How to Measure Return on Investment for Email Marketing

How to measure return on investment for email marketing

Half of email marketing agencies taking part in the DMA email benchmarking study reported less than 40% of their clients tracking ROI. (Source: DMA Email Marketing Council)

One of the main benefits of email marketing is its measurability. It can also be its down-fall- many marketers feeling like they were drowning in simple metrics such as clicks and opens. This obsession on these performance metrics cloud more traditional key performance indicators (KPIs).

58.4% of marketers within the Adestra "Challenges facing UK email marketers" survey feel they that were unable to use the results of their campaigns in strategic decision making or for calculating return on investment (ROI). This hinders the development of their email program and feeds the common perception held by many senior management that email is a cheap channel and not a traditional, measurable direct marketing channel.

With an over-emphasis on clicks and opens, many marketers are not tracking ROI. This is mainly down to the perception that they need complicated tracking systems and solutions. Costly web analytics packages are being deployed in some cases.

Many simple methods of measuring ROI are over-looked with many believing they need web analytics solutions that provide click stream tracking. Adestra recommend you consider simple, low cost methods of proving your email campaigns are working before investing within such concepts. These can include:

Duplicate marketing pages to separate orders from email marketing

Simply duplicate your marketing pages and direct all email promotion to this new page. All orders are tracked against a separate product code (e.g. BSC001b) allowing easy revenue accountability at a low investment. Effectively, your existing sales reporting tracks ROI!

Use priority codes to label orders to identify orders from your email marketing

Get a customer to quote a priority code when ordering. To ensure they give this code, we recommend you provide an incentive (perhaps a discount or a complimentary product). Simple to action, this method provides considerable visibility.

Check for buyers in your email database

Using Adestra