Don’t

Rely on horizontal or vertical benchmark reports to determine the success of your campaigns – only use them as a guideline.

Do

Create your own historical benchmark guides using your own data.

Do

Understand how your ESP calculates delivery, open, read, and click-through rates.

Don’t

Assume each ESP calculates the rates the same – the industry still lacks standards.

Don’t

Measure your success by looking at the open or click-through rates only.

Do

Know if your ESP counts unique or total clicks in their results.

Do

Understand that the delivery rate provided by most ESPs does not include emails that were delivered to the junk mail folder – you need to use a delivery monitoring service to figure out your actual deliverability rate.

Do

Understand that unsubscribes are a common part of email marketing but you must monitor them closely to determine which ones are in your control and which ones are unavoidable.

Do

Use an email marketing solution that is integrated with web analytics to tie conversion rates back to specific email campaigns.

Don’t

Assume that all subscribers that do not open your messages are inactive as some might be reading your emails in the preview pane without triggering the one pixel image that tracks responses.

Do

Monitor your abuse rate and remove complainers immediately.

Do

Monitor your bounces closely – remove hard bounces immediately and remove soft bounces if the message is not delivered within a set number of delivery attempts.

Do

Track your messages by domain so you quickly notice any deliverability issues.

Do

Track results by segment.

Do

Capture and save each link your subscribers click on in your email messages.

Do

Use an ROI calculator to help you figure out your return.

Do

Contact Listrak’s email marketing experts for help monitoring your metrics and results.