Running an email marketing campaign isn’t just about sending a marketing message and hoping for results.
It’s about strategically crafting your emails and continuously monitoring your email performance using key email marketing metrics to ensure your emails are successfully delivered.
The right email marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) offer a clear window into what’s working and what needs improvement.
This article explores the essential KPIs for measuring email campaign success, provides examples using tools like MailTracker and Hunter.io, and offers strategies to improve your email marketing strategy for future campaigns.
Why Do You Need KPIs for Your Email Marketing?
KPIs are like a report card for your email campaigns. They show you what’s working and what needs fixing, making it easier to adjust your strategies and get better results.
For industries such as internet service providers, tracking these important metrics, is essential to maintaining customer engagement and staying competitive.
Identifying Success & Improvement Areas: Email KPIs make it easy to spot what’s going right and what’s not. For example, a low open rate might mean your subject lines need some work, while a high click to open rate but low conversions could point to issues with your landing page.
Justifying Marketing Investments: Showing stakeholders the ROI of your email campaigns helps justify your marketing budget. When you’ve got the data to prove your efforts are paying off, it’s much easier to get buy-in for future projects.
Continuous Improvement & Adaptation: Regularly reviewing your KPIs helps you stay ahead of the curve. With tools like MailTracker and Hunter, you can dig into the details of multiple campaigns, refine your approach, and keep your campaigns fresh and effective.
10 Email Marketing KPIs to Monitor in 2025
Let's have a look at each email metric, define its importance, and share the recent statistics, along with tips to improve each KPI.
1. Open Rate
Open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your email out of the total emails delivered.
It’s a crucial indicator of how well your subject line and sender name capture attention and spark curiosity. For example, if you send 1,000 marketing emails and 250 are opened, your open rate would be 25%.
A strong open rate to aim for is between 20% and 30%, depending on your industry. On average, open rates across all industries sit at 21.33%.
Tips to Improve Open Rates:
- Write Engaging Subject Lines: Keep them short, intriguing, and relevant. If you need ideas, check out our list of email subject lines.
- Personalize Your Emails: Include the recipient’s name or tailored content.
- Experiment with Timing: Test different days and times to find what works best.
- Clean Your Email List: Remove inactive subscribers to focus on engaged users.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-Through Rate is the percentage of recipients who click on your email's links, out of the total emails delivered.
It's a key indicator of how engaging your content is and how effectively it motivates readers to take action. So let's say you send 1,000 emails and 50 recipients click on a link, it means your CTR is 5%.
On average, email CTRs vary by industry, but a general benchmark is between 2% and 5%.
Tips to Improve Click-Through Rates:
- Craft Clear and Compelling CTAs: Ensure your CTA is prominent and clearly communicates the benefit of clicking, for better call to action metrics.
- Personalize Content: Tailor your emails to the interests and behaviors of your audience to increase relevance.
- Optimize Email Design: Use engaging visuals and ensure your email is mobile-friendly to enhance user experience. If you are interested in signature ideas, have a look at our email signature examples list.
- Segment Your Audience: Divide your email list into targeted groups to send more relevant content to each segment.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion Rate is the percentage of email recipients who complete an action. This includes signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or downloading a resource.
It's a critical metric that indicates how effectively your email content and offers drive tangible results. For example, if 200 recipients click a link in your email and 20 make a purchase, your conversion rate is 10%.
Average email conversion rates can vary significantly by industry. For instance, the Food & Beverage industry sees an average conversion rate of 0.18% for campaigns and 1.99% for automated flows.
Tips to Improve Conversion Rates:
- Ensure Landing Page Consistency: Align your landing page with the email's message to provide a seamless user experience.
- Simplify the Conversion Process: Use clear calls-to-action and minimize form fields to reduce friction.
- Leverage Social Proof: Incorporate testimonials or reviews to build trust with your audience.
- Optimize for Mobile: Ensure your emails and landing pages are mobile-friendly to accommodate all users.
4. Bounce Rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of emails that couldn't be delivered to recipients. These failures are classified as either "hard" bounces, due to invalid email addresses, or "soft" bounces, resulting from temporary problems such as full inboxes.
For example, if you send 1,000 emails and 50 return undelivered, your bounce rate is 5%.
Maintaining a low bounce rate is crucial for preserving your sender's reputation and ensuring successful email deliverability.
An acceptable bounce rate typically falls between 2% and 5%. Exceeding this range may indicate issues with your email list that require attention.
Tips to Reduce Bounce Rates:
- Use Double Opt-In Methods: Confirm subscribers' email addresses to ensure accuracy and engagement.
- Avoid Purchasing Email Lists: Build your list organically to ensure quality and relevance.
- Monitor Bounce Reports: Regularly review bounce data to identify and address potential issues promptly.
5. Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe Rate is the percentage of email recipients who opt out from your email list after receiving the email.
It's an important indicator of how well your content aligns with subscriber expectations and interests.
Maintaining a full delivery rate and low unsubscribe rate is essential for the health of your email list and overall engagement.
The average unsubscribe rate for email marketers across industries is approximately 0.26%. A rate below 0.5% is generally considered acceptable, while rates exceeding 1% may indicate issues that need addressing.
Tips to Reduce Unsubscribe Rates:
- Segment Your Audience: You should tailor your content to a specific audience based on their interests.
- Set Clear Expectations: Inform subscribers about the type and frequency of emails they'll receive.
- Provide Valuable Content: Ensure your emails offer relevant and useful information to your audience.
- Offer Frequency Preferences: Allow subscribers to choose how often they hear from you.
6. List Growth Rate
List Growth Rate measures how quickly your email subscriber list is expanding. It accounts for new subscribers while subtracting unsubscribes and bounces, providing a net growth figure.
