To this day, email marketing remains one of the most effective marketing channels for return on investment. Unfortunately, not every marketing professional understands the importance of tracking performance. Without understanding, monitoring, and learning from key metrics, your campaigns and efforts will be wasted. I have been sending email campaigns for several years, across many different email platforms, and these are some of the top email marketing metrics you should be tracking.
1. Open Rate
Open rate is the percentage of successfully delivered emails that recipients open. This metric is used as an indicator of how effective your subject lines and preview texts are. A high open rate suggests that your email’s first impression is desirable, prompting engagement from recipients. Whereas a low open rate may indicate issues with subject lines, sender reputation, or even timing.
How to Calculate Open Rate
These days you don’t need to manually calculate numbers as every email platform does this for you. But it’s always good to double-check from time to time, as technology can get it wrong! There are also known issues with open rates being incorrect across platforms due to technical and data privacy reasons.
This is the formula to calculate your open rate:
Open Rate (%) = (Number of Unique Opens ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
For example: If you send 10,000 emails and 500 bounce, you’re left with 9,500 delivered emails. If 2,850 of these are opened, your open rate is:
Open Rate (%) = (2,850 ÷ 9,500) × 100 = 30%
Industry Benchmarks
Open rates vary across industries, in general across all industries the benchmark is around 35%. According to data from Mailchimp these are some of the benchmarks you should be looking at:
- Beauty & Personal Care: 32%
- Business & Finance: 31%
- Ecommerce: 29.8%
- Deals / Coupons: 27%
- Marketing / Advertising: 29.7%
How to Improve Open Rates
Spend Time Creating Engaging Subject Lines
When you’re faced with a wall of emails in your inbox, the only thing that stands out is the subject line. If it’s boring and lacks anything unique, your email is going in the trash. Consider the following:
- Use personalization, such as the recipient’s name.
- Use action-oriented language to create urgency.
- Keep it concise and relevant to the email content.
Optimize Send Times
Ideally, you want to send emails to your users when they are active and ready to engage – (not when they are sleeping). You may have to segment your lists if you have a global audience, but sending at optimal times can improve your open rate.
- Analyze past campaigns to identify when your audience is most active.
- Consider time zones to ensure emails arrive at optimal times.
Segment Your Audience
Depending on your business, your audience might be a mixed demographic with different interests. In this case, you will have to segment and create subject lines etc. that appeal to these different groups.
- Group subscribers based on demographics, behavior, or preferences.
- Adjust content to each segment to increase relevance and engagement.
Maintain a Clean Email List
Having a clean email list is important for many reasons, and one of those is it improves data accuracy for open rates. If you adopt subscribers unnaturally and never clean up existing subscriber lists, your open rate would not be a true reflection on reality.
- Regularly remove inactive or unengaged subscribers.
- Use double opt-in methods to ensure genuine interest.
Avoid Spam Triggers
This is one of the worst things you could do – and many different spam triggers exist. This does come under deliverability which I will cover further down, but in this instance, I am focusing on subject lines and consequently ending up in span will obviously impact your open rate.
- Steer clear of excessive punctuation or all caps in subject lines.
- Ensure your emails comply with anti-spam regulations to maintain deliverability.
- Run your emails through spam checkers.
2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links within your email. This metric demonstrates how effectively your email content encourages readers to take action. CTR is a direct indicator of your email’s engagement level and content relevance. A higher CTR means that your audience finds the content useful and wants to engage to learn more, while a lower CTR suggests the need for content optimization.
How to Calculate CTR
If you want to calculate your CTR use the following formula:
CTR (%) = (Number of Unique Clicks ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails and 9,500 are successfully delivered, with 190 unique clicks, your CTR is:
CTR (%) = (190 ÷ 9,500) × 100 ≈ 2%
Industry Benchmarks
CTR benchmarks vary slightly across industries – however, the average is around 2%. Marketing has one of the lowest CTR averages based on various data sources.
How to Improve CTR
Optimize Calls to Action (CTAs)
Your CTA is a vital contributor to CTR, you could create the best email in the world but with a poor CTA, it would be useless. In a concise way, tell the user what to do, why to do it, and what they get all in a few short words. (There are CTA generators out there and of course AI if you need help).
- Use action-oriented language that conveys urgency or value.
- Ensure CTAs are prominently placed and easily identifiable within the email.
