Email marketers not measuring up

On 15 April 2009, Target Marketing magazine in the US uncovered some amazing findings about email marketers.

Despite the vast array of statistics available, numerous email marketers in the US are not measuring the effectiveness of their promotions. Let’s hope this is not the case in Aus.

According to the Target Marketing report, some 500 email marketers were surveyed and the results showed that more than 18% of email marketers don't track their campaigns at all. Of those who do, marketers chose, in order of importance, open, click through and open-to-click rates as the most important metrics.

But it gets worse. The email marketers surveyed did not recognise the importance of sector statistics. Respondents rated sector specific metrics as the least important metric of all!

Reality check: If you don’t measure your results by sector you are forfeiting the chance to gain precious insights about your target market.

In my own experience, there have been campaigns where I have received a 5% response overall, but a 25% response from one or more segments. If you don’t know that’s happening, you move to your next campaign with very incomplete knowledge.

Let’s say you are selling a new health plan. Overall response is 5%, but response from people over 55 years is 25%. Clearly, you have a plan that is attractive to an older market – but you can only discover that with sector specific metrics. That’s essential information for your next campaign. And it is critical for your product development team as well.