For example, if you start a marketing channel with 1,000 subscribers, gain 100 new ones, and lose 20 due to unsubscribes or bounces, your net growth is 80 subscribers, indicating a positive trend.
Maintaining a healthy list growth rate is essential for sustaining and expanding your audience reach.
An average growth rate of 2.5% per month is considered ideal, suggesting effective lead generation and audience engagement strategies.
Tips to Improve List Growth Rate:
- Promote Sign-Up Forms Across Channels: Feature your email sign-up forms prominently on your website, social media platforms, and other marketing materials to attract new subscribers.
- Offer Incentives: Provide value to potential subscribers through discounts, exclusive content, or free resources to encourage sign-ups.
- Leverage Lead Magnets: Create compelling lead magnets, such as eBooks or webinars, that require an email subscription for access.
7. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
Forwarding Rate or email sharing is the percentage of recipients who actually share or forward your email to others.
It's a valuable indicator of how engaging and valuable your audience finds your content. For example, if you send an email to 1,000 recipients and 10 of them forward it to others, your sharing/forwarding rate is 1%.
While sharing rates are typically low, with averages around 0.5% to 2%, even small increases can significantly expand your reach and introduce your content to new audiences.
Tips to Increase Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate:
- Include Social Media Buttons: This tip makes it easy for recipients to share your content on their social media channels.
- Encourage Forwarding: Add a call-to-action prompting readers to share the email with friends or colleagues who might find the content valuable.
- Create Shareable Content: Develop content that is informative, entertaining, or offers exclusive deals, increasing the likelihood that recipients will want to share it.
8. Spam Complaint Rate
Spam Complaint Rate is the percentage of email recipients who mark your emails as spam.
It's an important indicator of how your audience perceives your emails and directly impacts your sender reputation and deliverability rate.
For example, if you send 1,000 emails and 5 recipients report them as spam, your spam complaint rate is 0.5%.
Maintaining a low spam complaint rate is essential to ensure your emails reach your recipient's inbox. An acceptable spam complaint rate is typically below 0.1%, meaning no more than 1 complaint per 1,000 emails sent.
Exceeding this can lead to deliverability issues and potential blacklisting by email service providers.
Tips to Reduce Spam Complaint Rates:
- Ensure Clear Opt-In Processes: Use double opt-in methods to confirm subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails.
- Set Expectations: Clearly communicate the type and frequency of emails subscribers can expect.
- Offer Easy Unsubscribe Options: Make it simple for recipients to opt-out if they choose, reducing the likelihood of spam complaints.
9. Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on Investment (ROI) measures the profitability of your email marketing campaigns by comparing the revenue generated to the total costs involved, including tools, content creation, and advertising spending.
This metric determines the overall effectiveness and sustainability of your email marketing efforts. For instance, if you invest $1,000 in an email campaign and generate $36,000 in revenue, your email ROI is 3600%.
Email marketing consistently offers one of the highest ROIs among digital marketing channels. On average, businesses can expect a return of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing.
Tips to Improve ROI:
- Segment Your Audience: Divide your email list into targeted groups to send personalized and relevant content, increasing engagement and conversion rates.
- Optimize Your Sales Funnel: Ensure a seamless journey from email content to landing pages, making it easy for recipients to take the desired action.
- Analyze Campaign Performance: Regularly review metrics to identify successful strategies and areas for improvement, allowing for data-driven decisions.
10. Engagement Over Time
Engagement Over Time monitors how your audience interacts with your emails across a specific period, analyzing metrics like open rates, CTR, and conversions to identify trends and optimize your email marketing strategy.
For instance, observing that emails sent on Tuesdays at 10 AM consistently achieve higher open rates can inform your scheduling decisions.
While there's no universal benchmark for engagement over time due to variations across industries and audiences, maintaining consistent or improving engagement metrics indicates that your email strategy effectively resonates with your subscribers.
Tips to Enhance Engagement Over Time:
- Experiment with Send Times: Test different days and times to identify when your audience is most active. Emails sent around mid-morning often perform better.
- Fine-Tune Frequency: Avoid sending too many or too few emails—maintain a frequency that keeps your audience engaged without overwhelming them.
- Use Tools Like Hunter.io and MailTracker: Leverage MailTracker to analyze long-term trends and Hunter.io for precise lead targeting, ensuring your content reaches the right people at the right time.
- Automate Behavior-Triggered Emails: Set up automated emails like abandoned cart reminders or follow-up emails, which tend to have higher engagement rates.
- Refine Content Over Time: Regularly review what works and update your email content to keep it fresh and relevant.
Use MailTracker and Hunter for Successful Email Campaigns
If you’re running targeted outreach campaigns, nurturing leads, or tracking the performance of individual emails, these tools have you covered.
MailTracker is a free email tracking tool for Gmail users that helps you monitor when emails are opened, how often, how many recipients, and on what devices.
- Installation: Add the MailTracker Chrome extension and connect it to Gmail.
- Real-Time Tracking: Get notified when recipients open your emails and analyze their engagement.
- Best times to Send Emails: Perfect for follow-ups—know when to engage based on recipient activity.
- Open Rate: Monitor in real time your email open rate.
On the other hand, Hunter.io is an all-in-one platform for targeted, automated email outreach, ideal for cold campaigns.
- Personalization at Scale: Customize emails with recipient-specific details to boost open and response rates.
- Automated Follow-Ups: Schedule follow-up emails based on recipient behavior for timely, natural communication.
- Performance Tracking: Monitor opens, clicks, and responses to optimize campaigns.
Start email analytics today by using the MailTracker Chrome extension for free with no email signature and track up to 20 emails per month at no cost.