Limit the Number of Links
People will not click a link in your email, and then return to click through other links and find information. Including multiple links and CTAs will not only confuse readers but also reduce the rate at which they click. When faced with multiple options, sometimes users don’t take any – and most of the time they take one option.
Optimize for Mobile Devices
You’ll be surprised at how difficult some links or CTA buttons can be to find on mobile devices. For example, have you considered dark mode, different screen sizes, and hyperlink text color? These can all have a huge impact.
- Design emails with mobile users in mind, utilizing buttons instead of hyperlinked text for easier tapping.
- Ensure responsive design so that emails render correctly across various screen sizes.
Personalize Content
I almost didn’t add this point as it should be obvious in 2025, but personalization is a must in email marketing. Even going as far as hyperpersonalization and using AI to support. Users need to feel important and addressed as individuals – not numbers.
- Use recipient data to optimize content, making it more relevant and engaging.
- Dynamic content blocks can display different content based on user preferences or past behavior.
- Add AI to the mix and experiment with A/B testing your personalization efforts.
A/B Test Email Elements
A/B testing is huge in email marketing and it’s an effective way to test what works and what doesn’t. This is not a quick fix, it should be done over time and help in identifying the parts of your email that need improvement.
- Experiment with different subject lines, CTAs, images, and content layouts to determine what resonates best with your audience.
- Analyze test results to implement data-driven improvements.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of email recipients who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource. This metric directly reflects the performance of your email content with respect to your campaign goals. A high conversion rate indicates that your email is effective and your audience is engaged by the content. A low conversion rate might be down to something on your website rather than the email itself. Ultimately this metric helps to understand the return on investment (ROI) of your email marketing efforts.
One thing to note, you should have some form of custom tracking or analytics on your website to match the data from your email metrics.
How to Calculate Conversion Rate
If you want to calculate your conversion rate use the following formula:
Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails and 9,500 are successfully delivered, resulting in 95 purchases, your conversion rate is:
Conversion Rate (%) = (95 ÷ 9,500) × 100 = 1%
Industry Benchmarks
Conversion rates are slightly different and vary across industries, for example, real estate has a 2.9% conversion rate compared to 5.1% for non-profit – based on a variety of data. I would say that a conversion rate between 2% and 6% is normal.
How to Improve Conversion Rates
Although this will be more related to your website, I will cover some basic tips:
Align Email Content with Landing Pages
You should maintain consistency between your email’s message and the landing page to avoid any confusion. The user should leave the email and land exactly where would expect to with no friction.
Simplify the Conversion Process
Focus on reducing friction by minimizing form fields and steps required to complete the desired action. Also, consider clear and concise instructions to guide users through the process.
Create Strong, Benefit-Focused Calls to Action (CTAs)
I covered this earlier but make sure you highlight the value proposition and benefits to the recipient and use action-oriented language that encourages immediate engagement.
Use Social Proof
You should consider including testimonials, reviews, or case studies to build trust and credibility. You could also showcase success stories that can persuade recipients to convert.
4. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is one of my favorite metrics and refers to the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered to recipients’ inboxes. It’s important not to confuse this with a landing page or website bounce rate – as they are different metrics. Bounces are categorized into:
- Soft Bounces: Temporary issues like a full inbox or server problems.
- Hard Bounces: Permanent failures due to invalid email addresses or non-existent domains.
A high bounce rate can harm your sender reputation, leading to emails being marked as spam or blocked by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Keeping a low bounce rate is essential for effective email deliverability.
How to Calculate Bounce Rate
If you want to calculate your bounce rate use the following formula:
Bounce Rate (%) = (Number of Bounced Emails ÷ Number of Emails Sent) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails and 500 bounce, your bounce rate is:
Bounce Rate (%) = (500 ÷ 10,000) × 100 = 5%
Industry Benchmarks
Bounce rate benchmarks are different everywhere you look. Some platforms say it’s 10% and more, some it’s under 1% and the rest in the middle range. On average a bounce rate of 2-4% is ok – any higher and you should investigate.
How to Improve Email Bounce Rate
Regular List Maintenance
I have already stressed the importance of maintaining your email list and keeping it clean. A higher bounce rate is a result of not keeping on top of this action.
- Remove inactive or invalid email addresses periodically.
- Implement re-engagement campaigns to confirm subscriber interest.
