Unlock ROI: The Key to Maximizing Your Email Marketing Conversion Rate

It represents the percentage of recipients who have taken a specific desired action, such as: 

• Buying your product, 
• Signing up for an email marketing newsletter, 
• Completing any other goal. 

There’s a simple formula that helps calculate the email conversion rate. In this equation, let’s say “X” is the number of converted leads and “Y” is the total number of delivered emails (some marketers even use total sent emails as the base).

Email Marketing Conversion Rate = (X/Y) * 100

Here’s a good way to go about measuring yours:

1. Industry benchmarks: Research industry-specific benchmarks to get a sense of what is typical for your sector. Different industries have varying conversion rate averages.
2. Previous performance: Assess your own historical email performance. What were your previous conversion rates, and have you seen improvement over time?
3. Campaign type: The type of email campaign you’re running can significantly affect the expected conversion rate. For example, transactional emails will give you higher conversion rates than promotional emails.
4. Target audience: The preferences and behavior of your target audience play a crucial role. A highly engaged and targeted list is more likely to yield higher conversion rates.
5. Campaign objectives: Your campaign goals also influence what’s considered a good conversion rate. For some campaigns, a 2% conversion rate might be excellent, while for others, a 10% conversion rate may be the goal.

Here are a few points that explain the complex relationship between open rates, CTRs, and conversions:

1. Correlation does not mean causation. Yes, higher open rates would greatly increase your chances of a conversion, but it is not a guarantee. Not all your openers will click, and not all the clickers will convert. 
2. Your email content, relevance, timing, and alignment of your message with your reader’s needs and interests play a significant role in the transition from opens to clicks and from clicks to conversions. Analyze your data to find the drop-off point and fix it.
3. While open rates, clickthrough rates, and conversions are essential metrics, it’s crucial to look at them in combination with other metrics such as email bounce rates, email unsubscribe rates, and revenue per email to get a holistic view of your campaign’s performance.

A low email marketing conversion rate can be attributed to several factors, so let’s look at the 10 most common ones:

1. Poor email deliverability: If your emails end up in your recipients’ spam folder or are not delivered, your conversion rate will suffer. Ensure your emails comply with ESPs’ guidelines.
2. Irrelevant email content: If your content doesn’t resonate with your target audience or fails to address their needs and interests, readers are less likely to take action.
3. Ineffective email subject lines: A subject line is the first thing your recipients see, and a lackluster or misleading subject line can discourage them from opening your email.
4. Poor email design: Unappealing, cluttered, or difficult-to-read email design can deter your subscribers from engaging with your content or taking action.
5. Unoptimized email CTAs: Unclear or buried CTAs can make it challenging for your recipients to know what action to take. CTAs should be clear, compelling, and prominently placed. Work on your copywriting!
6. Weak incentives: Insufficient value propositions in your email content can make your subscribers less likely to convert. 
7. Timing and frequency: Sending emails at the wrong times or bombarding your recipients with too many emails can lead to reduced engagement and conversions.
8. Lack of personalization: Personalized emails that address your readers by name and offer tailored content tend to perform better. Generic, one-size-fits-all messages will not resonate with your audience!
9. No email segmentation strategy: If you don’t segment your email list, it can result in sending irrelevant content to recipients.
10. Lack of trust: If your subscribers don’t trust your brand or have concerns about privacy and security, they may be hesitant to take action.

Here are 12 guidelines to improve your deliverability:

