Ultimate Guide to Email Engagement in 2023
Email marketing is still a great digital marketing tool today. It has a return on investment of 42 dollars for every dollar invested. It takes creativity, planning and strategy to understand your audience’s preferences and habits. This is why some marketers struggle with creating effective email campaigns.
This guide will help you to broaden your view on how to improve your email engagement. We offer insights into important metrics such as spam complaints and open rates, and also provide best practices to increase conversions and sales.
We’ll begin with a definition for those who are new to this area.
What is Email Engagement?
Email engagement is an important marketing measure that shows how effective your email campaigns are by observing how your contacts respond to them. This can be based on a variety of factors. For example, the number of people who opened your emails, and the number that clicked to take a desired action such as making a purchase or downloading a file, or simply visiting your website.
Email Metrics Everyone should be aware of to improve email engagement and ROI. Different businesses will focus on different metrics to measure engagement depending on their industry, their customer journey, and other factors.
What are the top email engagement metrics?
Many businesses use email services that offer advanced analytics and reporting tools, such as Mailchimp or Moosend. Some businesses combine them with platforms such as Google Analytics in order to make data-driven decisions.
Explore the top metrics
1. Open Rates
Email open rate is a percentage which shows how many subscribers have opened a campaign from a list. How to calculate the email open rate:
The open rate is usually a good indicator of how well your subject line performs, followed by the preview text and sender’s name. Also, recipients will open emails that come from brands they trust and know. A high open rate can be attributed to a combination between effective copywriting, and brand awareness.
The average rate of open varies by industry. While 19% may be a good rate in the advertising and agency industry, it can go up to 27% for financial businesses.
2. Click-through rates
Email click-through rates (CTR) indicate how many people clicked the links in your email marketing campaign. Here is the formula:
Sending your audience interesting emails that address their pain points, or provide incentives for conversion, such as discounts and offers, will increase click-throughs. This is where the email design and layout, as well as the copy, are crucial.
To avoid confusion, it is best to stick with your brand style and to experiment with new content from time to time to maintain a high level of email engagement. A good CTR can vary depending on your industry and ranges from 2% to 4%.
3. Conversion Rate
Each email marketing campaign includes a specific action that recipients are more likely to complete. For example, a purchase or demo subscription. The conversion rate is the percentage of subscribers that completed this action. The formula is below:
This is one of the most important email engagement rates. It can have a direct impact on your email ROI.
You need to understand your buyer persons, and the customer journey. Then, personalized content will protect the deal.
4. Subscribe Rate
It is the percentage that unsubscribes from your list. Here’s how to measure it.
This email metric will show you how many people are no longer interested in your emails. It can be because your emails are too frequent or they don’t find the content relevant.
A rate of more than 0.40% can be a warning sign that your strategy needs to be adjusted.
5. Spam Complaints Rates
Spam complaint shows you how many email subscribers have flagged and sent your spam to the spam folder or whether email clients have found suspicious parts of your content and sent it there. Here’s how to calculate it:
This is an important metric to monitor. Receiving spam complaints on a regular basis can harm your brand’s reputation and affect the deliverability of your emails. To lower this rate, always get the subscriber’s permission before sending them an email.
If this metric is lower than 0.20% you are usually doing well, no matter what your industry or region.
6. Bounce Rate
It is important to monitor your deliverability in order to gain a better understanding of your email engagement. There are many reasons why some emails may not have reached your subscribers, including inactive accounts or incorrect email addresses. You can calculate the email bounce rate using the formula shown below.
There are two types of bounces – soft bounces occur due to temporary issues (e.g. a full mailbox). Hard bounces are caused by permanent errors, such as inactive email addresses.
You can lower this rate by regularly cleaning your email list. You can use email validation tools in order to verify that the email addresses on your list are correct.
Want to know about Email Marketing Benchmarks for your industry or region? Read our extensive, up-to-date guide.
Are you looking for an email marketing tool that provides exceptional reporting and analytics to track the most important email engagement metrics? Try Moosend for 30 days for free and see if you like it!
Simple steps to improve your email engagement
How can you control these metrics? This section will provide you with best practices for ensuring your content is relevant and converts:
1. Create a captivating subject line
Open rates are the first step in a successful email engagement. This metric can be maximized by creating subject line which appeals to your audience and reflects the email content.
To avoid your message being cut off by specific email clients, subject lines can be as long as 60 characters. Avoid words or symbols that trigger spam filters, like “free,” “buy,” and “$$”.
You can get some ideas by looking at these examples of subject lines from brands that are well-known for sending out different types emails:
- Welcome Email This was a great decision. ( rue La La
- Summer Bundles: Save with Everlane
- Abandoned Cart Campaign:Ready To Buy Vacation(r)? Completing your order ( vacation )
- Reengagement email: Last night we missed you! (Sleepscore)
- Transactional Email:Your Everlywell Order has been Delivered! (Everlywell)
You can also personalize the subject line of an email by adding a subscriber’s first name. To manage this, most email automation platforms offer tagging and custom fields.
Unsure if your subject can motivate subscribers to read the email? Use a subject line tester, such as Refine, to test how well it performs based on the industry you are in and to get some suggestions to optimize it.
2. Outline Your Work in Detail
After your subscribers have opened your email, you will need to continue to grab their attention. To ensure that readers are able to absorb all the information in your email campaign, you should structure it so as to include as much detail as possible.
Some email marketers use the F shape reading pattern, to help their readers find what they are looking for faster. Others choose Zig-Zag.