Use Double Opt-In
This is a simple process and requires subscribers to confirm their email addresses to ensure validity. This way you know that the email accounts are active and real.
Verify Domain Authentication
Implement Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) to authenticate your emails, improving deliverability.
Run Imported Lists Through a Clean-Up Tool
If you import lists, be sure to run it through a tool to check for duplicates and potential bouncers.
5. Unsubscribe Rate
The unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients who opt out of your mailing list after receiving a campaign. It’s the saddest metric and hurts marketer’s feelings but it’s a key indicator of how your content and frequency align with subscriber expectations.
Monitoring unsubscribe rates helps identify potential issues in your email strategy. For example, a rising unsubscribe rate may indicate that your content is misaligned with audience expectations, maybe your emails are too frequent, or the expectations set during sign-up aren’t being met.
Although more investigatory work is needed with this email marketing metric, it’s one of the most powerful when it comes to understanding your audience.
How to Calculate Unsubscribe Rate
Unsubscribe Rate (%) = (Number of Unsubscribes ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails, 9,500 are successfully delivered, and 50 recipients unsubscribe, your unsubscribe rate is:
Unsubscribe Rate (%) = (50 ÷ 9,500) × 100 ≈ 0.53%
Industry Benchmarks
According to various data, the average unsubscribe rate across all industries is 0.19%. However, sometimes this can go up to 2%. I would say that anything higher than that is cause for concern.
How to Improve Unsubscribe Rates
Audience Segmentation
By grouping subscribers based on demographics, behavior, or preferences, you can personalize content which increases relevance and reduces the likelihood of unsubscribes.
Optimize Email Frequency
Take a look at engagement metrics to determine the perfect sending frequency. Overloading inboxes can lead to fatigue, while infrequent emails may cause disengagement.
Deliver Clear Value
If there’s no value in your email – don’t send it. Ensure each email provides benefits, whether through informative content, exclusive offers, or personalized recommendations.
Set Accurate Expectations
This is key, don’t tell a user to sign up for a monthly email, then start sending the daily emails. This gets annoying. Clearly communicate the type and frequency of content subscribers can expect during the sign-up process.
Exit Surveys
Set up exit surveys to understand the reason why people unsubscribe – this is the only way to actually determine the root cause.
6. Spam Complaint Rate
The spam complaint rate is the percentage of email recipients who mark your email as spam. This metric reflects how your audience perceives your emails and whether they feel your messages are relevant or intrusive. A high spam complaint rate can severely harm your sender reputation, reducing deliverability and could cause your emails to be blocked by ISPs.
How to Calculate Spam Rate
Spam Complaint Rate (%) = (Number of Spam Complaints ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails, 9,500 are successfully delivered, and 10 recipients mark your email as spam, your spam complaint rate is:
Spam Complaint Rate (%) = (10 ÷ 9,500) × 100 ≈ 0.11%
Industry Benchmarks
The average acceptable spam complaint rate is 0.1%, according to most ESPs like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor. If your rate exceeds this, ISPs may flag your account or suspend your email privileges.
How to Improve Spam Complaint Rate
Use a Clear Opt-In Process
Use double opt-in to ensure that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails. Avoid adding people to your list without explicit consent.
Avoid Spammy Practices
Steer clear of misleading subject lines, excessive capitalization, or overuse of promotional language (e.g., “FREE” or “Act Now!”). Be honest and transparent about the content of your emails.
Make Unsubscribing Easy
This is actually part of various laws in Europe now but you should include a prominent, easy-to-find unsubscribe link in every email. Complicated or hidden unsubscribe options often frustrate users, leading them to mark emails as spam instead.
Send Relevant Content
Segment your audience based on interests, behaviors, or demographics to send targeted and valuable content. This also includes personalizing emails to make them relatable and engaging.
Re-Engage or Remove Inactive Subscribers
Identify subscribers who haven’t engaged in a while and run re-engagement campaigns to win them back. If they remain inactive, remove them from your list to prevent unnecessary complaints.
7. List Growth Rate
List growth rate measures the speed at which your email list expands over a given period. It accounts for new subscribers gained and unsubscribes or email bounces. This metric highlights how effective your efforts are at attracting and retaining subscribers.