1. Use a trusted ESP: Choose a reputable ESP that adheres to email best practices, as this can positively impact your sender reputation.
2. Sender reputation: Have you kept an eye on your sender score or email sender reputation? A low sender reputation is the easiest way to send your emails to the spam folder. This is why we’re picky about the clients we want at Campaign Refinery — we only work with customers who practice excellent email etiquette. In return, ESPs consider emails sent from our platform to be of the highest grade.
3. Implement email authentication: Implement authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your domain to verify that your emails come from a legitimate source and are not spoofed. We require all Campaign Refinery clients to include these security protocols on their domains before they can send emails from our platform!
4. Email list cleaning is vital: Regularly clean your email list to remove invalid or inactive email addresses. High bounce rates can negatively affect deliverability. Our clients tackle this using our automated list-cleaning feature, which does all of the heavy lifting for them!
5. Use the double opt-in method: Implement double opt-in for your email subscribers to ensure people on your list genuinely want to receive your emails.
6. Send relevant content: Create engaging and valuable email content that aligns with your subscribers’ interests. Irrelevant or low-quality content can quickly spike your unsubscribe rate, and you may see more spam reports, too.
7. Monitor email engagement: Keep an eye on campaign metrics. Mailbox providers use engagement data to determine whether your emails are wanted.
8. Follow email unsubscribe laws: Avoid high complaint rates by providing a one-click unsubscribe link for your recipients and promptly honor requests.
9. Sending frequency: Be mindful of your email sending frequency. Sending too many emails too quickly can raise red flags. 
10. Don’t be a spam email sender: Refrain from spammy keywords, excessive capitalization, and excessive punctuation in your subject lines and email content.
11. Monitor blacklists: Regularly check if your sending IP or domain is listed on email blacklists. If you find your IP or domain on a blacklist, take steps to remove it.
12. Monitor feedback loops: Sign up for feedback loops provided by major ISPs to receive notifications of complaints from your subscribers and promptly address them.

These 15 strategies can effectively boost it: 

1. Compelling subject lines: Grab your readers’ attention with intriguing and relevant subject lines. A compelling subject line can significantly increase email open rates, which, in turn, can lead to higher conversions.
2. Email personalization: Tailor your email content to the recipient’s preferences, demographics, and past interactions. Personalization can make your subscribers feel more valued and engaged.
3. Segment your email lists: Segment your email list based on recipient behavior, interests, and demographics. Sending more targeted content increases the likelihood of recipients taking action.
4. Clear and convincing CTAs: Ensure your CTAs are prominent, clear, and compelling. Make it easy for recipients to understand what action you want them to take.
5. Optimized design: Create visually appealing and mobile-responsive email templates. A well-designed email can improve user experience and engagement.
6. A/B testing: Experiment with different elements of your emails, such as subject lines, CTA buttons, images, and content, to see what resonates best with your audience.
7. Test your landing pages: The landing page is where you close your sale. A/B test it and make changes until it becomes the perfect landing page.
8. Provide valuable content: Offer content that is valuable and relevant to your readers. Solve their problems, address their needs, and offer solutions.
9. Email sequences: Creating an effective and well-oiled email sequence can have a huge impact on your conversions. Depending on where the subscriber is in your marketing funnel, target accordingly.
10. Test send times: Determine the best times to send emails by testing at different hours. This can increase the likelihood of recipients seeing and acting on your emails.
11. Share customer testimonials: Including customer reviews, testimonials, or case studies in your emails can build trust and credibility.
12. Smoothen the conversion process: Make the conversion process as easy as possible. Ensure your customer can find what your email promised on the landing page. Minimize the number of steps and required fields.
13. Follow-up: Implement a well-planned email follow-up strategy for those who haven’t converted. Sometimes, it takes multiple touches to lead to a conversion.

Let’s expand on the email types above and also share tips on other emails that you can send to improve your conversion rates:

• Abandoned cart emails: Cart abandonment emails are highly effective at recovering potential sales. When a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, a well-timed and well-crafted email reminder can often lead to conversions.
• Post-purchase email: After a customer has made a purchase, post-purchase emails can encourage repeat business and upselling by offering related products, seeking reviews, or providing exclusive discounts to loyal customers.
• Flash sales: Emails promoting limited-time offers or flash sales create a sense of urgency, encouraging recipients to act quickly to take advantage of a discount or special deal. At Campaign Refinery, our clients have seen stellar conversion rates using our Evergreen Flash Sales!
• Email nurture campaigns: Lead nurturing emails, which provide valuable content and information to leads at different stages of the sales funnel, can lead to conversions as recipients move closer to making a buying decision.
• Product recommendations: Emails that provide personalized product recommendations based on a recipient’s past behavior and preferences are known to have high conversion rates, especially in the e-commerce industry.
• Event invitation emails: Email campaigns inviting recipients to attend events or workshops can achieve high conversion rates when recipients register or sign up to attend.
• Referrals and loyalty programs: Emails that encourage customers to refer friends or join loyalty programs often lead to conversions as recipients take action to earn prizes or discounts.
• Personalized promos: Sending personalized promotions based on a recipient’s past behavior and preferences can significantly boost conversion rates, as the offers align with the recipient’s interests.