Email campaigns are crucial for B2B marketing success, as we see this medium continues to play a major role. To truly master email marketing, you must understand key metrics. These metrics serve as a compass, guiding marketers toward improved performance and optimized campaign strategies.
By delving into these metrics, businesses can gain valuable insights into creating engaging emails and tailored approaches. This blog explores key email metrics and ways to improve them, ensuring success in the competitive B2B landscape.
Open rate is the first metric marketers look at. This email metric indicates the percentage of recipients who open your email against the total number sent. If your open rate is high, that suggests that the subject line was intriguing and engaging enough to grab the recipient’s attention.
With the average email open rate for B2B emails being around 15.14% (depending on the industry), you may notice your open rates are falling short. To improve your open rates, focus on your subject lines. Use personalization, such as the recipient’s name or company to make it more attention-grabbing. Another way to boost your open rates is by segmenting your audience so your emails are sent to a target audience that resonates with the message.
Timing is another important consideration. Experiment with different send times to help you identify when your audience will most likely engage. Consider using A/B testing to try different days and/or times of the same email. But remember, seasonality also plays an important part in email metrics. For example, around the holidays or during the summer, people are busy on vacation or with their families, and most likely not checking their emails.
Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that uncovers the effectiveness of the email’s content and calls-to-action (CTAs). It measures the percentage of recipients who clicked on a link within the email, divided by the number of emails delivered.
When an email delivers valuable and relevant content encouraging action, marketers can expect considerable CTRs. To achieve this, all your emails should have clear CTAs, so recipients know what they’re clicking on. Position them prominently within the email, ideally above the fold and after relevant sections. The visual appearance of your emails also matters. Use compelling and relevant images, break up text by using bullet points, and use concise messaging. The email’s layout should be easy to read on all devices, as many professionals check their emails on mobile devices.
Going a step further, conversion rate measures how many email recipients completed the desired action, whether that be filling out a form or calling a sales representative. This metric reflects how successful the email was at achieving its goal.
One way to boost your conversion rates is to ensure all CTAs align with the email’s overall message. Also, ensure your CTAs offer value to your recipients. Personalization can also impact conversion rates as it makes recipients feel like the email is specific to them and their needs.
Another equally important tip is to optimize landing pages. Once a recipient clicks on a CTA, the subsequent page should be relevant, provide a seamless experience, and encourage action. Your landing pages should load quickly and have a design that is consistent with the email and your branding.
Bounce rate is the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered, however, there are two types of bounce rates to be aware of – hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces occur when the email address isn’t valid or doesn’t exist. Soft bounces are temporary email delivery failures and can be caused by several reasons, such as the recipient’s inbox being full, or the email file being too large.
The average bounce rate in the B2B email marketing world is between 2% and 5%, but that varies by industry. Anything above 5% requires action. To reduce bounce rate, maintain a clean email list. To achieve this, regularly check for outdated or incorrect addresses and promptly remove them.
Monitoring bounce rates is important as it helps maintain a positive sender reputation. Internet service providers (ISPs) track bounce rates, and consistently high bounce rates can reduce deliverability rates, negatively impact the success of your email campaigns, and spam filters may block your emails.
The unsubscribe rate is an essential metric as it shows the percentage of recipients who opt out of your mailing list after receiving your email. Monitoring this metric helps you assess the relevance of your content.
Depending on the industry, the average unsubscribe rate for B2B emails is around 0.24%, but anything under 1-2% should be the goal. To help minimize this, prioritize delivering valued, tailored content to your audience. By segmenting your lists, you can send targeted messages to an audience most likely to engage.
Another way to reduce unsubscribe rates is by providing a way for your recipients to manage their preferences. For example, allow them to choose topics of interest or adjust email frequency.
The deliverability rate measures the percentage of emails successfully delivered to your recipients’ inboxes. A high deliverability rate is essential for maximizing the reach and impact of your email campaigns. Additionally, ISPs are more likely to deliver emails from senders with high engagement rates, further highlighting the importance of understanding email metrics.
The average deliverability rate for B2B emails is around 98.16%. Deliverability rates between 90-98% indicate a healthy email list and inbox-friendly content. To improve this metric, focus on maintaining a clean email list, regularly remove inactive or unengaged recipients, and adhere to the best practices for email authentication.
Understanding these essential B2B email metrics is critical for marketers to maximize their campaigns’ impact and see success. By decoding metrics like bounce rates and click-through rates, you can tailor your strategy to effectively meet your audience’s needs.
If you need help boosting your email metrics, turn to Concept. With our email marketing capabilities, backed by our copywriter guru, expert designer, and a knack for analytics, we help pave the way for sustained success. Contact us today.