A growing email list is important for sustaining your email marketing efforts and reaching a larger audience. A list that remains the same or is shrinking can limit your campaign potential and reduce ROI. Monitoring this metric ensures your audience-building strategies are effective and can support wider marketing efforts.
How to Calculate List Growth Rate
List Growth Rate (%) = [(New Subscribers – (Unsubscribes + Bounced Emails)) ÷ Total Subscribers] × 100
Example: If you start with 10,000 subscribers, gain 500 new subscribers, and lose 75 (50 unsubscribes + 25 bounces), your list growth rate is:
List Growth Rate (%) = [(500 – (50 + 25)) ÷ 10,000] × 100 = 4.25%
Industry Benchmarks
On average a good list growth rate ranges from 1-3% per month. This is for well-established lists that maintain good quality and engagement. Anything below 0.5% is considered bad in this instance.
How to Improve List Growth Rate
Offer Attractive Incentives
This is often called a lead magnet and is where you offer something in exchange for that user’s email address. It could be a free guide, template, ebook, discount code, or whatever you want. Just ensure you follow through on what you are offering.
Optimize Sign-Up Forms
You should minimize any friction and make forms as simple as possible. Only include the absolute minimum so you have the information you need, it can be easy to get carried away when building forms.
Use Social Media
Use social platforms to promote your email list with targeted ads, posts, or collaborations with influencers. You should have a custom landing page dedicated to signing up if you go down this route.
Create Partnerships
If it’s within your strategy and timeframe, partner with brands or organizations to cross-promote sign-ups. Ultimately, even if your audience is the same, your messaging and emails will be different.
Focus on Retention
Maintain a strong onboarding process with welcome emails to engage new subscribers immediately. You should also deliver consistent value to reduce unsubscribes and maintain steady list growth.
8. Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
Email sharing or forwarding rate measures the percentage of recipients who share your email content with others, either by using social sharing buttons or forwarding it directly. This metric shows how effective your content is to your audience but also its potential for targeting new audiences and bringing in new subscribers. A high sharing/forwarding rate helps extend your email campaign’s reach and awareness beyond your existing subscribers. It’s an organic way to attract potential new subscribers and increase engagement through word-of-mouth, one of the most trusted forms of promotion.
I would say that a low email sharing/forwarding rate is not necessarily a bad thing, as your campaign could perform perfectly with a 0% on this metric.
How to Calculate Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate (%) = (Number of Shares and Forwards ÷ Number of Delivered Emails) × 100
Example: If you send 5,000 emails, 4,800 are successfully delivered, and 75 recipients share or forward your email, your sharing/forwarding rate is:
Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate (%) = (75 ÷ 4,800) × 100 ≈ 1.56%
Industry Benchmarks
A good average across industries is between 0.5% and 2%, however, as mentioned previously, I don’t think below 0.5% is bad. It’s still good to aim for 0.5% as a benchmark though.
How to Improve Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
Add Social Sharing Buttons
Make sharing options visible and easy to use by including them at the top or bottom of your email. You should also ensure buttons are mobile-friendly and optimized for all platforms.
Encourage Forwarding
Use a direct call-to-action (CTA) like, “Love this email? Share it with a friend!” You can also highlight the benefits of sharing, such as exclusive offers or helpful content. Some providers have a points-based referral scheme for email forwarding/sharing.
Create Sharable Content
Try producing high-quality, sharable content such as infographics or facts.
Leverage FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
Use exclusive content or time-sensitive deals that encourage recipients to share before it’s too late.
9. Return on Investment (ROI)
Arguably the most important metric, ROI measures the revenue generated by your email marketing campaigns compared to the total cost of running those campaigns. It quantifies the financial success of your marketing. As email marketing consistently delivers one of the highest ROIs among marketing channels, you want to be sure you are taking advantage of that. For example, according to email marketing stats Litmus, email marketing generates an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.
How to Calculate Email Marketing ROI
ROI (%) = [(Revenue Generated – Campaign Costs) ÷ Campaign Costs] × 100
Example: If your email campaign generates $10,000 in revenue and costs $1,500 to execute, your ROI is:
ROI (%) = [($10,000 – $1,500) ÷ $1,500] × 100 = 566%
Industry Benchmarks
ROI can differ based on multiple factors, which makes it difficult to identify an average benchmark. As mentioned, on average, businesses earn $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing campaigns and ROI is generally higher than any other form of marketing. Some sources report the following email marketing ROI:
- Retail, eCommerce, and Consumer Goods: These sectors often see an ROI of 45:1, meaning $45 earned for every $1 spent. Statista
- Marketing, PR, and Advertising Agencies: Typically experience an ROI of 42:1. litmus
- Software and Technology: Reports an average ROI of 36:1. litmus
How to Improve Email Marketing ROI
Focus on High-Converting Campaigns
Analyze past campaigns to identify those with the highest conversion rates and double down on what works by optimizing and replicating successful strategies.
