Measuring performance
When viewing your deployment metrics and determining success, there are a few things you want to consider:
- What is the primary goal of my email?
- How well do my emails normally perform?
- Was there something unique about the content in my email that would incite a "natural" increase/decrease in my metrics?
Primary Goal
When viewing the performance of your deployments, the metrics that you focus on should be highly dependent on what the primary goal of your email is. If you focus on the wrong metrics, you might come to the conclusion that your email performed better or worse than it actually did.
Here are some common goals and what metrics you should be looking at:
| Goal | Metric |
| Readership - There isn't an action I want them to take, I just need them to read the content within the email. (e.g. Privacy policy change, Product release notes, etc.) | Open Rate |
| Action Driven - I am trying to drive the recipients of my email to perform a specific action. (Coupon, Sign up, Confirm information, etc.) | Click Rate |
| Engagement - I am trying to get recipients to read and action on the content in my email and want to determine how well the content performed |
CTR%O (Click through rate as a percent of opens) |
Benchmarking
When looking at the performance of your deployments, you want to consider how well your email campaigns usually perform. This will better help identify if the email performed well or poorly in comparison.
The best way to do this is to view your monthly or yearly (if you have been sending long enough) averages and use them as a "benchmark" against your recent deployments. Use the "Grouping" feature in the Deployments Report to determine your yearly/monthly averages.
Content Impact
Another thing to consider when viewing your metrics is the content of the email (both subject line and body). Depending on the content, there might be a "natural" increase or decrease in your metrics.
Examples:
- I have sent out an email with an offer to get 50% an item that normally doesn't go on sale. It is natural that the open/click rate of this email will be greater due to the "enticement" of my offer.
- I have sent out an email containing updates to my privacy policy. While important information, most consumers do not care to pay close attention to this information and will most likely ignore the email. This would naturally cause a much lower open rate.