Most templates begin with the logo of the company, followed by an attractive greeting and a catchy headline relevant to the message. You’ll find that the call-to action (CTA), which stands out against the rest of your text, is usually found after the main body. You can also add a footer to your email with information such as the location of the company, its contact details, and any social media profiles.
Here is a template by Moosend which meets all of these criteria.
3. Craft Compelling Email Design
Emails are no exception to the well-known phrase “A picture’s worth a thousand word”. While plain text emails can be effective, particularly in cold sales, the majority of marketers prefer HTML emails that include creative assets such as images or GIFs.
Your email design should be a reflection of your brand voice, and it should showcase your service/product in the best way possible. You can, for example, add beautiful images of products or a GIF/video showing how to use specific services.
Subject: The $50 Sport Short
You can see Everlane showcasing a pair of shorts in the collection for men. Subscribers are redirected to an image of a model wearing the piece of clothing, followed by another picture that includes a description.
It’s not as difficult as it may seem to create emails that look this good. Most marketing automation platforms provide templates that can be easily customized using drag-and drop editors. To get an idea, here’s a screenshot from Moosend editor:
4. You can optimize your storytelling
You need great copywriting in addition to great design to make your business stand out. You need to start with the subject line. It’s important to have a catchy, inspiring copy that will encourage readers to open your email. What about the rest?
First, it is important to maintain your brand voice and tone across all channels. This will help readers recognize you more quickly. Second, add authentic and creative elements to your story so that it is interesting for readers.
Most marketers use urgency in their content to increase conversion rates, particularly when they promote discounts and special offers. It is important to create concise, relevant content. Otherwise, you may lose the reader’s interest or trust much sooner than anticipated. Avoiding jargon is another helpful tip. Choose simple words and avoid jargon to maintain a friendly tone.
Here is an example of an email sent by Hello. The subject line is aligned with the email’s content to achieve their goal of introducing a product to the audience.
Subject: Would you like to try us?
5. Personalize your content
Over the past few years, personalized marketing has become a staple in any business’s toolbox. Customers and prospects are more likely convert if they receive personalized recommendations based on their past purchases or website behaviors.
How can you personalize email campaigns? You can use an email service that offers dynamic content and automation. The content that each subscriber will receive is based on their previous behavior (e.g. the webpages they visited or products they looked at) or preferences.
List segmentation is another way to customize your content for recipients. You can segment your audience using a list-management tool based on demographics, geographic location and psychographic characteristics.
In order to excel at customer segmentation it is important that you know your buyer personas in depth and their journey along the sales funnel. Your messaging will be more effective, and your conversion, open and click rates will increase.
6. Sending Welcome and Transactional Emails
Welcome emails and transactional email are the most common types of emails, as they are expected by the audience and follow specific actions. It’s therefore important to maximize these campaigns in order to create a positive momentum among new subscribers and recent buyers.
An excellent welcome email will warmly greet subscribers who just opted in and let them know what they can expect. This is a great digital space for you to share your brand, your mission and vision without overwhelming your subscribers.
To set up transactional emails (such as confirmation emails or shipping status email), you will need an server. You can check the box to send transactional emails. These include confirmations and shipping statuses.
You can, for example, add information on your best-selling products or services. Or you could provide resources that explain how to use the recent items/services. GIR’s order status email included information about how to clean products safely.
Subject line : Order GIRCO650000 is delivered!
7. Create Re-engagement Email Sequences
The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times higher than the cost of customer retention. If you notice that some of your subscribers are no longer as responsive to your emails, then it is time to offer them incentives to stay.
Re-engagement automation workflows will be triggered in order to regain the attention of churning customers. It depends on the average customer journey. We recommend a maximum of four emails. What type of content could you include in your email series? Start with the new products or launches that they may be missing, and then continue with an offer to those who are still not converting.
It is better to remove those recipients from your list if they are not engaged, as this could harm email delivery over time. Hulu sent a special email to inform them of the change. They can reactivate their subscription at any time.
Subject: Your Hulu subscription was cancelled
8. Test A/B
If you’re looking to improve the engagement of your recipients with your email, you should use A/B testing. This will help you make better decisions based on data about certain parts of your content.
You can test two versions of the same email to determine which version is most popular. The winner will be sent out to the most subscribers, and should increase your metrics. How to quickly set up A/B tests with Moosend
You can use A/B testing to test various email components such as subject lines, sender names, and even parts of the email content, like the call-to action. This tool is useful if you are unsure which version of an email will be most popular with your subscribers.
9. Make sure your mobile responsiveness
Did you know that 81% of email users prefer opening emails on mobile devices? This trend shows how important it is to ensure that your emails are optimized for every device. The customer experience could be compromised.
To avoid such issues, choose an email service that offers templates that are mobile-responsive. For good readability, the layout will be adjusted to fit mobile or tablet dimensions. Finally, users can see how their email will look on different email clients by using specific platforms.
What makes emails engaging?
No magic recipe will guarantee high engagement rates. It’s important to test different email marketing strategies to find the best patterns for your audience.
It’s important to adhere to your brand guidelines, and to keep the messaging and design consistent across all platforms. This will help customers to remember you. Adopt a fun and unique tone to make your message stand out in the crowded mailboxes of subscribers.
Need a platform that will streamline your marketing and ensure high engagement? Try Moosend for free today to see all of our features.
The post Ultimate Guide to Email Engagement in 2023 first appeared on Email Marketing Automation Platform For Thriving Businesses.