Optimize Pricing, Offers, and CTAs
Test different price points, discount strategies, and call-to-action (CTA) language with your audience. You should also use A/B testing to optimize and improve campaign performance.
Segment Your Audience
Group subscribers by demographics, purchase behavior, or interests to send highly targeted and relevant emails. Note that personalized campaigns often yield higher engagement and conversion rates.
Track and Improve Metrics
Take everything from this article and monitor/improve your metrics. If you are doing all of this correctly, increasing ROI will be a much simpler task.
10. Delivery Rate
Delivery rate is the percentage of emails successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes out of the total emails sent. It measures your ability to reach your audience and is a top metric for assessing the overall health of your email campaigns. If your delivery rate is low, your emails aren’t even reaching your audience, meaning the campaign is ineffective. Poor delivery rates can be a cause of a damaged sender reputation or an outdated email list, which can lead to lower engagement.
How to Calculate Delivery Rate
Delivery Rate (%) = (Delivered Emails ÷ Total Emails Sent) × 100
Example: If you send 10,000 emails and 300 bounce, leaving 9,700 delivered:
Delivery Rate (%) = (9,700 ÷ 10,000) × 100 = 97%
Industry Benchmark
The average email delivery rate across industries is 95-98%, according to Campaign Monitor. A rate below 95% suggests underlying issues that need to be addressed promptly. Although I would argue that you should be aiming for 100% every time. If not, you need to investigate and find the cause before the next email is sent.
Strategies to Improve Delivery Rate
Authenticate Your Domain
Implement SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to verify your domain. These make sure ISPs trust your emails, improving deliverability. It can be technical but most providers have walkthroughs or support to help.
Regularly Clean Your Email List
Again, remove invalid, inactive, or role-based email addresses (e.g., [email protected]) to reduce bounce rates. Use email verification tools like ZeroBounce or NeverBounce to identify issues.
Avoid Spam Triggers
Mentioned 3 times, this is very important in case you couldn’t already tell.
Maintain Consistent Sending Practices
You should send emails at regular times to form a pattern of communication. Also avoid large, sporadic email blasts that could raise red flags with ISPs.
Monitor Engagement Metrics
ISPs consider recipient engagement (opens, clicks, and replies) when determining email deliverability. Also, remove unengaged subscribers to focus on an active audience.
11. Time Spent Viewing Email
Time spent viewing email measures how long recipients spend reading your emails. This metric helps you understand how engaging and relevant your content is for your audience. A longer view time generally indicates that your content is engaging and holds attention, while short or skimmed view time may suggest the need for improvements.
I would take this metric with a pinch of salt; if the user skims and takes action, flowing through to a conversion, this would be a successful email. Equally, a very long view time could suggest the user can’t find what to do next or doesn’t understand the email.
This isn’t a metric you can measure or calculate yourself, but most email service tools provide email viewing time in their data.
Industry Benchmark
According to Litmus, the average time spent reading an email is 11 seconds – it’s higher than that for really engaged audiences. A generalized benchmark for this metric doesn’t really exist as it can vary across every single campaign.
How to Improve Time Spent Viewing Email
Structure Your Content
Consider using a clear structure to present the most important information at the top. You can also break up text and use sections with bullet points and subheadings.
Use Visuals
Use images, GIFs, or videos to get the attention of your audience – however, don’t overdo it as you could impact your spam/deliverability, in addition to confusing the message.
Personalize Content
Include names, unique recommendations, or location-based details to relate to users. If they feel like the email is for them specifically, they are more likely to engage with it – this might require the use of dynamic content blocks.
Create User-First – Engaging Content
Don’t make the content about you – no one cares. The content should be about the user and what they get out of the email. Everyone wants what’s in it for them.
Experiment and Test
Run A/B tests on email length, design, and content types to determine what drives longer view times.
Before you go – check out these email marketing tips!
