Though metrics are in wide usage today, many professionals are disappointed with the quality of email related metrics available. When asked about the quality of email related metrics given a 10 point rating scale with 1 being the lowest quality and 10 being the highest quality, email professionals gave a rating average of 5.73. Many commented that though there were many sources available for overall email metrics, they had difficulty finding metrics that related to their specific industry. Perhaps this is the reason that many professionals use previous internal campaigns and their own ESPs data to benchmark email performance. Furthermore, 83% of respondents felt that the standardization of email metrics and their definitions is important.
Top Sources for Email Industry Metrics
EmailStatCenter.com asked professionals to list the best sources for email industry metrics. Many mentioned that they preferred to use their own ESPs for email metrics because of the lack of standardization that exists. Marketers are privy to the precise calculations used by their ESPs and therefore are confident that they are comparing apples to apples when measuring their campaign performance. For the same reason, many marketers prefer to simply gauge their performance against their own historical data as this was the fifth most cited source given.
Strategy and Measurement are Areas for Near Term Focus
EmailStatCenter.com asked professionals to rank six areas of email marketing in terms of their plans to focus in the next year. Strategy/Planning and Metrics and Measurement were ranked as the areas which were most important for near term focus whereas creative services and testing ranked as least important.
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List Development and Time Constraints are Biggest Challenges
EmailStatCenter.com asked professionals to rank 13 of the most commonly cited challenges to email marketing on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being not at all challenging and 10 being very challenging. Below are results with average ratings in parentheses. Given the even mixture of both client and agency side respondents it is reassuring to see that ESP/Agency Management was listed at the bottom of the list indicating that communication between ESPs and clients is very strong.
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