Engagement is a Strong Measure of Email Success

As email marketing has matured, the ability to measure the channel’s performance has evolved substantially. Yet all too often, marketers rely on rudimentary campaign metrics from the batch-and-blast days of the past to judge effectiveness.

Instead of thinking exclusively about how well a particular offer or piece of creative performed, marketers should additionally look to longitudinal metrics—measurements of subscriber engagement over time—to determine whether or not an email program is successful.

One of email’s greatest strengths is its measurability. Marketers regularly evaluate campaigns against standard response metrics such as delivery rates, open rates, click rates and conversions. These are all excellent criteria for how well a particular offer or message resonated with the target audience. Further, those who are willing to test multiple combinations of copy and presentation (from lines, subject lines, content, creative, layout, etc.) can achieve highly optimized rates of response at a campaign level.

The next level of reporting, however, moves beyond simple campaign metrics and looks at subscriber engagement over time. This type of historical response analysis provides insight into which customers are engaged and which are not.

Additionally, by adding a dimension of time, marketers can determine which subscribers have increased engagement with the program and which have lapsed into inactivity. This customer-centric view of response activity provides a much richer understanding of how a program is driving lasting engagement.

For example, consider some industry-specific results from Epsilon’s quarterly Email Trends and Benchmarks that look at longitudinal customer engagement. They reveal that certain industries are better than others at maintaining on-going subscriber interactivity. The first column shows that on average 18% of people in a typical subscriber file—both new and old subscribers to an email program—have engaged (opened or clicked) with an email during the past three months. This figure is significantly higher for consumer retailers, and lowest for healthcare clients.

The more dramatic results in the second column show increased engagement at the beginning of a program lifecycle, with 34% of new customers engaged with the program—nearly twice as much as the “average” subscriber on file. New subscribers tend to be more involved with an email program during this “honeymoon” period (first few months on file), underscoring the importance of a good email “welcome” series that captures initial interest and establishes a valuable relationship for ongoing communications.

Benchmark Methodology:

Benchmarks are compiled from more than 300 clients using either the DREAM or DreamMail platform

Activity is defined by using a 12 month longitudinal snapshot of email data.

By blending in purchase activity, marketers can tie email channel engagement to actual revenue. Whether email engagement and purchase activity are cause-and-effect or simply correlated, these measures can at least prove (or disprove in some cases) marketers are reaching and engaging their most valuable customers.

Here’s an example of how email program engagement overlaid with real purchase activity can help marketers tie engagement to top line revenue. In this example, consumers who clicked on emails have the highest median purchase value. Those who opened the email also spent significantly more than inactive recipients or those who neither clicked nor opened an email.

Those who actively engage with the email program generally make more frequent, higher value purchases than those who are unengaged. In addition, we see new-to-file email addresses perform well above average during their first three months in the program, when they tend to be most engaged. Adding purchase data to the mix not only helps marketers to further segment the file by purchase type and activity, but also helps connect email engagement with revenue to demonstrate true program productivity.

Longitudinal engagement is a powerful way to analyze customer engagement over time. It provides email marketers with an immediate segmentation opportunity. They know which subscribers are active and engaged so they can target them for continued loyalty. They can identify dormant/lapsed responders and focus on reengagement. Lastly, email marketers can segment the disengaged customers and target them with win back and reengagement messages.

Not all customers will respond to the same messaging. A deep dive into an email program performance allows marketer to understand the specific needs for each segment and launch appropriate programs that focus on the opportunities for engagement.

Kevin Mabley ([email protected]) is Epsilon’s senior vice president for strategic services.